Dustin Browder at VG247 - 10k beta keys

[SinsWage]

Fox spirit has it right. Blizz has been running the most successful online gaming service for years, they know what needs to be done.

And everybody doesn't think that way DeathsAngel. I have been playing blizz games for 15 years AND wow for 4 and I don't have a key. This isn't a contest to win, it's a test to make the game stable and fun. Because I understand that I don't care who they pick to test it because I have faith in them to pick the proper people to test the game in the ways they need. Do I want in? Heck yeah, but I'm not mad that other paying customers, regardless of what game they play, got in instead of me.

[Nicol Bolas]

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.

It's rather more different than you think. Diablo has a persistent, online world. All SC2 needs is stat tracking and match-making. Far less stressful than having lots of people playing simultaneously.

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.

That's a personal entitlement issue that Blizzard is neither responsible for nor needs to deal with. If you wanted a guaranteed beta key, you could have paid for one by getting a BlizzCon ticket. At no time did Blizzard say or imply that people would get special consideration for Beta by buying more games or buying the DirectTV of Blizzcon09.

[Dale]

Forget the beta keys...I'm more worried about how Dustin answered the last question...

They're close to the end.
You know what that means?

That's right. Senior-itis.

[Santrega]

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



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.

Actually I have played it, I sort of meant play it on my own account. Secondly, I was referring to them not playing and blizzard adding more keys, which would give me a chance to play.

Starcraft II and SC are the same games in the way they are played and I mean that in a primarily mechanical way. The key differences in the games are of course the characters involved, but honestly I don't think there are enough familiarity issues to cause you to go to as uncomfortable a game as SC is to play, unless you can't actually play sc2.

[deadlyhazard]

There's about 6000 people on right now, 12AM EST (9PM PST).

It's going up, they still need a few thousands more at LEAST to get 10,000 on at a given time.

[Rogueleader89]

There's about 6000 people on right now, 12AM EST (9PM PST).

It's going up, they still need a few thousands more at LEAST to get 10,000 on at a given time.

I am not entirely sure how the system works, but it is possible that number is only from a single server, in which case your EU and Asia servers would easily make up that missing 4k people (unless of course they meant 10k on each server, which we have no way of knowing)

[milo]

I am not entirely sure how the system works, but it is possible that number is only from a single server, in which case your EU and Asia servers would easily make up that missing 4k people (unless of course they meant 10k on each server, which we have no way of knowing)

Bnet 1.0 counts everyone across all games and servers. It says something like 'There are currently X players playing Y games of StarCraft: Brood War. There are Z players total on Battle.net.'

But yeah, Browder didn't specifically say whether it's 10k total or 10k for each server, and we don't really know how Bnet 2.0 is counting users.

[Perfecttear]

If the servers are countered sepearaterly (EU, US, Asia) then i would say that about 80 000 keys went out total in all waves sofar.