In a recent post Blizzard has announced that you will soon require a Battle.net account to use World of Warcraft. Yes, Battle.net, remember that thing you had to fuss with when you wanted to play Starcraft online? That Battle.net.
Luckily the service is free and fairly easy to sign up for. It also will be used with two of Blizzard’s most anticipated titles: Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. So at least you know you’ll be using it on more then one occasion. Blizzard is also claiming that they plan to add cross-realm chat along with a bunch of other new features, all through your shiny new Battle.net account.
“This was just the first step in the rollout of the brand-new Battle.net; in the future, players will be able to use Battle.net to participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, communicate across different games, and a whole lot more.”
-Posted by Nebu on worldofwarcraft.com
In preparation, Blizzard is asking all World of Warcraft players to merge there accounts with Battle.net by November 11th, 2009. They even threw in a little in-game penguin pet as an added bonus! Did I mention you have to do it anyways?
Hop over to the Battle.net website – which in case you were wondering, is in fact Battle.net. – for more information on the new features and how to set-up your Warcraft account so you can be safe come November 11th.