There's currently no beta date or release date. You could follow the latest news on this site meanwhile.
we might be in Pre-Alpha, tho i think they said that we are in Alpha now, hold on ill go check. sorry couldnt find it, but imo, the fact that they had release all 3 race signifies that we are not in Pre-Alpha anymore. but thats only my opinion. and what !2new said.
i think its alpha too, i think there in alpha because there hosting a small sc2 tornament at this up coming event and i would think who in the hell would host a tornament on a game thats not even out yet? they wouldn't have the this event if they didnt feel that the build they have was close to the final build or atleast on the right track.
My guess is that Sc2 is nearly ready for beat as is but they are waiting until a little while after the WWI to enter it.
I heard, or read, rather, they they were in alpha, a couple of times. I am not sure why they consider to be the turning point between pre-alpha and alpha, but they've passed it. I hope they're ready to go into beta soon, but I am not as sure about it as LK is.
I hope that Blizzard's notorious reputation doesn't show in Starcraft 2's production. I want this game to come out soon, but I also want this game to be good. I don't want to wait 5 more years. Or worse yet not get to play it at all... T_T SC GHOST RIP
I think alpha is when every thing is basically finalized (not meaning that nothing will change just that they are happy with it before extensive testing). Then they start testing it them selves a lot more and that is alpha. while beta is them letting us test it. So I believe it is pre-alpha now
Pre-alpha is the stage where the game is incomplete. It's when they're still working out the coding, mechanics, design, things like that. Alpha is when the game is basically playable (but not perfect) and is distributed to specialized testers for bugs, glitches, and other feedback. Beta is the second last stage where the game is available for people outside the developers/publishers. Closed beta is when only a chosen number of people can participate, as opposed to an open beta, which is when most people can participate and essentially has no limits. The last part is the release candidate stage, or "gold" stage, where the game is ready to be release unless a major bug is found. Karune mentioned that they were handing out copies of SC2 for Blizzard employees to play, so that would mean SC2 is in alpha currently.
Beta is where they do the very extensive testing, and maybe let us play the game to help them balance it as well, Pre-Alpha stage is mainly talking and showing concepts they they / we thought up, they still do testing there, but not as severe as in Beta. so as they arent doing extensive testing, but arent showing us much new concepts, i say that we are in Alpha. there, my sum of what Wlck742 said.
I know the definitions of the stages- I was wondering how we could tell that Blizzard has gone from one to the other.
Karune said a while back that the SC2 team was giving copies to other Blizzard employees to test, which would mean it passed from pre-alpha to alpha.
As far as I can tell from hints and guesses and dates that Blizzard has met, as well as the planning of events in the next few months, Blizzard's alpha is in full swing. I think it's quite possible given the timing of BlizzCon '08 that we will see the beta distributed after that date in October. I believe WWI is mainly to showcase the progress of SC2 and to announce the release of Diablo 3. So be sure to pay attention.
