Alright let me articulate why I don't think this is fair. Blizzard has stated in the past feats of strength were something very difficult or something that is impossible to obtain anymore. They have maintained however through actions and wording that everyone has a chance at the feats. But with this beta that has been flipped, not everyone could have a chance for this feat, infact short of black martket buying a CD Key from a fansite there was no way to be guaranteed to get it.
Now before you say things like "well I never had a chance to get a gladiator FoS.". This is false you had every chance to get it, you just didn't that is why them giving a FoS away for beta after maintaining for years they would never do it alienates their userbase.
my 2 cents.
Let me articulate why you don't think this fair is completely unjustified:
Blizzard has stated in the past feats of strength were something very difficult or something that is impossible to obtain anymore.
Yup. This is how FoS work. This is also why they don't give achievement points, but are simply badges of proof for being in a limited number of people for a certain event.
They have maintained however through actions and wording that everyone has a chance at the feats.
"Equal chance" in this regard can be interpreted somewhat subjectively. For example, opening the gates of AQ40 could have technically been done by anyone, but certainly we can't say everyone had an EQUAL chance at it. Only one person on the server could do it, and the quests that were required to get the hammer to ring the gong were only completable by a servers top guild(s). An entire guild that is the best on a given server all working so a single individual could ring the gong- hardly something everyone had equal access to. Another example is Blizzcon- whose tickets sell out within hours of going on sale. Clearly there are more people trying to get tickets than there are tickets, even at the moment of becoming available. Not everyone of them is going to be lucky enough to get a ticket.
But with this beta that has been flipped, not everyone could have a chance for this feat, infact short of black martket buying a CD Key from a fansite there was no way to be guaranteed to get it.
Here is where you logic train jumps the tracks into a chasm. How is being lucky enough to get into beta any different than getting lucky enough to get one of a few thousand blizzcon tickets when tens of thousands compete to get them? For the ten thousand people all clicking "Buy Tickets Now!" the second they go one sale, and all the people opted into the beta, they both have an equal chance of getting the tickets or invite, and certainly not all of them are going to get what they wanted.
I also want to ask, how in the hell could you possibly say "not everyone could have a chance for this feat" when everyone had a chance? An equal chance to be precise when it comes to opt in invites. And for contests, well clearly everyone had an equal chance at those as well. I guess you could say "the contests weren't equal- some people used bots and scripts to get the twitter keys!" Well yeah, and you could have used those scripts too. It's no different than someone needing an entire server top guild to get the AQ40 feat. while some people have greater access to tools, everyone still ad an equal chance of using those tools.
And yes, you could also just buy a key from someone. you can also buy CEs on ebay for extra mark-up, you can buy blizzcon tickets from a scalper for mark up. Everything you can get a feat for can be bought. In fact, since you can buy accounts on 3rd party sites or on ebay, you can buy any item in any game ever! The fact someone can buy a beta key means absolutely nothing to this issue- you can buy anything with money because it's a fucking form of currency. If you have issues with that then god help your soul.
Now before you say things like "well I never had a chance to get a gladiator FoS.". This is false you had every chance to get it, you just didn't that is why them giving a FoS away for beta after maintaining for years they would never do it alienates their userbase.
By this point it's clear you simply have no idea what the word 'chance' means. You had a chance to get into beta (assuming you were opted in or competed in contests). The same chance as all the other people who were opted in, or entered said contests. Unfortunately you didn't get chosen. But thats what chance is. It sounds like what you want is for a series of actions someone can do, and if they do them they get a feat. That's not chance. Thats a Gurantee. Thats not what feats exist for.
that's my 2 cents
Thanks for letting us know you are a jealous bitter human being.
It isn't fair. I wanted the beta, I signed up for it right away, months passed and I never got allowed to joint he party despite having two different systems to bring to test, and now they're giving everyone that got to play something I can never have, too?
It's just insulting. Write a report about how you think it isn't, it's not changing my mind.
What people aren't seeming to understand is that getting a beta invite was NEVER intended to be a reward, something to keep people happy until launch, or anything else other than asking players to do some work for Blizzard for free.
These people aren't being "further rewarded". It is a thank-you to people testing the game. Get over yourselves.
