YouTube User HuskyStarcraft has shared with the public details of the new Battle.net launcher, currently in beta but apparently polished enough that it may be released to the public soon.
Essentially, the new launcher is a game client similar in design to Steam, Origin, and the like. On the right side are tabs for the company's biggest and active franchises, Diablo III, World of Warcraft and Starcraft II. You can redeem codes from the launcher itself, as well as view patch notes, and provides links to official online game guides.
HuskyStarcraft then details options directly available from the launcher interface:
Manage Account
Get Help With Support
Show and Explore
Create Desktop Shortcuts
Scan and Repair
Uninstall
As he explains, the launcher puts these at the forefront so that you would no longer have to go through menus to find them.
HuskyStarcraft then shares the news section on the launcher, and he suspects Blizzard planned to have news appear in the launcher so that you wouldn't have to be running the game to get to see updates. This would be helpful during events like game tournaments. News gets its own tab in the launcher, as well as appearing on the game's frontpage.
There is a drop down menu that allows you to easily switch between servers. HuskyStarcraft was only able to show Europe and America for now, but of course, that will expand as demand increases.
On top of the tabs for each game, there's an Account Management icon that takes you to your Battle.net login. From here, you will easily be able to launch tickets, and can also bring you to General Settings.
In General Settings, you can choose to have the launcher run at startup, enable multiple instances of Battle.net, as well as run separate Battle.net hosts. Security settings are there for the launcher to remember your email address and keep you logged in. Game Update and Install settings will allow you to modify settings to pause and resume downloads, and even set network bandwidth limits.
At the end, HuskyStarcraft talks about other possibilities for the launcher, such as automated tournaments and Twitch.TV integration, but these are his personal speculations.
Again, the Battle.net launcher does not have an official name yet, but YouTube User HuskyStarcraft has shared with the public details of the new Battle.net launcher, currently in beta but apparently polished enough that it may be released to the public soon.
The Battle.net launcher looks like it will be a win for Blizzard's dedicated players, making many actions simple and easy to do. I'm sure many will fiddle with running separate Battle.net instances and hosts alone, just because they didn't know how to do it by themselves.
Blizzard hinted at making a Battle.net desktop client in a job posting last January.
