On February 11th, Paul Sams, chief operating officer at Blizzard, mentioned in his fourth quarter financial conference call to investors that the Starcraft 2 would begin within the next few months. He added, “Blizzard intends on delivering one frontline release per year. I think you can see in our numbers that that is contemplated. As it relates to what title we’re releasing this year, we’re not prepared to say.”

Games currently known to be in Blizzard’s development pipeline include its two previously announced titles, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, though Sams has confirmed that another MMO (separate from World of Warcraft) is being worked on concurrently. Previous statements by the company have definitively said that Diablo will ship after Starcraft, so, given the goal of releasing one major title each year, it’s clear that Blizzard intends to ship out Starcraft 2 before 2010.

In addition to tweaking the game itself, the SC2 beta will also serve as gamers’ first exposure to the second generation of Battle.net, Blizzard’s highly-regarded (and free) multiplayer service. I’ve always been a huge fan of Battle.net (except, perhaps, when Diablo 2 was released and it was unusable for about a month), however the rumor mill is buzzing with the possibility that Blizzard plans to monetize the service. This was first hinted at by Julian Wilson back in October during Blizzcon 2008, and then officially confirmed by vice president Rob Pardo a day later during a discussion panel.

While not planning on charging a subscription fee, Pardo explained that charges will be more in line with World of Warcraft paid features such as server transfers and name changes–essentially anything above and beyond the full experience of the game. And don’t be surprised if you’re bombarded with advertising, a la the new World of Warcraft forums design.

Tangentially, Sams also spoke of an initiative to improve customer service in Blizzard’s games. About freaking time.