Blizzard puts the “Think Globally” into practice and ensures that your friends list works globally – unfortunately not in the way many would like.
After brief maintenance of the Battle.net software, there is now a new feature. All players of World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and all other Battle.net games can now maintain a significantly larger friends list and keep in touch more easily. The friends lists and some associated features are now global.
What does that mean? From today, your friends lists for the regions Europe, Asia, and America are consolidated into a global friends list.
This way, Blizzard continues to implement one of its 8 ideals. Because “Think Globally” is one of Blizzard’s core values. A community that is connected across the globe should therefore be an important part of it.
What can you do with the new friends? Basically, everything necessary for communication. You can:
- chat with these friends on Battle.net
- add them to chat groups
- see what game they are currently playing
Previously, this was only possible through detours, such as opening the Battle.net app multiple times with different accounts. But even then, you had to manage multiple friends lists to stay in touch with acquaintances worldwide – or simply use other programs like Discord.
Can you now play with friends from other regions? No. The games are still separated by region. Although there has long been a cross-realm feature in World of Warcraft, it is limited to one region each. So you can play with players from other European realms, but not with players from Asian or American realms.
Many players hope that this is just a first step and that features will be expanded in the future, allowing for interaction within the games across all regional boundaries.
However, as of now, there are no signs from Blizzard that such a merger of the regions is planned within the games.
