New Multiplayer Features

New Ladder System

WarCraft III will push Battle.net to new limits (although current players of Starcraft and Diablo II might beg to differ on whether or not this is possible), with separate ladders for 2 on 2 as well as 1 on 1. "Clan" ladders (3 on 3) will also be available, making Battle.net more team friendly than ever before. In order to address win trading, Blizzard is also planning a new matchmaking system for ladders that is more automated. Instead of being able to choose your opponent for a ladder match, the game will automatically match you up with someone else who is near to you in skill level. Since you're unable to choose your opponent, this will make it nearly impossible for people to create fake accounts that will always "take a dive" for their real online account name.

An old shot, but a goodie

What about disconnects? A client-server model of networking (like a first person shooter) would make this type of cheating more detectable, but it's impractical to create one like that for an RTS game because there's too much information that needs to be passed around, especially when you add more than 2 or 4 players in a game. Pardo explained that their new networking model, a "hybrid peer to peer system," would make all high level ladder games utilize a router on Battle.net. This way, Blizzard can better monitor the pattern of packet transfer within the game, and from that determine whether or not a disconnect was intentional or not. He claimed that losses assigned for disconnects would be assessed more accurately in this manner.

Automated Tournaments

Pardo also mentioned automated tournaments at regular times on Battle.net. On a certain day of the week, at a certain time, players can always expect that there will be a 1 on 1 tournament or a 2 on 2 tournament. Players simply need to enter a certain channel on Battle.net by then, sign up, and the server will automatically create brackets and seed players accordingly! The server itself will match up players appropriately and play out the tournament automatically. Blizzard feels that tournaments are fun for players but current systems (Case's Ladder, etc) are too unwieldy and require too much overhead in the form of outside manpower to manage. With everything automated, and always happening at the same time and same day of the week, players can enter quick little tournaments without having to sign up for anything, report wins/losses, or remember match times.

Splat

Demo Recording

One of the biggest reasons why first person shooters have had more of a spectator following is because of game recording, or "demos." As anyone who's ever seen a pro-level Quake demo can tell you, demos make match reports obsolete, because they tell the whole story, exactly the way it was played out. Amateur players can learn a lot about a high-level player's strategy by watching a demo. WarCraft III, we are happy to report, will include a demo recording function. Pardo even mentioned the possibility of the Battle.net server automatically recording and uploading a demo of a completed tournament game to the web, so interested fans can quickly and easily see how the match played out, without having to rely on a skilled observer to write up a detailed match report. In case you prefer seeing an RTS game written up the old fashioned way, WarCraft III will allow for observers within the game - no longer will players have to fly their command center out of the way or use specially created maps (as in Starcraft) to observe a match.

Stats Tracking

Many first person shooters also have third party stats programs that keep track of relevant stats, like how many kills a certain player has gotten with a certain weapon. A few, like Unreal Tournament, have stats tracking built into the game itself. Any Counter-Strike player who's ever played on a server that runs a stats tracking program knows how much fun it is to check the stats, and see how many kills you've gotten with an AK-47, or how many hostages you've rescued.

Blizzard is planning a similar stats tracking package for WarCraft III, similar to ones like Katan's Scorecard that were created for Starcraft. Oldschool, hardcore Starcraft players remember Katan's Scorecard - it was a site that parsed the Blizzard ladder match reporting forum. From the sparse information posted there (player 1 (his race) beat player 2 (his race) on [xxx-map] in [yy time]), players could see the tendencies of other players - what race they like to play, how long their matches tend to last, what maps they like, which maps they avoid, etc. Since WarCraft III's stats tracking is used from within the game, it opens up entirely new possibilities for even more stats like unit efficiency (kills to deaths), economy (gold harvested), and more, depending on how much functionality Blizzard decides to put into it.