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StarCraft II Beta To Begin This Month 182

mrxak writes "It's official; Activision Blizzard's much-anticipated sequel to 12-year-old StarCraft is going to enter closed beta 'this month,' according to company President Mike Morhaime during an investor conference call. This comes in the wake of the SC2 beta forums showing up briefly on Battle.net. If you've got a Battle.net account, it's probably not too late to opt-in for upcoming Blizzard beta tests."
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StarCraft II Beta To Begin This Month

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  • Finally (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cobralisk ( 666114 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @10:13AM (#31099760)
    I was beginning to think this was Starcraft Forever
    • by magsol ( 1406749 )
      StarCraft II: The Undiscovered Game.
    • I think you mean Starcraft Ghost. [wikipedia.org] Although when they split the game into three parts, that was what was most worrying about the whole thing looking like DNF.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by FTWinston ( 1332785 )
        Looking like DNF would be it having the scope of all those three parts, but being released as a single package rather than three, tbh.
  • Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AdmiralXyz ( 1378985 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @10:25AM (#31099942)
    This is Slashdot. We should be griping about the DRM, or the removal of LAN play which is obviously intended to keep us as indentured servants to the corporate behemoth, not talking about trivial things like when the game is going to be released.
    • This is Slashdot. We should be griping about the DRM, or the removal of LAN play which is obviously intended to keep us as indentured servants to the corporate behemoth, not talking about trivial things like when the game is going to be released.

      Fuck yeah! That's the spirit. Bring back the /. I know!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 )
      I'll sign up to the beta, play for 10 minutes, say "Where's the rest of the game? Where's the LAN play? What the hell is this DRM crap?" and not come back until it's sorted.
    • by brkello ( 642429 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @11:09AM (#31100536)
      You obviously didn't read the other Blizzard article. That's all you are about. Complaining about stuff. Slashdot is the Tea Party movement of the Internet. A bunch of old people complaining about how things used to be with complete disregard to reality.
      • by rk ( 6314 )

        Reality has nothing whatsoever to do with it. I know that Blizzard doesn't give a damn if me and a few "old people complaining" don't buy their product because they've got millions of young people out there conveniently pre-programmed to shell out their money for whatever they care to spew out, whether it tastes like ambrosia or crap.

        I still play Starcraft in LAN mode 3 to 4 times a week with my wife and/or son. If SC2 just authorizes to battle.net then falls back to LAN play, I'm fine with that. If SC2 m

        • Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by brkello ( 642429 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @12:34PM (#31101504)
          That's fine. But here is my point. You have no clue how it will be implemented. It may just require you to authenticate and then all traffic will be routed locally. My Internet is out maybe 1 or 2 times a year and usually is just a router restart. If this is a big deal, then you can't buy any multi-player game.

          But instead of ANYONE here waiting to see how anything is done, they complain and already get their excuses in line to pirate the game.

          No one here is talking about how it is cool you can just enter in a key to the new battle.net for your games and can download them - Mac or PC. No one is talking about how excited they are to finally get the next part of the story. You guys all are crying about LAN play and being online.

          There has to be others out there that are just excited to play the game. I already know all your ideologies. It is hammered in almost every single post in every single article. You hate DRM. I got it. Don't buy any game because they will all have DRM. This is reality. All consoles are a form of DRM. This is a reality. These games will all sell despite your ideologies.

          No one on here can just be excited for a game release? Nope, too much to ask. You all have the childish mentality that it is cool to bash everything.

          Honestly, I don't care about your heart-breaking story of being unable to play with people you love. You know why? Because it is all made up. The game isn't out, you have no idea if what you are saying is true, but instead of just de-clenching you have already gone in to outrage mode.

          I have been in this community for so many years. I loved Slashdot. But I think I have just outgrown it. You guys can't talk about an article. You can only karma whore by repeating the same ideology over and over again. I honestly challenge everyone here to just look at the comments modded up in every article. Pretty much every post modded up should be redundant. It has nothing to do with the article, and everything to do with "OMG DRM. OMG LAN. OMG BNETD." Yes, we all know all those things already. You will get modded up but you have contributed nothing.

          And really, this isn't you...I am sure you are a nice person. I am just tired of the ideology, it doesn't have to be this way. Everything is spun Libertarian here and exaggerated so that it becomes worthless.

          The frustrating thing is I know there are a lot of Slashdotters out there just like me. It is just we are the vocal minority. I feel like Slashdot has been stolen away by people who care more about shoving views down my throat than by technology.
          • by rk ( 6314 )

            My problem is with omnipresent DRM. I play Sins of a Solar Empire, and that's RTS DRM done right. I can't get updates without using Impulse (their decent-but-not-as-good-as-Steam app), but other than that, it doesn't phone home for single-player, or LAN play (which it has).

