Everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that Blizzcon would be the optimal place to announce the final retail release date for Diablo 3, which would be a huge announcement and appropriate for Blizzcon. Given that the game will either come out at the end of 2011 or the start of 2012, this announcement is highly likely to occur during Blizzcon. There's also the incentive to release at the end of 2011 because of the Christmas rush, it's the optimal time to release software.
These kinds of events are bigger and more important than a Beta start date and some final game systems I would think. So optimistically, the timeline might look like the conference call which announces some important dates over the next couple months (final systems shortly followed by beta). Then Blizzcon would announce the final release date and discuss the overall product as well as discussing the development, which serves as a nice hype/advertisement move.
Another thing I was thinking about, with Starcraft 2 one of the blues said beta was coming Summer 2009. The months went by and no new information was given out until right before Blizzcon when they said it was delayed because of Battle.net 2.0. A lot of people hated Blizzard for announcing a summer beta so early and then saying nothing about it for months until they finally found out it was delayed for a year. I think Blizzard has learned from this and will not say a thing about a possible D3 beta launch until they know for sure "it's in two weeks" or whatever.
Baskiok said "very specifically", but any planned dates they have are still tentative. They could change at any time if something comes up. Beta will probably not be announced until the date is set in stone, which can only happen right before beta.
Another thing I was thinking about, with Starcraft 2 one of the blues said beta was coming Summer 2009. The months went by and no new information was given out until right before Blizzcon when they said it was delayed because of Battle.net 2.0. A lot of people hated Blizzard for announcing a summer beta so early and then saying nothing about it for months until they finally found out it was delayed for a year. I think Blizzard has learned from this and will not say a thing about a possible D3 beta launch until they know for sure "it's in two weeks" or whatever.
Baskiok said "very specifically", but any planned dates they have are still tentative. They could change at any time if something comes up. Beta will probably not be announced until the date is set in stone, which can only happen right before beta.
You gotta remember that they were building Bnet2.0 at the time that this happened, which was the main reason for SC2's delay. They probably WERE ready to release the beta then, but Bnet was not, so they put it on hold. The SC2 beta was remarkably polished for this reason, they had basically 8 extra months of internal testing.
When i look at how blizz has been handling their 'big' announcements these past years, it makes me wonder. They know that the hardcore fanbase is anxiously awaiting the may conference call.
IF they do announce any news about beta, i believe they know that they will no longer be able to hold of beta release for too long. Its one thing to keep fans in the dark about big news like game systems etc.., but when the fans know about beta (depending on what has been said during the conference) blizz wont be able to keep it 'secret' anymore. They will know the cat is out of the bag and to my assumption HAVE to give a quick beta release?? Maybe end of may already?
Anyway, i hope that this is how blizz will handle it. What's the point of holding of beta if its no longer a secret (and you know that blizz prays on fans beeing kept in the dark for as long as possible), they might as well get it out since it'll no longer be a surprise because of the conference!
Uhm... I don't get your logic. The beta is not a secret. We know it will be, just not when.
Why wouldn't they be able to hold off a beta release for too long? I'm not saying they are going to, but I just don't get your reasoning..
The beta is not some marketing trick to hype up the game for the fans. It's for testing the game's features and test server load. It's not a favour they do us, it's a favour we do them. That's the meaning of a beta test at least. Of course, getting to play the game earlier is nice, but not the reason they have them...
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These kinds of events are bigger and more important than a Beta start date and some final game systems I would think. So optimistically, the timeline might look like the conference call which announces some important dates over the next couple months (final systems shortly followed by beta). Then Blizzcon would announce the final release date and discuss the overall product as well as discussing the development, which serves as a nice hype/advertisement move.
Baskiok said "very specifically", but any planned dates they have are still tentative. They could change at any time if something comes up. Beta will probably not be announced until the date is set in stone, which can only happen right before beta.
You gotta remember that they were building Bnet2.0 at the time that this happened, which was the main reason for SC2's delay. They probably WERE ready to release the beta then, but Bnet was not, so they put it on hold. The SC2 beta was remarkably polished for this reason, they had basically 8 extra months of internal testing.
Uhm... I don't get your logic. The beta is not a secret. We know it will be, just not when.
Why wouldn't they be able to hold off a beta release for too long? I'm not saying they are going to, but I just don't get your reasoning..
The beta is not some marketing trick to hype up the game for the fans. It's for testing the game's features and test server load. It's not a favour they do us, it's a favour we do them. That's the meaning of a beta test at least. Of course, getting to play the game earlier is nice, but not the reason they have them...