Blizzard’s New and Improved Battle.net Social Features are Now in Beta
It’s the news everyone has been waiting for and its an official announcement for the Discord-like upgrades coming to Blizzard’s upgrades for the improved Battle.net socials. Recently, leaked codes and images were released by curious data-miners, showing some snazzy redesigned user interface and features. It also happens to include a much-needed (for some) “appear offline” mode. For those days or nights where a good solo run in competitive Overwatch and you really don’t feel like socializing…or forever.
That’s not all, of course. Blizzard’s new and improved Battle.net socials include the addition of Blizzard groups, profiles, and avatars. For right now, these features are only available for regions of the Americas. Those residing elsewhere may have to wait a bit. Here’s the official low-down on these main components and, hopefully, more is to come soon:
New and Improved Battle.net Social Features
Blizzard Groups
- Connect with your friends and plan your next mission
- Players can create and join Groups based on common interests. Share strategies, keep in touch, and catch up
- Each group can have multiple text and voice chat channels. Group administrators have a variety of tools to help manage membership, send out invitation links, and more.
Profiles
- Select an avatar, share “what’s on your mind” with an About Me message, add social media links, and much more
- View profiles of other Blizzard players
- Check out the games your friends have been playing or profile stalk a pending request
- To access profile customization, select the View Profile button in the app header and Friends List drop-downs
Appear Offline
- Stay connected to the new Battle.net socials without losing the elusiveness of an assassin and alerting those nearby
- Appearing offline will show you as offline to everyone in your Blizzard friends list. Once you’ve joined a game, the experience of appearing offline might be slightly different depending on which game you are playing.
- For example: in World of Warcraft, your guildmates will see your character come online and enter WoW’s in-game chat channels, and anyone who has you as a character-level friend will see you online on their friends list. Everyone outside of the same game as you will not see you online or playing any games.
- Players can now send messages to friends offline and the next time they log-in, they’ll receive the PM.
Interested in accessing the public beta for Blizzard’s new Battle.net social features? In order to switch over to it, open the desktop launcher, click on settings, then the Beta tab, then select “Switch to Beta Version”. There you have it! Try out the new digs and let us know what you think. Do you have any ideas about how they can improve it? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below or start a conversation on Don’t Feed the Gamers official Facebook page. To stay up to date on gaming news as they happen, follow us on Twitter! Here are some of our latest:
Hoi Duong2131 Posts
Hoi is an elusive figure at DFTG, whose favorite past-times include chillin' in the Fade, reading manga, watching anime, collecting novelty items, and gaming.
