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General Information
Overview
The Closed Beta is a special phase of Blizzard Entertainment's process of getting the kinks and bugs out of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, before its final release. It is only available to individuals in the United States and Canada, who are 17 or more years of age, as well as a limited amount of Korean testers in cyber cafes. This is because Blizzard wanted to reduce confusion caused by varying time zones throughout the world.
The process consists of these steps:
- Blizzard Entertainment opens the beta sign-ups at the official website, for a period of one week: April 4, 2001 to April 11, 2001. The sign-ups begin at 12:00 P.M. PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) on April 4, and end at 12:00 P.M. PDT on April 11.
- Blizzard filters out entries that do not meet the requirements of the beta test, and then selects the around 2,500 testers.
- Selected testers are notified by e-mail within one week, that they are going to be one of the privileged.
- Battle.Net is prepared for the beta testers. The beta CDs are manufactured and then mailed to each of the selected testers, and the beta test begins.
- Beta testers begin to log on to Battle.Net. They may discover bugs and report them to Blizzard, so that they can be fixed. Also, minor changes to the game may be implemented in patches.
- After anywhere between a week and a month (usually), the beta test ends, and Blizzard prepares the product for the final testing. After this is completed, it is manufactured, and prepared for a worldwide release.
The closed beta is playable only on Battle.Net, Blizzard Entertainment's free online gaming service. This is because most of the bugs in the game itself have been eliminated, but Blizzard North needs assistance in finding as many remaining problems as possible, before the final release of the Expansion. Many of the remaining bugs may only show up in multi-player games including players with different latencies (connection speeds). Whether the problems are from bad latency, disappearing items, or other issues, they need to be fixed.
Again, why was the closed beta chosen for players in the United States and Canada, only? Blizzard wants to have a smaller group of testers who would be playing on their main servers. Having testers play on a concentrated group of servers, and on only one Realm (US West, except in the case of Korean testers) allows any major problems to be fixed more easily. If more areas were open to testing, issues could plague many more servers, causing increased confusion and downtime. About 2,500 testers are being chosen from those who sign up at Blizzard's website.
How to Get the Beta
The only way to get your hands on the Expansion Set before the final version is available in stores is to sign up at Blizzard's website during the sign up phase. Then, all you can hope for is to be selected. If you are lucky enough to be one of the selected testers: congratulations! Otherwise, remember that it isn't legal for anyone to copy the closed beta using a CD-R or CD-RW drive, so we don't recommend it. Additionally, each copy of the beta has its own Battle.Net CD-Key, and those that are detected as being used by more than one computer at a time will be deactivated.
Here are the requirements for applicants to the beta test:
- Must be a resident of the United States or Canada. (Except for a few Korean testers.)
- Must be 17+ years of age.
System Requirements
There are certain requirements to be able to run the beta on your computer. You need the following to qualify:
- Your computer must be at least a Pentium 233 processor or equivalent
- It must be equipped with 64 MB RAM or more.
- You must have a mouse.
- You must have a 4X (or faster) CD-ROM drive.
- A DirectX-compatible SVGA video card is required. 3D cards are optional.
- You must be running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 (with service pack 5), or Windows 2000 (running with local Administrator privileges).
- You must have an internet connection, which must be capable of running 32-bit Windows socket applications (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer).
- About 550MB of free space on the hard drive you have Diablo II installed on. With Diablo II and the beta included, it requires a total of 1.5 GB.
Features of the Beta
The Closed Beta for the Diablo II Expansion Set will include all of the quests, areas, new items, and new features that Blizzard is adding. It includes all of Act V (5), the Assassin and Druid character classes, new monsters, the new items: Elite items, Ethereal items, Runes, Jewels, Charms, etceteras, and everything else. Everything except for the ending cinematic from the Expansion Set will be featured on the beta CD.
In summary, the features of the beta:
- Act V (5) -- all quests and areas, as well as the introduction cinematic.
- Enhancements to past Acts.
- All improvements and changes currently being made to Diablo II by the Expansion.
- All the new items and monsters.
Where to Report Bugs
If you're selected as one of the testers, you will be able to report bugs, issues, and etceteras at a special section of Blizzard Entertainment's website, once the beta test has actually started.
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