Blizcon 2009, the annual weekend-long celebration of all things Blizzard is now underway in Anaheim, California. This year, AusGamers has an agent on the floor and to kick things off we take an sneak peek at the new and improved Battle.net - Blizzard's online gaming service that's currently undergoing some big improvements in prep for the release of the hugely anticipated StarCraft 2.

Read on to find out what we did - including among other things: details on ladders, social networking and some clarification on the controversial removal of LAN play from StarCraft 2.

We'll also be getting a chance to chat directly with the developers about the new Battle.net, so if you have any questions you'd like us to ask, suggest away in the comments.

Sounds sick. Like a steam for RTS. I like the idea of the ladders, hopefully they work out because I find in DoW, DoW2, and CoH when I auto ranked match I either roll the s*** out of the other guy or get dominated myself. Never really having a top balanced fun match.

It's also worth noting that your gaming history will be recorded and tied to your ID, finally making smurfing a thing of the past. The new Battle.net account ID system will mean that you can't simply create a new account unless you go out and purchase an all-new copy of the game.

Awesome.

Really hope I can get into this game.