The StarCraft II Beta Part 1: Download, Install

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Step One: downloading and installing the client.

The time has finally come: Blizzard is finally revealing StarCraft II to eager fans who have waited years for the sequel. The company said earlier Wednesday that the beta will come in phases, with thousands receiving the initial invitations for the first round starting today.

After receiving the StarCraft II Beta invite via email, I was instructed to log onto my Battle.net account. I created the account sometime last year-- I actually haven't used the original service since the days when Diablo II was still fresh and new.

Currently the Battle.net account is storing digital copies of the Diablo II game, and the original StarCraft Anthology bundle. There's also a trial for World of Warcraft thrown into the mix as well, but that's just bad news for me.

However now there's a StarCraft II Beta icon next to my purchased games. After clicking on this icon, I downloaded the 1.87 MB Blizzard Downloader application needed to actually retrieve the 1.64 GB StarCraft II beta.

While I waited, the program told me it detected an incompatible network driver, disabling peer to peer support. Clicking "more info" led me to a separate window pointing out that I haven't updated my network card drivers in quite a while. Whoops.... glad someone told me about that.

Once the beta finally downloaded, the installer automatically kicked in with a rather spiffy StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty splash screen. Next step: installing the client.

Feeling lazy, I let the installer place the game in the default Program Files \ StarCraft II Beta folder.normally, I don't like doing this-- it makes Progam Files too big when everything is crammed into that single folder. It reminds me of packing a suitcase and you can't get the lid closed. Again, that's me.

Once all was said and done, the game ate around 2.09 GB of HDD space. The launcher finally splashed onto the screen after a quick and clean install process, telling me that I'm one of the first in the world to check out Battle.Net 2.0 and the next StarCraft installment.

Heck, the only thing I had to do now was press PLAY.

Kevin Parrish
62 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dkArchon
    J E L L O US
    Reply
  • dkArchon
    HAH... er... Jealous :)
    Reply
  • rcpratt
    Sigh, wish I had gotten one...
    Reply
  • nonstoprobot
    ugh! Wheres my invite!
    Reply
  • redplanet
    i was the first to comment but now that comment has disappeared...is this normal or does tom's regularly delete comments they don't like?
    Reply
  • flyinfinni
    soooo not fair :-( lol. I can't wait to get my hands on either a Beta or a retail copy!
    Reply
  • tuannguyen
    redplaneti was the first to comment but now that comment has disappeared...is this normal or does tom's regularly delete comments they don't like?
    I didn't like your comment. If you didn't like the article, you could have stopped reading it, skip it, or go read something else. No need to make a snark comment at the author. I asked Kevin to start blogging about his experiences with SC2 from ground zero. He's doing his job.

    / Tuan
    Reply
  • rigaudio
    Does this violate any terms of StarCraft's NDA?
    Reply
  • MoUsE-WiZ
    rigaudioDoes this violate any terms of StarCraft's NDA?They decided to lift confidentiality (source is a post on their beta forums) so people can screenshot and record all they like.
    Reply
  • redplanet
    tuannguyenI didn't like your comment. If you didn't like the article, you could have stopped reading it, skip it, or go read something else. No need to make a snark comment at the author. I asked Kevin to start blogging about his experiences with SC2 from ground zero. He's doing his job./ Tuan
    so u don't censor the trolls, only censor comments you don't like. brilliant job.

    first of all, my comments were somewhere along the lines of "thanks for the diary entry, mr. parish. /sarcasm". the sarcastic tone was mainly directed towards the lack of enthusiasm portrayed in the article, which reads like a diary entry.

    second of all, my comment contained no personal attack, no obscenity, or whatever you name it. what justification do u have for deleting it other than "because i can"? if u wanna play that card go ahead, and let the rest of the tom's readers truly see what kind of hypocrite you are.
    Reply