Everybody had same chance to get into beta that chance is equal to the number of beta invites over the number of people asking for it. Your chances increased if you entered some or all of the other 3rd party ramdon contests. Finally some 3rd parties included contests based on some sort of skill or activity done by the contestant (like the screenshots contests of diablofans, the newsletter subcriptions of nvidia.uk or the twitter contest at @blizzard_cs)
Only de Friends and Family beta testers had an "unfair" advantage and got in the beta easily.
Did a little cleanup, everyone keep it civil as possible under the circumstances. I know some of you feel cheated but getting in trouble here isn't going to help.
Thousands of people feeling cheated because they didn't win a random drawing lottery: depressing insight into human nature
Thousands of people feeling cheated because they didn't win a random drawing lottery where the prize was a few pixels in a video game that hasn't been released yet that do not affect gameplay at all: abandon all hope in mankind
At first, I was miffed because I didn't get in the beta and it was more goodies that weren't coming my way. And then I realized that the actual goodies don't really mean anything, and I don't really care about a sigil or FoS that's a reward for getting lucky. Big deal, you can wear it with pride all you want, but I don't even really want it. It's just the overdeveloped sense of entitlement that pervades the masses these days that stops people from realizing it's just a friggin FoS and sigil that says "I got lucky," not "I'm better than you."
EDIT:
I do think Blizzard underestimated how petty people can be though, and I don't think this was a good move on their part. No one was cheated because they didn't get in a closed beta that was advertised as such, and no one should feel cheated because the people lucky enough to get a random invite also get a FoS and sigil that only shows that they were LUCKY.
***Condensed wall of text*** (It was a TLDPR - Too Long Didn't Proofread and even I was bored by my own blabbering lol)
It's ok for those who didn't get in, to be bothered by it. Every single one of us on these boards is different. We think differently, we process things differently and we act/react differently. What is or is not a big deal is totally relative/subjective. As a husband and father my perspective concerning what is or isn't important has changed radically compared to where I was at even 10 years ago and I recognize that growth in myself for which I'm grateful. That said, I can't say for certain that 20 years ago I wouldn't have been upset over what many of you see as a slight for not being chosen to participate in the Beta and therefore I don't judge you. I was lucky enough to get into the Beta but I also know myself well enough at this point to know that I certainly wouldn't care about not getting this FoS had I not been "chosen". I truly do believe that once the game goes live and we are fighting back the hordes of hell, that this "issue" will quickly become a non issue (as it already is for many of us) and will be forgotten by a good % of those that currently do care.
"I've cleared the whole game over and over again with 1200% magic find. Then you just walk in and get a godly item on your first trip through inferno! Why should you get a godly item?!?!?! I've been a bigger fan! I've played more! I had more magic find!!!! Why you?!"
Luck. It's a part of the franchise.
This is not even comparable.
In both of your examples, both players had the ability to try. The problem is with Blizzard giving rewards to the people THEY selected in the first place. Personally, I believe being selected to participate is just reward by itself, but to further aggravate loyal fans who would love the chance to be picked but weren't, by making it absolutely impossible to reap the same rewards, somehow, is absurb. Everyone who has played Diablo 2 to some extent knows how random MF'ing can be, that's the point. However, everyone has the ability to keep running stuff and increasing their chances through more attempts. Eventually they will be rewarded with good drops. It will happen in time. Rewarding people who were selected by Blizzard to participate is not analogous to your example because the ones who weren't selected had absolutely no definite control over their chances to play the beta.
Personally, I don't care. The FoS is worthless and people that actually care about them will ignore it because they know it was completely luck based. The sigil is the worst offense, but I really could care less about what someone's stupid banner looks like, because I will never be looking at them anyways. I just think it's a dumb move by Blizzard because beta testers were expecting nothing and doing this just infuriated a large chunk of their player-base.
"I've cleared the whole game over and over again with 1200% magic find. Then you just walk in and get a godly item on your first trip through inferno! Why should you get a godly item?!?!?! I've been a bigger fan! I've played more! I had more magic find!!!! Why you?!"
Luck. It's a part of the franchise.
This is not even comparable.
In both of your examples, both players had the ability to try. The problem is with Blizzard giving rewards to the people THEY selected in the first place. Personally, I believe being selected to participate is just reward by itself, but to further aggravate loyal fans who would love the chance to be picked but weren't, by making it absolutely impossible to reap the same rewards, somehow, is absurb. Everyone who has played Diablo 2 to some extent knows how random MF'ing can be, that's the point. However, everyone has the ability to keep running stuff and increasing their chances through more attempts. Eventually they will be rewarded with good drops. It will happen in time. Rewarding people who were selected by Blizzard to participate is not analogous to your example because the ones who weren't selected had absolutely no definite control over their chances to play the beta.
