StarCraft 2 Beta News Thread - StarCraft Fan Group

*FEB 17th 2010* ( 3:40 PM PST about when it started.. about.. )

Great news guys, beta is now live!

Here is a link to a official thread on the blizzard forums made by a Blizzard employee

Forums.battle.net
Here is a copy+paste of what the Employee said in-case you do not want to click on the link..
Avarius ( Name of the forum Moderator I should say, It is a Blizzard Employee but I just want to clarify that. )

"StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Beta Is Now Live!
The Koprulu sector rings once more with the sounds of battle, for

the public beta test of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has officially

begun! Invitations to participate in the beta test are now being

delivered. As with previous Blizzard Entertainment titles, the

beta-test process for StarCraft II will occur in phases. In each phase,

we will be selecting players who meet specific criteria and who have

opted in via their Battle.net accounts.
Players who have been invited to participate in the beta test will

need to have a Battle.net account. For more information on the

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test, please read the FAQ Forums.battle.net and our recent media alert.
If you didn't receive a beta test invite, don't worry -- it's

possible that you'll be added in a later phase. Keep an eye on the

email address associated with your Battle.net account, and stay tuned

to www.StarCraft2.com for further updates.
Additionally, please keep discussion regarding the StarCraft II Beta consolidated to this thread. Thanks!"
More information ( If I get any and/or find any ) will be posted/edited in.
*Tiny edit*

If someone wants me to post the FAQ from Blizzard I will. If I do I will also probably be adding more to the FAQ if needed.

( Of course part of the added bits will depend on IF I manage to get into beta myself. )

Congrats to those who got in, don't fret if you don't. There is still
time for the first wave of keys to be sent out. Besides that there will
be more waves. Exactly the amount? I don't know for sure but I will
attempt to keep that updated as time goes on.
*Edit FEB 18th 2010 6:00 AM PST*

From some of the reports it seems as of now beta invites are still
being sent to both people who got their keys via contest/blizzcon and
opt ins. So 1st wave invites are still going. Exactly how long this
will last I have no clue as Blizzard is being a bit tight lipped at the
moment.
So for those of you that are not in yet keep an eye out on your email. There is still a chance of getting in on the first wave.
I think the reason why they are being a bit slow on the send out
might be a attempt to keep the shock to their servers to a minimum.
I have noticed some people that are getting these are also uploading
the game files/game download program(s) to some file sites. While this
is kinda nice in some ways.. I WARN YOU DOWNLOAD AT YOUR OWN RISK!
These may or may not be 100% legit and can possibly be harmful to your
computer. Besides that you will NOT be able to play anyways as you will
require to make an account via Battlnet 2.0 to play. ( And look at
anything besides the menu screen and/or options screen. You can listen
to some music though. )
There have been reports of people selling fake keys as well. DO NOT BUY THESE! Just be patient and wait it out.
*Edit FEB 18th 2010 8:13 PM PST* ( Editing due to for some reason without a post to reply to, it edits anyways. )

Well guys it appears that the first wave of invites is over. The
current number of people who got in to the beta are ranging from 2500-300. ( Give or take some from the amount of beta testers that where already there BEFORE the sending of invites started. )
The next wave will be sometime within the next two weeks according
to one of the Blizzard posters on the battlnet forums. ( However it is
a possibility of it taking longer than two weeks before 2end wave, keep
this in mind ) He was also addressing in that same post some concern
people are having over the ones who where supposed to have beta keys
due to contests and/or blizzcon stuff.
Here is what was said in the post.

"I wanted to provide an update for players that

attended BlizzCon and redeemed their codes, but have yet to receive a

beta key invite email. The first wave of invites have already been sent

out and a majority of the invites were sent out to BlizzCon attendees.

Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of BlizzCon attendees, we could

not get everyone in with the first wave. Rest assured that if you did

not get into the first wave, you will be included in a future wave,

possibly within the next two weeks.

The timing of the next wave will be dependent upon the amount of

players that are playing and the load capacity of the servers. Thank

you for your understanding and patience through this process."
Here is a link to the thread, the post is a little ways down, was made by Avarius.

Forums.battle.net
While I can easily see why people are upset. I do understand why
Blizzard would want to limit the amount of people invited in at first.
They still need to figure how well Battlenet 2.0 and the server(s) it
is on can handle the amount of people getting on. As well as of course
the downloader for the beta itself. The small number invited.. compared
to what has been estimated that will be purchasing this game on
release.. is troubling, but there is still plenty of time, and more
waves to go out.
Lets all hope they will have a much larger 2end wave, and of course that more of us here are included in that wave.

*EDIT FEB 22 2010 6:20 pm PST*

It seems Wave 2 is underway. Good luck to everyone who opted in, and congrats to anyone that do get in.Seems they started sending around 5:30 pm PST.
Also
would like to remind everyone to not only check your email, but also
check your Battlenet account as some who got in have mentioned that it
appeared in their account without them getting a email first. ( However
some, and I do not know if they ever got a email afterwords )
As for myself.. I am still not in, so I have my fingers crossed that
I will get in as well as I am sure most of you are.. Once again, good
luck everyone.
*Tiny Edit*

So far it seems, this might just be invites to people who had Blizzcon
keys. Some people though have claimed they got it through opt-in. Its
hard to tell for sure if this is indeed wave2 or just Blizzard giving
keys to the Blizzcon people. ( Partially due to a lot of Blizzcon
people with those keys complained massively due to they did not get in
right away... even though they where not guaranteed to be in on the
first wave...just guaranteed to be in beta. )
Another thing that seems odd ( to me at least ) a fair amount of
people have been given extra keys. Both people who where already in
beta, as well as a few who where not in yet. Seems like a BIG oops on
Blizzards part, but who knows for sure.