            I praised Blizzard's new battle.net. It was very Steam-like to me (also DRM done right, IMO). LAN play may not be important to you. That's fine. But it's critical to me. You care more about the story. Great! Glad you like it. To me, i

            • by rk ( 6314 )

              Replying to my self like an idiot, but I forgot my footnote:

              *- This may be perceived as I have something against space opera. If you saw my bookshelves you'd know that's pretty far from the truth. :-)

          • by G00F ( 241765 )

            I think you are missing the point of people voting with their wallets here.

            I'm part of the aging gamers, I don't really play online anymore, I play LAN with my friends. So quite simply, if the game doesn't have LAN, it doesn't interest me much. LAN is not obsolete, just some game companies are replace it for a more controlled and income friendly methods.

            Single player, eh, 10 hrs of play time isn't worth the time it takes to go to a store and shell out 60 bucks. I can wait till it reaches $35 for both it a

    • by neoform ( 551705 )
      You forgot the part about them taking one game and splitting it into 3 games so they can charge me 3x more..
  • I know how these questions usually play out, but I'm asking just in case someone with a clue cares to comment.

    Do we have any idea of the time frame in which to expect the first installment of SC2 to be released?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by gmthor ( 1150907 )
      This is Blizzard....
      It's done when it's done. If the balance appears to suck during the beta, then we might even wait another year.
  • by Equuleus42 ( 723 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @10:45AM (#31100202) Homepage

    As much as I enjoyed StarCraft, the acronym "SC2" will always be reserved for Star Control II [wikipedia.org] in my mind.

    • I'm a little too young to remember SC2, but I see from the wikipedia page that it's GPL. Awesome.

    • by ifrag ( 984323 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @11:50AM (#31101002)

      Well, how about changing it to UQM for Star Control 2 (The Ur-Quan Masters). Isn't that what the open source port uses?

      It's really too bad there has not been any real successor to Star Control 2 though, great game, and the dialogue is absolutely hilarious. I still use quotes from that game.

    • Do you complain about your fond memories of these too?
      • IBM Personal System/2 or Phantasy Star II (not PlayStation 2)
      • Program Segment Prefix or Paint Shop Pro (not PlayStation Portable)
      • Shining Force II (not Street Fighter II)
      • New Super Mario Bros. (not the Nigga Stole My Bike cutscene in Punch-Out!!)
      • by Equuleus42 ( 723 )

        No complaints there, although it will always be "Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!" to me, even if he did bite someone's ear off. :^)

  • too late? (Score:5, Funny)

    by northernfrights ( 1653323 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @10:46AM (#31100226)
    "If you've got a Battle.net account, it's probably not too late to opt-in for upcoming Blizzard beta tests." Well, ok... NOW it probably is...
  • by Maltheus ( 248271 ) on Thursday February 11, 2010 @11:36AM (#31100852)

    Although I'm dreading the "simplification" of the economy, I'm much more looking forward to Supreme Commander 2. The AI might have sucked in the first one, but the strategic zoom and infinite queuing of tasks has added more to the genre IMO, than anything the original starcraft ever did. Not to mention the scope.

    Still, as an RTS junkie, I'll be interested in seeing what the new Starcraft will offer. Hopefully they don't continue the unfortunate RTS trend of focusing more on offense, to the exclusive of defense and the intricacies of building up an economy.

    Oh who am I kidding? I hope they both suck. I need them to suck. RTSes are as bad as any drug out there. Maybe worse. At least you can do other things while high on drugs. You can't do anything else while wasting your time on an RTS. Except perhaps, drugs....hmmm.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by renrutal ( 872592 )

      Oh god, a dozen years later, the conflict between Total Annihilation and StarCraft will be reborn.

      Hell yeah!

    • by mqduck ( 232646 )

      Hopefully they don't continue the unfortunate RTS trend of focusing more on offense, to the exclusive of defense and the intricacies of building up an economy.

      My problem is that I enjoy base-building and defense too much. I lost many a Starcraft game because I never got around to attacking, and the game is designed so that no base is impenetrable. One of the things I love about Civilization IV is that peace and diplomacy is a perfectly viable and enjoyable strategy. It fits me like a glove.

  • Seriously, how long have they been hyping this game? Jesus christ jsut release it already. Only Blizzard could get away with this long of a ramp up period. THe game has been done for quite a while, the beta is just a PR joke. How do i know its done? BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN HOLDING TOURNAMENTS WITH IT.

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