Personally, I don't care. The FoS is worthless and people that actually care about them will ignore it because they know it was completely luck based. The sigil is the worst offense, but I really could care less about what someone's stupid banner looks like, because I will never be looking at them anyways. I just think it's a dumb move by Blizzard because beta testers were expecting nothing and doing this just infuriated a large chunk of their player-base.
On the rarest items, the biggest factor is luck. They could drop the first time you kill a mob in the right level range, or they could drop for you... never. And that's for something that is actually coveted, prestigious and does effect the game.
In the beta, people in most regions had a chance at invites at some point, based on luck. Plus you could take the initiative and look for contests to improve your odds. There were even some competitve contests that took some skill. This is not a prestigious reward. It is basically just a marker on your account to commemorate participation in the beta.
It honestly feels a little selfish to me, that people are actually angry about someone being offered something that trivial. When people have played a few days and have sigils that mark more difficult achievements, no one will use this anymore. It's definitely not going to impress anyone, and it's not anything to be jealous or upset about.
As I have said before, Feats of Strength are not Achievements. Nothing tracks your quantity. They are not part of your completion score. There will probably not be dedicated spots for them, but an open form list. None of them mean anything besides what they actually say. They simply point out interesting things about your game history that are fun to remember. You can't fairly say that beta testing a game isn't worth a little reminder. I won't say "deserves" a reminder because testing was fun, and I don't feel anyone is owed this. But Blizzard chose to offer it, I see no problem with that, and I appreciate it.
In both of your examples, both players had the ability to try. The problem is with Blizzard giving rewards to the people THEY selected in the first place. Personally, I believe being selected to participate is just reward by itself, but to further aggravate loyal fans who would love the chance to be picked but weren't, by making it absolutely impossible to reap the same rewards, somehow, is absurb. Everyone who has played Diablo 2 to some extent knows how random MF'ing can be, that's the point. However, everyone has the ability to keep running stuff and increasing their chances through more attempts. Eventually they will be rewarded with good drops. It will happen in time. Rewarding people who were selected by Blizzard to participate is not analogous to your example because the ones who weren't selected had absolutely no definite control over their chances to play the beta.
To be fair, more keys were given out for D3 beta as contest rewards than tickets sold for any given Blizzcon- and you certainly had a level of control when it came to the contests (how many you enter, how vigilant you are to be first poster, etc.). Personally, I got my key from the Gamefront tiwtter giveaway. A lot of people entered, knowing it was going to the first 500 people who retweeted their tweet, and they never followed up on it until all the keys had been given out. If you dont alreayd know, there was a huge snafu with this contest, as Gamefront thought twitter kept a sorted chronological list of the retweets (they dont). They only show a sampling of 50 retweets from the first to the most recent. Thus, the guy could only give them outto people on those list. There was a topic here on D3 that was talking about it (later in the very same topic that advertised the giveaway before it started) where people who had retweeted after some people were getting keys. It was then found out if you tweeted at the guy giving them out asking why you hadnt recieved your key, and he could see you had posted before other people he had given a key too, you were instantly sent one. Thats how I recieved my key: my vigilence in entering contests and following up on them.
At the end of the day you can view it two ways:
1) It was totally random and out of your control. Cool, then that means everyone had the same equal chance of getting the FoS and it's not fair to say "we had no opportunity to get it" when you had just as much of an opportunity as the next guy. You just happened not to get picked, and I'm sorry but thats the nature of random chance. Not worth being angry at those who were lucky, or feel like you were personally cheated by blizzard.
2) The contests were not random and people could increase there chances of getting keys (by using scprits, or creating builds that won contests, entering every single contest, etc.). You could say they had "unfair" advantages, but strictly speaking you had access to all the same resources as they did and could have done what they did. There was nothing preventing you from getting a key this way. Hell, you could have even found and bought one from someone personally. You may disagree with that, but its ludicrious to suggest there is absolutely nothing you could do to get a key- there were simply no things you were willing to do (buy a key, write a script, watch the internet like a hawk for months, etc.). And ultimately more people got the FoS this way then people who have any given blizzcon FoS, so you can't say the contest group alone isn't enough people to warrant a FoS.
