Diablo III Beta Begins 102
dotarray writes "Diablo III really can't be that far off now. Blizzard has just announced that the closed beta test for the game has kicked off – meaning you can start checking your inboxes for an invitation now."
The expanded Friends&Family test had been underway for a week or so, but now gaming sites are getting invitations. Of course, given the popularity of Diablo III, phishers are out in force with fake beta invites. For those who opted-in, the best way to check is to simply log in to your battle.net account. The beta is limited in terms of content — it only includes the first couple hours worth of play in Act 1 — but all five classes are available for play. There's no NDA, so plenty of commentary has sprung up already. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has early impressions of the Demon Hunter. Blizzard has also created a skill calculator for anyone who wants to play around with character builds ahead of time. The beta will be expanding in waves as they ramp up stability tests.
Over an hour of gameplay co-op footage (Score:4, Informative)
Huskystarcraft has a 4-part youtube series of co-op play. Great to watch if you don't have access to the beta yet! They play a wizard (so full of himself, it's great!) and witchdoctor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoGQmKi0Iq0 [youtube.com] (1st part)
Re:Rumour has it PRESS ONLY at this stage. (Score:2, Informative)
Friends and Family beta was a week or two ago, they were allowed to stream the beta.
Press (e.g., Day9) also received beta accounts a week or two ago, but were under NDA and could not stream gameplay.
Closed beta invites are out, and the NDA has been lifted from the press as of tonight. For interesting commentary, I recommend checking out Day9 or HuskyStarcraft's (no-longer-live-but-recorded) streams.
Day9 Solo Gameplay & Commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thGq2G2aGXo
Husky9 Coop Gameplay & Commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoGQmKi0Iq0