275,000 Diablo III Beta Invites

You heard correctly. 275,000 invites are on their way to battle.net account holders across the globe. We recently scoffed at the measly 8 beta keys that Blizzard Customer Service has been tweeting over the past few days in comparison to the 750,000 keys awarded to Panda Packers. It seems that they’re finally stepping it up as we draw ever closer to the release date.

We’re in the process of sending out 275,000 Diablo III beta invites to our opt-in testers. As it’ll take us a while to notify all the lucky invitees, we recommend heading to your Battle.net Account Management and seeing if you’ve received a Diablo III beta license. If you have, you’re good to go! Download the beta client and use your Battle.net account and password to log in once it’s installed. While you’re logged into your Account Management page though, don’t forget to create your BattleTag. You can choose this permanent account-wide nickname by clicking on the BattleTag “Create one now” link on the left side of your main Battle.net Account page. Choose wisely as there’s no current ability to change it. A BattleTag is required to play Diablo III, and so whether you get into beta or not you should pick one while you’re there.

Keep in mind that with such a large amount of invites for our test hardware we fully expect a strong possibility of stress test issues, such as an inability to log in, disconnections, and potential lag/latency. We’ll also be testing our queuing system ,which you may see when attempting to enter a game.

Thank you for your continued help, feedback, and patience as we approach the May 15 release.

I’m also curious about this “queueing system” for games. Perhaps I just took it for granted that since everything is instanced, there wouldn’t really be queuing problems once the game launched. Since the game does not have the vast amount of servers World of Warcraft does, it begs to question how impacted the servers will be at release.

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112 thoughts on “275,000 Diablo III Beta Invites”

  2. +26

    Hey, it’s that time to be disappointed again!

    Awright, e’mail from Blizzard, I GOT MY BANNAR PIKTURE!

    WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU ARE THE BESTEST BLIZZARD, THANKS!

    • +1

      hey i was just wondering what you do to get this beta key i have been trying everything since dec.

  4. +45

    I’d be willing to wager I wouldn’t get an invite even if they sent out 250 million of the things…

    • who knew europeans were so doleful all the time, reminds me of Eeyore
      also, eu has gotten keys

      • +3

        Evidence?

        I see a thread on the US forums with 51 pages of happy Americans and the same thread on the EU forums with 19 pages of Europeans trying to figure out if a single one of them got an invite.  As far as I can see, nobody from the EU got invited despite blue reassurances that it’s a global wave.

        If we sound depressed it’s with damn good reason.  Feels like being the adopted child whose parents say they love you but we know the truth….! 

  7. +8

    Ugh. Still nothing. Might as well wait until May 15th. At this point i don’t care to be stopped at lvl 13 anyways. I’ll wait..

      • +3

        No dude, this point of view is the dumbest of all, i don’t know where you ppl come up with this stuff! Let us not forget that they DID take their sweet time; they are the Duke Nukem Forever of RPGs. If they announced that NOW they needed more time, what would you say then? “No problem, after XXX years of wait it’s nothing”? NO DUDE. Wait – it has happened like >5 times now… Look at how stupid it sounds: after 10(!!) years, more waiting is no big deal? It has been a big deal for a VERY long time now.

        • +1

          Guess again, this NEVER happened in the history of Blizzard, once a Release Date is set ( saying, “We might release it in 2011 or Q1 2012” isn’t the same thing), they won’t change it unless there was an apocalypse in CA.

    • I read that as “in the process” of sending emails. I think it’s just the email that takes a while. I’m assuming that’s why they tell you to check your b.net account.

  10. +1

    Well, although a queuing system isn’t optimal – it’s better then unplayable lag on launchday

  15. +12

    Wow..this is stupid, signed up when they first announced it, even my friend who opt in a few months afterwards received it..

    • Well doing a beta isn’t about giving keys on a “first come, first served” base. They want to test the game on as many PC / MAC configurations possible. So that would be their primary way of selecting who gets a key and who doesn’t. Makes perfect sense to me, they still want to actually TEST their game :p

      • +4

        Then maybe they should kick out the people that just play it as a customer preview so people that actually care about testing the game can do that.

        • Well people playing it as a customer preview, are in fact… customers… And since they want to sell the game to customers, so those would also be a good testing audience right?! I even think it’s best for a beta test to have both of those audiences… real testers who will click on almost anything to see if it’s not bugged, and people who actually play the game like a real customer would play it. But that’s just my opinion, it makes the most sense to me  😉

          • Eagle you’re absolutely right! Except you forgot me in your calculations… Where is my key for crying out loud!  :mrgreen:

  17. Zippedidodah!  But I can’t get in right now…servers are apparently stressed, all right!
     
     

    • Having the same problem. I will be sitting here patiently watching PATV until it lets me start playing.

  19. +1

    Do you not remember game creation queues for Diablo 2? I’m not sure what this has to do with “instancing”.