In either case, there is no issue of fairness here. There is no reason to feel slighted or cheated out of anything because you weren't owed anything in the first place. You can't say you had no chance because you had the same exact chance as everyone else for the opt-in invites. You also can't say there is nothing you could do to get a key as that is also clearly false as many people did get a key without being randomly selected.
There's just no reason to habor any resentment towards anyone that isn't jealousy at it's core. You wanted to get into beta but didnt get selected. Now that those people are getting something to prove they were in the beta (and thats really all this FoS is- almost every other developer does this) you are angry because you feel like they already got enough. You are mad someone else got something you didnt. That's just all there is to it. And if all else fails and no amount of reason or logic can prevent you from being angry at the 'chosen' or at blizzard- then let them know with your wallet, don't buy diablo 3.
EDIT: This will also be my last post on this subject. The fact this has been an issue at all I find incredibly indicitive of how childish and petty grown ass adults can be with anonimity and the internet.
I dont understand why people are so up in arms about this. If you were lucky enough to get chosen for the closed beta... you get an achievment showing it. Thats it, end of story. Blizzard put thousands of hours of work into this game and you have people bitching about small shit like this? Here you have the company trying to do something cool and you have all these whiney kids crying that they didnt get the beta so its not fair that they cant have the same achievment as the next guy. Let me bitch like a baby when I put in for a free raffle and dont get picked when 100 other people have. I didnt get a chance to have a closed beta so I wont have this achievment and I could literally care less. I feel bad for the people at Blizzard. Guys bust their ass and do everything they can to come out with a sick game and you have to deal with this shit. They couldnt possibly care that people are unhappy with this achievment. A game they have worked on for 9 years is coming out in 4 days, so they have more important shit to deal with.
There are the people that have and the people that dont have. Focus your energy on other stuff and be happy that the game is actually coming out. Dont mean to sound like a dick, but it seems like a rediculous thing to complain about.
I walked into my favorite gas station once, and bought 5 scratch off lottery tickets. Then someone else came in behind me and bought a ticket. We were just chatting nicely while we scratch off the stuff on our tickets and joking about never winning. Then her face just suddenly lights up and she says "I can't believe it! I won 400$!"
Then she went to the cashier, and the cashier says. "Cool! Here, let me go get your mug. We have special mugs for our lottery winners. Also, can I take your picture for the wall? We like to hang up photos of everyone who won over 100$ here." At that point he pointed at a pegboard full of wallet sized photos of smiling lottery winners holding their lucky tickets.
At that point I tripped out COMPLETELY and was all like
"I come here every #%^@ day, and fill up my &*^%ing car!!!!! I eat your *(&^ greasy &(^# chicken twice a $#@!ing week!!!! I collect your *(&^ callendars!!! I bought more tickets, and I've given you my business for years and this stupid *&^%ing little *&^%$ just comes in off the street, buys one *&^#%ing ticket and wins! And if that's not enough, you *&^$ing give her a mug instead of me!! She was already lucky enough to win the lottery, does she need a #$%^ mug too? A mug ... I CAN NEVER HAVE?!?! God it hurts like hell!!!! It's like...... *&^$ salt in my *&$%^ing wounds!!! I'm your biggest fan!!!!!! Why can't I have my picture on the wall!!?!?! I'll never be back here again!!"
I walked into my favorite gas station once, and bought 5 scratch off lottery tickets. Then someone else came in behind me and bought a ticket. We were just chatting nicely while we scratch off the stuff on our tickets and joking about never winning. Then her face just suddenly lights up and she says "I can't believe it! I won 400$!"
Then she went to the cashier, and the cashier says. "Cool! Here, let me go get your mug. We have special mugs for our lottery winners. Also, can I take your picture for the wall? We like to hang up photos of everyone who won over 100$ here." At that point he pointed at a pegboard full of wallet sized photos of smiling lottery winners holding their lucky tickets.
At that point I tripped out COMPLETELY and was all like
"I come here every #%^@ day, and fill up my &*^%ing car!!!!! I eat your *(&^ greasy &(^# chicken twice a $#@!ing week!!!! I collect your *(&^ callendars!!! I bought more tickets, and I've given you my business for years and this stupid *&^%ing little *&^%$ just comes in off the street, buys one *&^#%ing ticket and wins! And if that's not enough, you *&^$ing give her a mug instead of me!! God it hurts like hell!!!! It's like...... *&^$ salt in my *&$%^ing wounds!!! I'm your biggest fan!!!!!! Why can't I have my picture on the wall!!?!?! I'll never be back here again!!"
