Looks like Blizzard is starting to take steps to prepare you and Battle.net for the upcoming centralized accounts.

First, Wowinsider posted yesterday about the new WotLK account upgrade process that requires you to accept that you will eventually be required to open a Battle.net account. (will be used for tracking Blizzard wide achievements)

Another sign of the coming changes is that Blizzard recently updated it’s Battle.net ban policy, which states they recently banned some 350,000…350,000! accounts:

Blizzard
As part of our continued effort to ensure a fair and fun online experience for all Battle.net players, we have expanded our efforts to remove cheaters from StarCraft and Diablo II. We have identified and closed over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts which were found to be using third-party hacks.

The Diablo II CD keys associated with the closed Diablo II accounts are now restricted from playing on Battle.net for approximately 30 days. Repeat offenders will have their accounts closed and their CD keys permanently banned from Battle.net.

As a reminder, we reserve the right to close the accounts and ban the CD keys of players who are caught cheating on Battle.net. Cheating ruins the game experience for legitimate players, and we will not tolerate it.

This crack down alone makes me a happy panda. All of the duping, exploiting and cheating is what pushed me away from my beloved D1 and D2 in the first place. I’m glad we won’t see the same filth with D3 and other Battle.net games.