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Unfortunately we don't know more exact how much earlier StarCraft II will hit the stores, but we have an inkling to how close to completion that game is. It looked very well advanced into its development cycle at [[BlizzCon 2008]] and [[BlizzCon 2009]], with virtually all of the units playable.
Blizzard has stated StarCraft II is to be released in the first half of 2010, and beta started on 17th February 2010. A long beta test is expected for StarCraft, as the complicated multiplayer aspects of the game will need to be extensively play tested and balanced. Blizzard has also said and confirmed on several occasions that the game will be released in the first half of 2010.
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==Starcraft II First==
[[Image:Diablo_III_Logo.jpg|right|400px]]
[[Blizzard Entertainment|Blizzard]] has repeatedly confirmed that [[StarCraft II]] will be released before [[Diablo III]], but that D3 will be out before the first ''expansion '' of StarCraft. Since blizzard Blizzard announced they want to create one expansion a year (roughly) after release, we can expect D3 within /around a year from SC2 release.
Unfortunately we don't know more exactly how much earlier StarCraft II will hit the stores, but we have an inkling to how close to completion that game is. The game has so far gone through most of it's major changes, with all units planned for the game available and decently balanced. Minor tweaking is still in progress, but no massive changes have been done in the last few months. As Blizzard had decided to split the SC2 single player campaigns into three different games, that should speed things this naturally speeded along since nearly the entire team can dedicate themselves to working on the main game, with just the Terran SP missions and [[Battle.net|Battle.net 2.0]] 2.0Right now, there's no major delay, although Battle.net was the one major issue to keep the game from entering beta back in April 2009. The latter Blizzard has stated StarCraft II is what to be released in the first half of 2010, and beta started on 17th February 2010. A long beta test is keeping expected for StarCraft, as the complicated multiplayer aspects of the game delayedwill need to be extensively play tested and balanced, but not longer than late June 2010. Blizzard has huge plans for [[Battle.net|Battle.net 2.0]]also said, and confirmed on several occasions, that the game will be released in the first half of 2010.
If StarCraft II is released in spring 2010 and Blizzard's original estimates were somewhat accurate, <b style="color:white;">then we can expect Diablo III somewhere between autumn 2010 and winter 2011</b>.
This, of course, assumes that the statement made back in 2008 about Diablo III being released before StarCraft II's expansions still old true. Seeing as the two development teams are both Blizzard, one could argue the "delay level" of them would be equal, and from a release point of view, it makes more sense to release their new game before an expansion anyway. Whether or not Blizzard are still aiming for "one expansion per year" for StarCraft II is unknown, however.
Estimates of a % completed are discouraged by Blizzard development teams, since there's no way to quantify the process in that fashion. They spent years working on the foundation of Diablo III: programming the game engine, trying out numerous different styles of art design, coming up with a plot and character concepts, etc. The hardware and foundational work takes as long or longer than adding in the content, which makes it impossible to estimate the overall % completed.
However, we can wager a guess that [[Act I]] is likely relatively close to "completion", and [[Act II]] possibly so as well. At this time, we do not have 100% confirmation if Act I will be centred around [[Tristram]] and Act II around [[Caldeum]]Blizzard has said this is the order of the acts, in the [[Alcarnus]] mining areabut anything can change before release. The order of the acts might very well be something completely different. No hints have been made about Act III.
==Diablo III Demo==
Blizzard has not said anything specifically about the upcoming demo of Diablo III, but when talking about StarCraft II, they said they had plans for a demo, and that they "use to do that after release". Most likely, we can expect a trial version of Diablo III ''after release''.