I walked into my favorite gas station once, and bought 5 scratch off lottery tickets. Then someone else came in behind me and bought a ticket. We were just chatting nicely while we scratch off the stuff on our tickets and joking about never winning. Then her face just suddenly lights up and she says "I can't believe it! I won 400$!"
Then she went to the cashier, and the cashier says. "Cool! Here, let me go get your mug. We have special mugs for our lottery winners. Also, can I take your picture for the wall? We like to hang up photos of everyone who won over 100$ here." At that point he pointed at a pegboard full of wallet sized photos of smiling lottery winners holding their lucky tickets.
At that point I tripped out COMPLETELY and was all like
"I come here every #%^@ day, and fill up my &*^%ing car!!!!! I eat your *(&^ greasy &(^# chicken twice a $#@!ing week!!!! I collect your *(&^ callendars!!! I bought more tickets, and I've given you my business for years and this stupid *&^%ing little *&^%$ just comes in off the street, buys one *&^#%ing ticket and wins! And if that's not enough, you *&^$ing give her a mug instead of me!! She was already lucky enough to win the lottery, does she need a #$%^ mug too? A mug I can never have?!?! God it hurts like hell!!!! It's like...... *&^$ salt in my *&$%^ing wounds!!! I'm your biggest fan!!!!!! Why can't I have my picture on the wall!!?!?! I'll never be back here again!!"
Now everyone thinks I'm crazy.
I understand and often feel the same way. you should know we still love you here!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If that made sense to you, Bravo! I think I even confused myself...
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Let me articulate why you don't think this fair is completely unjustified:
Blizzard has stated in the past feats of strength were something very difficult or something that is impossible to obtain anymore.
Yup. This is how FoS work. This is also why they don't give achievement points, but are simply badges of proof for being in a limited number of people for a certain event.
They have maintained however through actions and wording that everyone has a chance at the feats.
"Equal chance" in this regard can be interpreted somewhat subjectively. For example, opening the gates of AQ40 could have technically been done by anyone, but certainly we can't say everyone had an EQUAL chance at it. Only one person on the server could do it, and the quests that were required to get the hammer to ring the gong were only completable by a servers top guild(s). An entire guild that is the best on a given server all working so a single individual could ring the gong- hardly something everyone had equal access to. Another example is Blizzcon- whose tickets sell out within hours of going on sale. Clearly there are more people trying to get tickets than there are tickets, even at the moment of becoming available. Not everyone of them is going to be lucky enough to get a ticket.
But with this beta that has been flipped, not everyone could have a chance for this feat, infact short of black martket buying a CD Key from a fansite there was no way to be guaranteed to get it.
Here is where you logic train jumps the tracks into a chasm. How is being lucky enough to get into beta any different than getting lucky enough to get one of a few thousand blizzcon tickets when tens of thousands compete to get them? For the ten thousand people all clicking "Buy Tickets Now!" the second they go one sale, and all the people opted into the beta, they both have an equal chance of getting the tickets or invite, and certainly not all of them are going to get what they wanted.
I also want to ask, how in the hell could you possibly say "not everyone could have a chance for this feat" when everyone had a chance? An equal chance to be precise when it comes to opt in invites. And for contests, well clearly everyone had an equal chance at those as well. I guess you could say "the contests weren't equal- some people used bots and scripts to get the twitter keys!" Well yeah, and you could have used those scripts too. It's no different than someone needing an entire server top guild to get the AQ40 feat. while some people have greater access to tools, everyone still ad an equal chance of using those tools.
And yes, you could also just buy a key from someone. you can also buy CEs on ebay for extra mark-up, you can buy blizzcon tickets from a scalper for mark up. Everything you can get a feat for can be bought. In fact, since you can buy accounts on 3rd party sites or on ebay, you can buy any item in any game ever! The fact someone can buy a beta key means absolutely nothing to this issue- you can buy anything with money because it's a fucking form of currency. If you have issues with that then god help your soul.
Now before you say things like "well I never had a chance to get a gladiator FoS.". This is false you had every chance to get it, you just didn't that is why them giving a FoS away for beta after maintaining for years they would never do it alienates their userbase.
