Dustin Browder at VG247 - 10k beta keys

[Hav0x]

10k concurrency does not mean 10k beta keys. There are probably more than 10k beta keys out there.

[Nicol Bolas]

which I doubt will happen because almost everyone who gets a key is going to play nonstop.

I wouldn't be surprised to see people not playing as much as time goes on. Some people got into the beta for the novelty. Others are hardcore SC1 players who will go back to that in frustration for familiar grounds. Etc.

[Hav0x]

I wouldn't be surprised to see people not playing as much as time goes on. Some people got into the beta for the novelty. Others are hardcore SC1 players who will go back to that in frustration for familiar grounds. Etc.

The number of people playing was already dropping before this last wave. It was up around 3k usually but dropped to 2200-ish when the next wave hit.

[Santrega]

I wouldn't be surprised to see people not playing as much as time goes on. Some people got into the beta for the novelty. Others are hardcore SC1 players who will go back to that in frustration for familiar grounds. Etc.

Rofl, back to sc? Wow...

No seriously.. back to SC? They are fricken the same game, only one is well, considerably more comfortable to play... However, if anyone wants to go back to sc and give me a chance to play, by all means, go back to sc..

lol!

[TunaFish]

Was the most recent wave really huge enough to get them from ~3,000 concurrent at peak times to ~10,000 concurrent at peak times?

[Nicol Bolas]

They are fricken the same game, only one is well, considerably more comfortable to play...

You've clearly not played SC2. A competitive SC1 player can expect some basic skills to transfer, but the general body of knowledge they rely on (build orders, how to deal with situation X, etc) basically has to be thrown out. I can imagine a player who finds the lack of a settled metagame and body of knowledge that they can easily look up unsettling would retreat to SC1.

I also imagine a player who finds a settled metagame and easily looked up body of knowledge boring would pay $100 to guarantee himself a Beta key. Which is why I'm in the beta

However, if anyone wants to go back to sc and give me a chance to play, by all means, go back to sc..

Unfortunately, once the key is attached to an account, it stays attached. So they'd have to give you access to their Battle.Net account.

[DeathsAngel]

But as a former Stats&Math major, I can tell you right now they can scale the server bandwidth capacity to emulate those 10,000 players on - as if it were 500,000.
Like wise, any stats you see in reports are taken from pools of thousands or whatever that is big enough to represent the real population.

I don't say they can't scale, but let's say that we have 500 000 concurrent playing people (at the same time --> Concurrent) that's a 2% of the real population.
As I learned from my software engineering degree, for huge scale platform (Battle.Net 2.0 is one) with a huge load of possible concurrent users it is best and safer to have a big pool (10% is a magic number) of player. Software testing isn't math. It's not because a math and stats problem can be calculated, determined and that we can use some good normal graph and the likes that it's a good thing to do in the computer domain. In my opinion (but eh I'm not Blizzard, they know their stuff I hope), they should raise it a bit more.

But as I'm beginning to think, maybe they will open up the van towards the end of the beta, to raise once again the hype and! test for real how it goes well.

The Diablo2 Beta test only had an initial pool of 5000 until the Stress Test at the last few weeks. Which was more or less a "Sorry fans for making you choke, here - almost anyone gets to try the stress test"
Even then, it was not an open stress test.

Diablo 2 technologies and the need of the times are completely different than today. This was 10 years ago on B.Net 1.0 with different expectation.

I realize many of you feel "Cheated" or "betrayed" as many "Not so good players" or "Not so devouted StarCraft/RTS fans" are on the SC2 beta.
Unfortunately they have no way of measuring who would play more or less, the randomization is the most fair method. Just hold out until retail

I do have one way but first here is why I feel cheated:
I'm playing Blizzard games since damn long time. I have bought all their games, not because I'm a crazed fan but because I liked them. I have an active playing time on D2 and WoW.

Some people (check SC2GDF) got invited to the beta and they only had one game to their list : WoW. I'm not starting the whole WoW vs SC. I'm a WoW player, but I had SC (BW of course). I had all their games, and someone who only bought WoW had an invite?
It happened to some of my friends, they got an invite and they never played SC and they didn't care. Of course cool they had an invite, they are playing with it for now, but only coz they have something to brag about.

