Blizzard has extended the StarCraft II Beta for an extra week.
It may feel like forever until July 27 but there's good news for those of you taking part in the StarCraft II beta: Blizzard is extending the current phase for an extra week. That means seven more days before the beta shuts down for an unspecified amount of time to prepare for the last stage of testing.
Blizzard poster Nethaera announced via the Battle.net forums that the current phase of the beta has been extended until Monday, June 7. He went on to say that in order to prepare for the final phase of testing, after June 7, the beta will be unavailable for several weeks while they make some changes to the hardware and software configurations.
The game will be back online for around two weeks prior to the launch on July 27. Full statement is below.
"We previously announced that the first phase of the StarCraft II beta test would be coming to a close in all regions on Monday, May 31. In order to prepare for the final phase of beta testing, we plan to extend the current phase in all regions until Monday, June 7. After this date, the beta test will be unavailable for several weeks while we make some hardware and software configuration changes for the final phase of the beta test and the release of the game. We plan to bring the beta test back online for a couple of weeks prior to the game’s launch to complete our testing. We’ll have more details to share about when this final phase will begin at a later date.
We’d like to thank all of our beta-test participants for your enthusiasm, dedication, and valuable feedback during the beta test, and we look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on the StarCraft II beta test as the game’s July 27 launch approaches."
Collector's edition of SC2 comes with SC1 on a USB flash drive.
This. Exactly.
And paying 180Euros for 3 campaigns doesn't feel quite right.
After reading that It makes me worrie about the future of Starcraft2. Its probably gonna be a great game, dont get me wrong. But there have been plenty of good games ruined by asshat moves like this. It'll quickly run off casual fans of the franchise.
This will definatly make me rethink buying this game if there going to munchkin every penny out of it while convoluting it with Wow like ''added features''. And its really sad, been looking forward to this game for years :[
Thanks a lot for the link.
I new that Kotik was bad but I did not know he said and made all these things.
This guy is Evil for video games!!!
It is really sad because Blizzard have done some of the best video games ever.
I though they would not be affected by the merge with Activision but now it seams that behind everything they make there is the evil shadow of Kotik wanting to take all your money, soul and blood, like a weird smell or after-taste of rotten eggs in a yummy creamy cake.
My re-addiction to Starcraft due to the few weeks with the SC2 beta will not let me cancel my pre-order but the LAN and "Spawn version" are really big lost imo.
I think I'll never re-activate my WoW account.
All the money milking around WoW just disgusts me more and more (and I am not talking about gold farming).
I will also never buy any of their "music" Hero games nor any Crap warfare 2,3,... games with all their not-free dlc.
From R.A. Kotik:
"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
A sad thing too,
I think that decisions made by Kotik are a big part of what makes people want to pirate games instead of buying them.
(Not to be confused with people who want to pirate games instead of not buying them)
www.youtube.com/delanoche21
video is with EYEFINITY (watch in 1080p)
If the trend continues, that Battlechest will include all 3 SC2 campaigns for 150 instead of 180... which is still expensive as hell!
Loved the game, too bad they are charging such a huge amount of money for a single episode that forces you to play the way Acti-Blizzard wants.
Give me LAN and I might consider purchasing the game. Nothing like a nice camping weekend that includes a couple hours of LAN battles using laptops.
Thanks for the article, some of it was quite enlightening and scary. At the same time I think some of the facts the state are blown out of proportion. One for example would be the Blizzcon tickets. The past few years have shown the demand far surpasses the supply with thousands upon thousands of tickets sold in minutes as well as them renting more space in the venue; I can see the reason for raising the price and having multiple outlets for people to enjoy the convention.
To the extent Activision is going, I feel that is wrong but I also hope Blizzard will be able to have more clout than Infinity Ward so they will stay a great company. Or emancipate themselves like Bungie did from Microsoft.