By this point it's clear you simply have no idea what the word 'chance' means. You had a chance to get into beta (assuming you were opted in or competed in contests). The same chance as all the other people who were opted in, or entered said contests. Unfortunately you didn't get chosen. But thats what chance is. It sounds like what you want is for a series of actions someone can do, and if they do them they get a feat. That's not chance. Thats a Gurantee. Thats not what feats exist for.
that's my 2 cents
Thanks for letting us know you are a jealous bitter human being.
It's just insulting. Write a report about how you think it isn't, it's not changing my mind.
These people aren't being "further rewarded". It is a thank-you to people testing the game. Get over yourselves.
Only de Friends and Family beta testers had an "unfair" advantage and got in the beta easily.
I think that is a pretty good idea haha
Yeah, lulz, right? That's the whole point of forums - discussing stuff. Wow, how many times do I have to say this?
Thousands of people feeling cheated because they didn't win a random drawing lottery where the prize was a few pixels in a video game that hasn't been released yet that do not affect gameplay at all: abandon all hope in mankind
EDIT:
I do think Blizzard underestimated how petty people can be though, and I don't think this was a good move on their part. No one was cheated because they didn't get in a closed beta that was advertised as such, and no one should feel cheated because the people lucky enough to get a random invite also get a FoS and sigil that only shows that they were LUCKY.
It's ok for those who didn't get in, to be bothered by it. Every single one of us on these boards is different. We think differently, we process things differently and we act/react differently. What is or is not a big deal is totally relative/subjective. As a husband and father my perspective concerning what is or isn't important has changed radically compared to where I was at even 10 years ago and I recognize that growth in myself for which I'm grateful. That said, I can't say for certain that 20 years ago I wouldn't have been upset over what many of you see as a slight for not being chosen to participate in the Beta and therefore I don't judge you. I was lucky enough to get into the Beta but I also know myself well enough at this point to know that I certainly wouldn't care about not getting this FoS had I not been "chosen". I truly do believe that once the game goes live and we are fighting back the hordes of hell, that this "issue" will quickly become a non issue (as it already is for many of us) and will be forgotten by a good % of those that currently do care.
Check out my Youtube channel: RetroGameClips
This is not even comparable.
In both of your examples, both players had the ability to try. The problem is with Blizzard giving rewards to the people THEY selected in the first place. Personally, I believe being selected to participate is just reward by itself, but to further aggravate loyal fans who would love the chance to be picked but weren't, by making it absolutely impossible to reap the same rewards, somehow, is absurb. Everyone who has played Diablo 2 to some extent knows how random MF'ing can be, that's the point. However, everyone has the ability to keep running stuff and increasing their chances through more attempts. Eventually they will be rewarded with good drops. It will happen in time. Rewarding people who were selected by Blizzard to participate is not analogous to your example because the ones who weren't selected had absolutely no definite control over their chances to play the beta.
Personally, I don't care. The FoS is worthless and people that actually care about them will ignore it because they know it was completely luck based. The sigil is the worst offense, but I really could care less about what someone's stupid banner looks like, because I will never be looking at them anyways. I just think it's a dumb move by Blizzard because beta testers were expecting nothing and doing this just infuriated a large chunk of their player-base.
http://i.imgur.com/O7Oeo.png
I received TWO beta keys. Eat it and like it.
On the rarest items, the biggest factor is luck. They could drop the first time you kill a mob in the right level range, or they could drop for you... never. And that's for something that is actually coveted, prestigious and does effect the game.
In the beta, people in most regions had a chance at invites at some point, based on luck. Plus you could take the initiative and look for contests to improve your odds. There were even some competitve contests that took some skill. This is not a prestigious reward. It is basically just a marker on your account to commemorate participation in the beta.
It honestly feels a little selfish to me, that people are actually angry about someone being offered something that trivial. When people have played a few days and have sigils that mark more difficult achievements, no one will use this anymore. It's definitely not going to impress anyone, and it's not anything to be jealous or upset about.
As I have said before, Feats of Strength are not Achievements. Nothing tracks your quantity. They are not part of your completion score. There will probably not be dedicated spots for them, but an open form list. None of them mean anything besides what they actually say. They simply point out interesting things about your game history that are fun to remember. You can't fairly say that beta testing a game isn't worth a little reminder. I won't say "deserves" a reminder because testing was fun, and I don't feel anyone is owed this. But Blizzard chose to offer it, I see no problem with that, and I appreciate it.