  20. +5

    Personally I think customer loyalty should count for something on these things. Preorder + multiple wow-accounts + every game they have on Battle.net = no beta for you sucker. (As you can tell I have some bias on this issue :p)

    Although I blaim their system testing tool for me never getting an invite. It misreports my gfx memory as 6GB. Probably gets me auto-shitboxed for obviously incorrect hardware details.

    • My GFX memory is listed as 9.22 GB and I received a beta invite today so I don’t think that is the cause.

  21. +1

    I have yet to get into a beta with enough time to actually play. I always get in at the last second at least with the SC2 beta never got into any before and I doubt I will get into the D3 beta as well. Yeah I am really annoyed at not being able to get in as my pc sucks and I wanna make sure the game runs before I purchase it.
     
    Crappy intel penitum dual core e2180 at 2ghz and a 9600gt 512mb, 3gb of ram on windows 7 32bit

    • Hey Topken, don’t be discouraged about your PC. I’ve got all settings on high including Anti-Aliasing and also have a 9600gt 512MB. Granted my CPU is Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz with 4GB RAM Win 7 64-bit – but still, I consider my graphics card to be low/mid-range and it runs the game flawlessly.

  23. +2

    I preordered the game and i can select ‘D3BETA’ on my battlenet profile at Blizzard’s forums, yet I can’t play beta.
     
    Oh you tease blizzard! You little tease, you!

  24. I got a key! But can’t login getting that strange ERROR 75 when I attempt to login … annoyed… I waited for such a long time it’s right here at my finger tips..all that stand between me and the burning hells is a battle.net error message… gotta love it…..maybe all error codes in diablo could be 666..HAR HAR..
     

  26. +1

    I got mine! Downloading now. I was so sure I wouldn’t get in (was counting more on the Panda beta to come, since I have the annual pass) that I didn’t bother downloading the beta client in advance. I do have the Full game client ready and waiting for lunch though!

    • +1

      Been playing for about 2 hours. Got my first death from some random boss teleporter unburied with 2 adds. I was character lvl8.

  27. +1

    👿 Got one! Hard to believe I must say. After all this time reading about others getting one…….

  28. +2

    No luck here… I really hoped I would get in this time around.
    Could the people who got in with this wave mention the region they’re from? I’m wondering whether it’s mostly US based again.

  31. +1

    Blizz just release the client to everyone like an open beta. it’s only till level 13 it would give you an idea of how the servers can handle things.
    Most of us that are fans and haven’t yet tried the game would love to experience this before it comes out. I’m still skeptical on the customization. I know I’ve seen everything from beta vids/walkthrus but I would love to experience it first hand. We’ll have to start from scratch anyways.

    Yes no beta key for me. Sigh!!!! Since I don’t play WOW I think they are excluding player who have abandoned their MMO. I don’t want to pay $15 anymore.

  34. I’m SUPER excited! I’ve been sharing on my friend’s account and just got my own key! Now we can actually play together! I’ve already written a number of Beta reviews but look forward to sharing in the official channels now.

    As a note about getting in, I tried my new account and it gave me the login error – but I was able to successfully login with my friend’s account still. Seems like this is a great test for them to see what’s going to happen come that fateful Midnight.

    • Yes, error 75. Battle.net service temporary outage. Seems like blizzard trolled 275,000 people. Or I’m not that lucky for getting the key.

  37. +1

    Aaaand I’m still not in the beta. My God, I’d be fine with it if they stopped teasing me like this, like with that stupid twitter contest and then Kaivax saying he’d just give out a bunch of keys a couple days ago. They make it sound like anyone who wants to be in the beta eventually will be, so I feel like a chump for continuing to hold out hope.

  40. I assume that you realize that “Panda Packers” is a totally lewd, totally awesome, thing to call a group of people.

  43. That’s more like it. This is the sort of figures that should have been distributed each month.

  45. Aaaaaaaand still no beta invites for my house…
    God damn it….
    Sick of getting hopes up here…

  46. +1

    Jeez I signed up the moment the game was announced on bnet…
    Still no invite. I get into every other freakin’ beta, Dota2, PoE, GW2, etc, etc, etc…
    But no D3, wtf…
     

  48. +1

    Yupp. no key. Think i’ve seen enough of D3 on stream and everything to make myself believe that i have played the beta. Forever alone!

    • Believe me, you pretty much have. It takes like 1 hour to run through the whole thing. Once you’ve tried out the different classes there’s really not much of a reason to go back, and I say this as someone who doesn’t even have beta (played a few hours on somebody else’s account, though).

  51. Mhhhpf, fore sure, i wasnt in this wave too. Surprise surprise.. 🙁

    But anyway. 4,5 weeks to go…is not sooo bad. A lot of things to do to this date.

