Have a SC2 beta key? - Page 4

When beta comes I think it would be helpful to have people to theorycraft and try stuff out with.. at least after the initial metagame establishes itself.

On October 28 2008 16:52 anch wrote:
OP is pointless

On October 28 2008 16:52 anch wrote:
I dont see how this is relate to "have a sc2 beta key"

On October 28 2008 16:52 anch wrote:
Like what the person said above me, the key is not only way to get in beta.

On October 28 2008 16:52 anch wrote:
This is internet, buddy. we discuss SC2 in the thread already.

On October 27 2008 19:23 BluzMan wrote:
I'm not sure SC2 beta will work without server authentification.

To be honest, I'm 100% sure that this is not the last cycle (and not even the major) of giving out beta keys. Why? It makes no sense commercial-wise. 3 or 4 years ago, competetive SC didn't even exist in the US on a large scale, historically, it was one of the last country to jump on that train. The thing is that when you're hosting a betatest, you want the player base to be as inquirive as possible, you're spending money to make people to adequate tests of your product. WoW junkies are not nearly a productive fanbase. Other people are really hard to attract to such an event due to travel difficulties - getting an US visa is extremely complicated and just buying the plance tickets costs about my monthly salary, that's before you figure the entry fee and living expenses. Heck, even a Europe-hosted event is quite costly to attend for people from the east. So it makes zero sense to make it the major stage to get beta participants. Yes, you get a fair share of competetive players from the hosting country (US in this case), but that's it.

The only question there is how much freedom they will offer the outside communities like TL in spreading the beta. For WC3 they have a rough mechanism of ranking competetive players (which is the ladder, a somewhat reflective tool), but not for SC whose ladder is completely meaningless. The only other instrument they have (and will probably use) is the blizzard account which has information on games owned per person. I have little doubt they will use that tool to reward dedicated people who own a lot of their games (in fact, I own all of their titles that can be registered via that service), but it's still very limited, so I'm positive they will have to use the communities.

Said communites are mainly comprised by iCCup, GG.net and TL.net which are all quite well-tied together, along with the distanced Bnet community. There are also asian communities that don't intersect with us due to the language barrier, so they're out of the question. I'd say that with the TSL stuff and the amount of coverage we do we have the best odds of all three to be the mediator, but who knows, I personally think that Blizzard understands well that Bnet community is much much weaker, but since they are their homegrown thing, they're bound to receive some kind of a preferential treatment.

Maybe it's the time to make a push and offer some kind of a service to Blizzard in maintaining the beta key spread? With rather strict moderation and traditions TL could do it, there are plenty of people here who know what SC is made of.

On November 02 2008 02:57 Spartan[nK] wrote:
I have 2 beta keys for sale, $250 OBO. PM me.

On October 28 2008 22:23 Puosu wrote:
Eh, giving out beta keys at these events is plain stupid imo., they're going to get so many wowfags who have no idea about competitive rts playing the beta and giving idiot feedback, should've given them to reputable SC1/WC3 community sites and pro-gamers.

Just my opinion, which is affected by the fact that I have no key!!

On November 02 2008 05:12 Racenilatr wrote:
whats the point of having a beta key if you dont have the actual beta?

On November 02 2008 06:08 rushz0rz wrote:
i want a key so fucking bad.
anyone selling one cheaper than this greedy fuck Spartan? come on this is tl.net and you'd be helping out a fellow tl.netter who doesnt play fastest and is against mbs/automine.

and to all those who want to be "competitive", you wont be. its simple, the design philosophy that blizzard has will destroy the competitive scene for players who want to be in it for the long run. the skill gap will be dramatically decreased and there will be hundreds of thousands of "really good" players. and to be honest, playing beta and being able to play before everyone else wont make you the best. MaDFroG of WC3 never got beta and he was the best.

On November 02 2008 06:08 rushz0rz wrote:
i want a key so fucking bad.
anyone selling one cheaper than this greedy fuck Spartan? come on this is tl.net and you'd be helping out a fellow tl.netter who doesnt play fastest and is against mbs/automine.

and to all those who want to be "competitive", you wont be. its simple, the design philosophy that blizzard has will destroy the competitive scene for players who want to be in it for the long run. the skill gap will be dramatically decreased and there will be hundreds of thousands of "really good" players. and to be honest, playing beta and being able to play before everyone else wont make you the best. MaDFroG of WC3 never got beta and he was the best.

On November 02 2008 08:55 meRz wrote:


That's a lie though ;O

MaDFroG among several others who were successful swedish bwgamers got a hold of the beta key pretty quick and they were the ones who were the best of the best once the game actually got released.

SK.SuRviVoR who was an awesome humanplayer for quite some time, was also in the wc3 beta.

It's an incredibly good way to get a jump start and the best SC2 beta players will also be the best SC2 players in the beginning. Which means they'll probably get signed onto teams fairly quick and get to play in the higher leagues and develop naturally from there. So yeah, if you feel like you want to go 100% all-in on being competitive in this game, you'll probably want to play the beta.