To be fair, more keys were given out for D3 beta as contest rewards than tickets sold for any given Blizzcon- and you certainly had a level of control when it came to the contests (how many you enter, how vigilant you are to be first poster, etc.). Personally, I got my key from the Gamefront tiwtter giveaway. A lot of people entered, knowing it was going to the first 500 people who retweeted their tweet, and they never followed up on it until all the keys had been given out. If you dont alreayd know, there was a huge snafu with this contest, as Gamefront thought twitter kept a sorted chronological list of the retweets (they dont). They only show a sampling of 50 retweets from the first to the most recent. Thus, the guy could only give them outto people on those list. There was a topic here on D3 that was talking about it (later in the very same topic that advertised the giveaway before it started) where people who had retweeted after some people were getting keys. It was then found out if you tweeted at the guy giving them out asking why you hadnt recieved your key, and he could see you had posted before other people he had given a key too, you were instantly sent one. Thats how I recieved my key: my vigilence in entering contests and following up on them.
At the end of the day you can view it two ways:
1) It was totally random and out of your control. Cool, then that means everyone had the same equal chance of getting the FoS and it's not fair to say "we had no opportunity to get it" when you had just as much of an opportunity as the next guy. You just happened not to get picked, and I'm sorry but thats the nature of random chance. Not worth being angry at those who were lucky, or feel like you were personally cheated by blizzard.
2) The contests were not random and people could increase there chances of getting keys (by using scprits, or creating builds that won contests, entering every single contest, etc.). You could say they had "unfair" advantages, but strictly speaking you had access to all the same resources as they did and could have done what they did. There was nothing preventing you from getting a key this way. Hell, you could have even found and bought one from someone personally. You may disagree with that, but its ludicrious to suggest there is absolutely nothing you could do to get a key- there were simply no things you were willing to do (buy a key, write a script, watch the internet like a hawk for months, etc.). And ultimately more people got the FoS this way then people who have any given blizzcon FoS, so you can't say the contest group alone isn't enough people to warrant a FoS.
In either case, there is no issue of fairness here. There is no reason to feel slighted or cheated out of anything because you weren't owed anything in the first place. You can't say you had no chance because you had the same exact chance as everyone else for the opt-in invites. You also can't say there is nothing you could do to get a key as that is also clearly false as many people did get a key without being randomly selected.
There's just no reason to habor any resentment towards anyone that isn't jealousy at it's core. You wanted to get into beta but didnt get selected. Now that those people are getting something to prove they were in the beta (and thats really all this FoS is- almost every other developer does this) you are angry because you feel like they already got enough. You are mad someone else got something you didnt. That's just all there is to it. And if all else fails and no amount of reason or logic can prevent you from being angry at the 'chosen' or at blizzard- then let them know with your wallet, don't buy diablo 3.
EDIT: This will also be my last post on this subject. The fact this has been an issue at all I find incredibly indicitive of how childish and petty grown ass adults can be with anonimity and the internet.
There are the people that have and the people that dont have. Focus your energy on other stuff and be happy that the game is actually coming out. Dont mean to sound like a dick, but it seems like a rediculous thing to complain about.
Then she went to the cashier, and the cashier says. "Cool! Here, let me go get your mug. We have special mugs for our lottery winners. Also, can I take your picture for the wall? We like to hang up photos of everyone who won over 100$ here." At that point he pointed at a pegboard full of wallet sized photos of smiling lottery winners holding their lucky tickets.
At that point I tripped out COMPLETELY and was all like
"I come here every #%^@ day, and fill up my &*^%ing car!!!!! I eat your *(&^ greasy &(^# chicken twice a $#@!ing week!!!! I collect your *(&^ callendars!!! I bought more tickets, and I've given you my business for years and this stupid *&^%ing little *&^%$ just comes in off the street, buys one *&^#%ing ticket and wins! And if that's not enough, you *&^$ing give her a mug instead of me!! She was already lucky enough to win the lottery, does she need a #$%^ mug too? A mug ... I CAN NEVER HAVE?!?! God it hurts like hell!!!! It's like...... *&^$ salt in my *&$%^ing wounds!!! I'm your biggest fan!!!!!! Why can't I have my picture on the wall!!?!?! I'll never be back here again!!"
Now everyone thinks I'm crazy.
I understand and often feel the same way. you should know we still love you here!