…the future. But not just any arbitrary future. There is an actual date, as well as plans for releasing additional StarCraft 2 Beta Keys to accommodate Blizzard’s hunger for crowdsourced QA.

Few, if any, had doubts about the upcoming beta, and considering the fact that many of us already got our hands on a StarCraft 2 Beta Key, its eventual arrival  is almost inevitable. However, this is the first time that a reliable source has received a confirmation about an existing timetable directly from Xordiah -  Blizzard’s European RTS Community Manager.

The original source is the massive German 4Players.de website, and the report’s key points were accurately translated by IncGamer’s SCWire.

• Blizzard has a fixed date for the beta. However, it’s still a secret.
• The multiplayer part of the game is basically done except for a few details.
• There will be several more opportunities to participate in the beta to come (including competitions, perhaps a kind of story competition or similar).
• In the current build (internally at Blizzard), there is a Dark Pylon with a cool ability, which enables Probes to harvest faster within the reach of the Pylon.
• The Command Center now has a new, cool ability that creates a “bigger” SCV, which is better at harvesting.
• Supply Depots can be upgraded to give +2 Supply.
• Xordiah, who is a “Protoss Fetishist”, is very happy.
• This build’s Immortals are extremely strong.

The above list is full of good news. Blizzard has already handed out thousands of beta keys, and as it seems, will hand out many more via various competitions which will be run on official fansites and on Battle.net. The SC2Blog will likely have a chance to hand out more beta keys via competitions, similar to the one we held in September, which sent 4 of our readers to BlizzCon.

It’s interesting to see that Blizzard’s recent balance tinkering touched upon resource gathering, with both Protoss and Terran receiving perks – the Protoss Dark Pylon and the super-SCV are mentioned strictly as economy buffs. This is clearly an attempt to elaborate the “Macro” portion of the game, which, as many of those who’ve had a chance to play say, is lacking. Blizzard’s previous attempt, involving the new gas mechanics, has accumulated an impressive amount of negative feedback. Will these changes bring about the extra complexity demanded by the StarCraft pros?

Related Posts:

• » Two Massive Q&A Sessions: Battle.Net and Beta In-Depth
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Protoss Strategies Overview
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Yo Mommaship Got Nerfed
• » One Week Into The StarCraft 2 Beta: New Patch, Blizzcast

17 Comments to “StarCraft 2 Beta is Scheduled to be Released in…”

1. THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC — January 20, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
   

   Its nice to hear that the immortal currently has attributes to match its appearance and story.

   I like the current resource gathering tinkering’s for the macro portion of the game over the previous gas mechanic.

   We need a bigger boat.

2. evglmg — January 20, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
   

   its coming or not??? the beta until now is only rumors

3. Lipton — January 20, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
   

   Jesus Christ (and I’m an Atheist) IT WAS SC2ARMORY.com that first translated that article, not wire… they have some nerve.

4. Lipton — January 20, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
   

   Not mad at cha mang just I saw sczone publish the same incorrectness and they had the nerve to re-post that they translated it on iccup

5. evglmg — January 20, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
   

   another problem we have to wait the vote of the dark templar model because they will put on B.net until then we have to wait a little more

6. Arthur Santana — January 21, 2009 @ 11:04 am
   

   The link says dark pylons may cloak units around it! Now that’s cool!

7. Nattaboy — January 22, 2009 @ 1:19 am
   

   I like the economy buffs… I like the idea of having to decide whether to fork out more resources and get a small number of better gatherers or just make a horde of cheap ones…

8. evglmg — January 22, 2009 @ 5:43 pm
   

   aa forget it this “beta key” i gonna wait until the game gone out until them i wait doesn´t matter is 09, 2010, or 2011 starcraft 2 will go out but blizzard always do something, changes and stuff i will wait until that but sorry blizzard you guys are damn lags

9. mko — January 28, 2009 @ 10:49 am
   

   Must construct additional dark pylons.. It’s not very catchy

10. boored121 — January 29, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
    

    i’m pretty sure the dark pylons are only optional and isn’t gonna be like the normal pylons which u have to build..

11. john17:17 — July 7, 2009 @ 11:35 am
    

    Does anyone think if you sucked at the first starcraft you would suck at the starcraft 2???????????????

12. Anonymous — July 29, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
    

    To #11

    Yes.

    Check out StarCraft II Asylum

13. xamian — July 31, 2009 @ 10:10 am
    

    The only race that gets decent mods are protoss, why don’t they just change the name of the game to the protoss chronicals or something else like that. Why even create other races if they don’t stand a chance against a protoss? The original starcraft was never balanced so why should this one be any different.

14. djin — August 7, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
    

    who cares when is this F@cking game gonna be release

15. Anonymous — December 3, 2009 @ 7:44 am
    

    i’m a starcraft fan but i really got bored of waiting this game, i’m gonna buy something else

16. John Peterson — January 2, 2010 @ 8:53 pm
    

    Blizzard: Please stop adding new features and release the beta already. You can add new features in patches for the rest of infinity if you like.

17. Ammari Ramzy — January 8, 2010 @ 1:42 pm
    

    Now really, this could be a great game…i have no doubt about it…. but i think this has gone for too long!! i mean a lot of people are waiting for this game but it became really boring! trying to add so many features may do more harm than good.
    Keep it simple…and cool like the first starcraft!!