*EDIT FEB 23 2010 1:00 pm PST*
Well it seems that wave 2 really did not land yet. Its hard to say for sure though as it seems its mainly Blizzcon 08 people who got some keys and a small amount of opt-ins. However a fair amount of people that had keys already have picked up more. One person on the beta forums claimed to have received 4 extra keys at one point.

No confirmation or denying of a 2end wave by Blizzard, added with this extra key stuff.. seems a bit frustrating to me. I would like to know others opinions on this as to me it seems Blizzard likes to keep their fans in the dark, even when its bad for their image.

*EDIT MARCH 5 2010*
Another wave came out. Looks like people are getting into beta straight through their battlnet accounts and NOT receiving Emails first. So I would suggest to check your battlnet accounts from here on out now and in future waves.

*EDIT MARCH 15 2010*
Sorry guys I have not been on a lot to keep this updated. So far nothing much has happened since the 5th. Blizzard has mentioned during a blizzcast that they aim to have about 10,00 people playing SC2 at any given time during the beta currently.

Here is the link to the Blizzcast. ( #13 ) The run time for this is 52 minuits and 9 seconds. So if you want to listen to it instead of read it, make sure you set aside some time. Take note though they seem to top talking about SC2 at about the 32 min mark. They start a World of Warcraft & Diablo 3 Q&A after that. ( They start with WoW Q&A so.. you might want to skip a little bit if your more interested in Diablo 3 over WoW. )
Us.blizzard.com

Other than that not much to report. I guess I could mention some of the patches as ( from what I last checked ) there have been a total of 5. You can check on the patch notes in Blizzard's SC2 Beta forums, I don't see much of a point in reporting these due to these patches will likly be freeqwent and SC2 has a high chance of being different from beta to retail. I will put a link to the patch thread if someone wants me to and/or post the notes here as well.

*EDIT MARCH 17 2010*
Something interesting is going on. Lots of reports of people with EU ( and some with ASIA ) SC2 accounts are receiving the ability to invite friends into the beta. The amount per person I don't know for sure. Does seem interesting. I guess they want 2v2 games and the like to be tested more, however to me this seems like they ( Blizzard )opened a can of worms here. Lot of people out there that went through the opt-in process have yet to receive a invite and a few have already protested the decision by Blizzard for the friend invite stuff.

Personally I do understand why they are upset. As they feel they went through the process and are waiting, while people who ( potentially ) did not go through the process ( Opt-in ) can get into beta via friend invite. ( Others have also complained saying that this will just add to the amount of beta keys on sale via sites like Ebay. As well as the obvious "They got lucky as is for getting one key, why should they get another" argument that some have tossed around )

However I also see the other side. If they need more people testing 2v2 ( or any team oriented ladder match-ups ) they need people to get their friends involved as that is the most likely way of getting people to test it.

As of this edit ( 7:00 PM PST ) there are no reports of NA accounts getting the friend invite option. Seems a bit odd. However this is being done by Email, so it could be due to it taking time.

Like a lot of people reading this.. most likely like me.. are not in the beta and good chances don't really know anyone personally that's in the beta. So that just means even worse chances of getting in for us sadly. Keep up hope though, still a lot of time to go through the beta. Though so far its planned to only be a 3 month beta so wont be much of a wait for the released version either way. ( Small edit March 18th 2010. It appears all people who have SC2 Beta keys now have friend invites. Looks like they can invite 1 friend each. Both good news and bad news for us. Good news for those who have a friend in beta, bad news for those who don't since Blizzard wants to keep the amount of people in beta to around 10,000. Meaning they wont be sending out any more opt-in invites unless they either: A, do a major stress test. Or B the average number of people playing drops below 10,000. )

*Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 6 days from SC2's release!*
Whoa this is old now.. Sorry I stopped keeping it up to date as Phase 1
has been over for a long time.. Phase 2 started and ended already.. and
its just the wait for release that is soo soon.

A small recap though is that they did not ( as far as I know of ) send out any new beta invites during phase 2 however they did send keys out for pre-orders for a short time. Most of those who got into phase 1 got into phase 2. ( For me I got to play during phase 1 for a short time, not in phase 2 though sadly. )

I can not say what the numbers got up to ( people playing during beta ) for phase 2 but from what I understand it was a bit larger than phase 1 partially due to the pre-orders getting beta keys.

Also, please go check out some videos out there showing various matches that went on during the beta. Some matches also include ( Alleged ) Pro-Gamers from SC1 and WC3 playing. Some of these players have adapted to SC2 while others.. not soo much. Something worth checking out while we wait for the release of SC2 on July 27th 2010.

Edited by: Undying_Zombie