Second phase to start really really soon

[TheEconomist]

You honestly think Blizzard can print millions of copies and boxes in a week? Have you never scoured gaming news sites and seen news articles of games going gold and noticed it's about a month before release?

[Gifted]

You honestly think Blizzard can print millions of copies and boxes in a week? Have you never scoured gaming news sites and seen news articles of games going gold and noticed it's about a month before release?

Actually Tychus, I would suspect they already have a majority of them created now.

I don't know if your post is suggesting they'll print after phase 2, or if they already got them printed... but either way just sharing my thoughts.

[TheEconomist]

Actually Tychus, I would suspect they already have a majority of them created now.

That's the point I'm trying to make. They have to or they have to be starting incredibly soon. There's no way they can print millions of boxes in 7 days as some have suggested. All past Blizzard releases have given 20-30 days.

[hyde]

Products must also be made in advance to allow the glues and what not to settle.
This is especially apparent with the collectors edition. Binding a few million hardcover artbooks, getting a few million USB tags with Raynor on them, then getting the comic book company to get that comic printed and finally putting all that stuff together.

Stuff doesn't take that long, but when you're talking about a few million copies which involve outsourcing a few items, things take time.
Typically games go gold about 20-30 days before release..like what Gifted said.
I do not know why people are so paranoid about it having "incomplete software", when a day1 patch has already been announced by Dustin and team.

[TheEconomist]

I am honored that you would confuse me with Gifted

[MaseII]

Well I am hoping that phase 2 releases today!! its quite a nice day to be gaming hehe!! I WANNA PLAAY ZERGG

[Kaiser]

No Phase 2 yet...

[Davez91]

No Phase 2 yet...

Oh really? No sh1t sherlock.

Perhaps next week.

[Kaiser]

Oh really? No sh1t sherlock.

Perhaps next week.

No need to be that way.

[Wankey]

I think all of Phase 1's balance changes were pushed into the Gold version of the game, along with art additions, sound fixes and a few other things that didn't really require people to test.

Phase 2 is testing their ability to scale Battle.net up, and to see if the things they've coded for Battle.net can withstand a large small deployment. There will be a few balance changes but I highly doubt they're going to do anything much for phase 2 other than prepare B.net for launch.

On 27th, there will probably be a day 1 patch to bring the gold version up to date with any bug fixes they find during phase 2.

Then the first big patch will result a few months later combining a few of the larger balance changes but mainly big additions to B.net

The second big patch will contain much bigger balance changes (from the pro gamer discussion they held in Korea) and a few other things for b.net

That's how I see the first 6 months of SC2 looking like.