So my point is, if you are following Blizzard since long time, following their game, encouraging them by paying for their game, well at least give those players a better chance at the Beta. I'm not saying an automatic invite, but at least make them come first before people who never really had a link with Blizzard.

Those who paid for the DirectTV Blizzcon 2009 or a previous one, those who have all their games are really feeling cheated because "scrubs" got invited.
(FYI those who paid for DirectTV for Blizzcon 2009 didn't got a beta invite like the others who went to the Blizzcon, seems it wasn't part of the deal but oh well :P)

Pardon me if you felt offended by the scrub. What I mean is what people are thinking.

Anyway congratz to those who get in, there's still hope in front of us, some people are still receiving invites.

[TunaFish]

I don't say they can't scale, but let's say that we have 500 000 concurrent playing people (at the same time --> Concurrent) that's a 2% of the real population.
As I learned from my software engineering degree, for huge scale platform (Battle.Net 2.0 is one) with a huge load of possible concurrent users it is best and safer to have a big pool (10% is a magic number) of player. Software testing isn't math. It's not because a math and stats problem can be calculated, determined and that we can use some good normal graph and the likes that it's a good thing to do in the computer domain. In my opinion (but eh I'm not Blizzard, they know their stuff I hope), they should raise it a bit more.

But as I'm beginning to think, maybe they will open up the van towards the end of the beta, to raise once again the hype and! test for real how it goes well.


Diablo 2 technologies and the need of the times are completely different than today. This was 10 years ago on B.Net 1.0 with different expectation.


I do have one way but first here is why I feel cheated:
I'm playing Blizzard games since damn long time. I have bought all their games, not because I'm a crazed fan but because I liked them. I have an active playing time on D2 and WoW.

Some people (check SC2GDF) got invited to the beta and they only had one game to their list : WoW. I'm not starting the whole WoW vs SC. I'm a WoW player, but I had SC (BW of course). I had all their games, and someone who only bought WoW had an invite?
It happened to some of my friends, they got an invite and they never played SC and they didn't care. Of course cool they had an invite, they are playing with it for now, but only coz they have something to brag about.

So my point is, if you are following Blizzard since long time, following their game, encouraging them by paying for their game, well at least give those players a better chance at the Beta. I'm not saying an automatic invite, but at least make them come first before people who never really had a link with Blizzard.

Those who paid for the DirectTV Blizzcon 2009 or a previous one, those who have all their games are really feeling cheated because "scrubs" got invited.
(FYI those who paid for DirectTV for Blizzcon 2009 didn't got a beta invite like the others who went to the Blizzcon, seems it wasn't part of the deal but oh well :P)

Pardon me if you felt offended by the scrub. What I mean is what people are thinking.

Anyway congratz to those who get in, there's still hope in front of us, some people are still receiving invites.

Not that I disagree with you entirely, but to play devil's advocate here, players with WoW accounts (especially ones they've had for a while) have expressed their loyalty to Blizzard many times over in the form of monthly payments. Blizzard fans devoted merely to Starcraft or Warcraft III cannot boast the same.

You can't blame Blizzard for rewarding those who have so eagerly showered them with financial blessings.

[SoFool]

"click-per-minute" = lol

[FoxSpirit]

Not that I disagree with you entirely, but to play devil's advocate here, players with WoW accounts (especially ones they've had for a while) have expressed their loyalty to Blizzard many times over in the form of monthly payments. Blizzard fans devoted merely to Starcraft or Warcraft III cannot boast the same.

You can't blame Blizzard for rewarding those who have so eagerly showered them with financial blessings.

Wait, if I had added my old WoW key I could have had better chances? Urgh >.<

Also, I don't think they really need to stresstest BNet2. WoW has been fully hooked into it and there were no problems. The real stresstest was WoW, the experience from that is incredibly valuable and will help to run BNet2 without a hitch.