  52. +1

    Is it still only US invites? What about us in Australia, we don’t even have our own servers and have to play on US servers, give us a chance too 🙁 Should have just faked a US account like everyone else, that’s what I get for playing by the rules.

  53. +2

    wow still nothing.. oh what a suprise…. 🙁 feels like its easier to win the lottery then a beta key rofl..

  54. Again, wave of invites and I have nothing. you would at least think that it would increase your chance that you are from small country with less then 10 mil. of people. But no, bad luck Brian is probably luckier than me.

  56. Got an invite! Australia here and already bought the digital version from Blizzard when it went on sale. Wonder if they mostly gave invites out to people who have bought it?

  57. +5

    I finally got in today, and I gotta say you aren’t missing much if you didn’t get in. It is great to be able to play all the classes and to kill the skeleton king for the first time, but after a couple hours with each class there wasn’t a lot left to do. Don’t get me wrong, the game is great for those first few runs, but becomes stale quickly. And believe me I stayed up for hours and hours and hours trying to win contests jumping through hoops and brushing up on my lore to try and win trivia. But if you’ve watched a couple streams or videos, that’s all you really need.

    The game is going to be absolutely fantastic when it comes out in a month, but the beta is not. I’m kicking myself for wasting all that time trying to win it back in February and for going near insane without it. If anything it will make these next 30 days even more torture than if I didn’t get it. Not saying I won’t play it at all until then, but it is hugely overrated. 

    Also if I saw someone make a post like this when I didn’t have beta, I would say “Why do people like YOU get the beta and not me!” So feel free to hate, but I’m telling you, you aren’t missing much.

  60. +3

    Who else here has tried to get into every beta since Brood war and never been chosen once?  After 14 years of chasing Blizzard beta keys I dont know why it still surprises me that I dont get one.

    • 14 Years?? hehe, thats, mhh, realy unlucky. I got my D2 Beta Key, wow, 100 MB downloading with 56k Modem 🙂 10 Hours but, i was IN. Since these days, no more beta invites from blizz 🙁

  64. +3

    They proved once again that they don’t care about EU fanbase. They expect most of their sales in US so they shower them with keys. Apparently there was a guy that couldn’t even run D3 based on his system specs scan and he still got a key.

  65. +3

    “queueing system”…lol.
    Blizz:Sure you can play single player…but you’ll have to wait for your turn because it’s safer for you…you little muppet. Also your favourite colour is yellow and not red – trust us (it’s so that you can’t see bad things).
    Me: Thanks Blizz – I don’t mind a queue…it’s just like the banks used to be in the old days. Thanks a bunch you guys! Plus I know that once I’m finally in I’ll be able to lag a bit and then disconnect only to rejoin the queue…such a realistic experience you guys provide!
    At launch I’ll be lurking around to see the complaints flood in 😆

  66. +1

    No key here either, EU. Weekend starting, I bet there are over 10k public games at any moment now.

  68. Queing system?!?! Does this mean that people will have to be in a QUEUE in order to PLAY their paid D3 copy?? Is Blizzard absolutely insane?!? I paid 65$ with taxes to preorder this crap and it’s going to have a queue system?!?!

    And I didn’t get a beta invite. But I don’t really care about that, what I care about is the idiot queing system. It BETTER not be in the final game.

  69. No beta invite as well (EU).

    Seems like EU isn’t getting much love. Unless the EU keys will be forthcoming in the next week.

    I only want to test the beta to see if my rig and wireless connection can handle the game well. If not, I wanna be able to upgrade before the game comes out, yes please.

  72. Still nothing and I’m in the US!  WTH, how many more battle net accounts even are there, lol?!

  73. Yeah I’m in the US too.  This sucks!  I’ll never make it.  31 days now at least…

  74. +4

    EU beta thread:

    Has anyone got beta?
    WHERE’S MY KEY?!?!

    US beta thread:
    Thanks i got in,
    GOT IT
    just checked account thanks!!!

    And still in EU we pay more for every Blizzard game, yeah way to go guys.

  75. +2

    Bliz fanboy here at our office. WoW subscriber for, oh, 5-6 years, I forget. Held a gun to my coworkers’ heads to get them on board with D3. First one to buy the game, sign up for beta… sent everyone weekly D3 updates to get them excited. They ALL got beta invites today. Me? Course not. Good irony, Bliz… at least I was finally able to see the game in person. Sigh. 

  76. Yaay, 275k invites, giving even an unluckly individual such as myself high chance, relativly speaking, of getting into beta. So, of course, my bloody account is locked due to “suspicious activities”. FML. I can’t get in, I forgot half the data I need to do something about it (I made my account ages ago) and now I am reduced to whining about it on totally different site. 

  77. just 275000 keys ? they better be well prepared, may is coming and battle.net servers will be filled with people who bought the game. I hope it won’t be as bad a start as we had with Diablo2. There is no single player mode this time around …
     

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