I remember this being mentioned a while ago... I haven't really been following SC2 news at all (don't wanna drive myself crazy ) but this worried me a lot. Does it mean that we will be charged WOW style to play online? I sure hope not. I'm *this* close to pre-ordering but only that makes me hesitate.
You will not have to pay money to play on Battle net, it's all free. There will however probably be 'premium features' such as 'great' custom made maps for which they will charge you, IF you want to play those. The base game, SP and MP will be free of cost (after original purchase).
So are you talking like one time pay for-DLC or some kind of monthly thing for these additional features?
No monthly thing. One time purchase of the game and that's it, there will be no obligations such as 'you have to pay X to play the game'.
They have also mentioned charging for server changes, name changes, special decals, alternate unit models, etc.
I do remember reading about a monthly fee for some services as well as what Neon posted. Long story short, if you are interested in buying the game and playing the default content with the default b.net features (like most of the people) then you only have to pay once, for the game.
There will be monthly fees for some of the Eastern bloc countries, but also these can be avoided by buying the full game in one go.
i would expect they'll make most of their bnet revenue the same way they did with bnet one.... advertising.
Some countries will offer an option where you can buy a cheaper version of StarCraft II but pay per month (or two months, or even per hour or day in South Korea). However, that's an option; you could still buy the full version of the game. The United States and other such wealthy countries (except South Korea and maybe Taiwan) will not have this option. You'll have to buy the full version, and accept the price of $0 per month
Cool, thanks guys. Not that I don't trust you or anything, but are you sure about this information? I mean dead sure? Sources?
It was in the original announcement of the monetized battle.net. IIRC. Also, don't trust us. Half of us are some kind of fiend.
