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==Beta Announcement Coming Soon?==
An announcement about the start time for the beta test is expected in the Q1/2011 Activision/Blizzard conference call, scheduled to take place in early May, 2011. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/activision-blizzard-q4-2010-investor-conference-call/]
<blue>“D3 <b>Thomas Tippl:</b>D3 development continues to go well, and we’re very excited about the game... I’m looking forward to sharing more news about the game, and our upcoming beta, during the next conference call.”</blue>
==Will there be a Diablo III beta test?==
Yes. This was always all but confirmedcertain, but it was officially stated in various interviews from Blizzcon 2010.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-3-beta-confirmed/][http://www.vg247.com/2010/10/27/interview-diablo-iiis-jason-bender-and-christian-lichtner-talk-demon-hunters-pvp-blizzard-on-consoles-tons-more/]
::[[<blue><br>Christian Lichtner]]: </b> There will be a closed beta. I can say that. We definitely will have that. It’s incredibly important for us to get feedback from people. You know, we only want to put a game out there when it’s done. For example, when ''World of Warcraft'' had its really long beta, everyone thought it was madness. It was like “Who’s gonna buy this game? People have been playing it for free for months!” And all it did was make the game better. We need it. We need people playing the game and giving feedback, so we can make the game better.</blue>
Prior to this, [[Jay Wilson]] spoke about the benefits of beta testing. [http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/2662371]
::'''<blue><font color="#FFFFFF"><i><b>AG: </b> Blizzard has always been great at showing games to people at an early stage and I'm interested in that idea. Do you think there are risks of showing games to people early? What's your philosophy behind that?'''''</b></i></font>
::'''[[<b>Jay]]Wilson:''' </b>There's only a risk – this is going to sound snarky – but there's only a risk to your ego. If your game is good then people will recognise that it's good. If it's not good, then you need to learn from that and make it better. A lot of the times I think people don't want to show their game early. It's something that some clutch close to their chests – they don't want something that misrepresents them. I can understand that, but the thing is – players only remember the last thing you showed them. So if you show them something and they're like "oh my god that was horrible" then you go "oh geez, then let's go back and make it better". But at least now you know why, at least now you have some information.''<br>One of the reasons why we actually prefer a really long window before we release a game is because we want a lot of feedback; we want to hear what people like and don't like about it; we want to give them several opportunities to play it before release. We play our games constantly before we release them; we give them to the other development teams and we get feedback. We do very long betas and alphas that we include a lot of people – not just from the fanbase, but from the game industry as a whole. We get a lot of other game developers playing our games – months and months before we release – and I would say, look at the success of Blizzard games. If other companies think it's a risk, a bad idea... obviously it's not, because we've done very well on that front.</blue>
::One of the reasons why we actually prefer a really long window before we release a game is because we want a lot of feedback; we want to hear what people like and don't like about it; we want to give them several opportunities to play it before release. We play our games constantly before we release them; we give them to the other development teams and we get feedback. We do very long betas and alphas that we include a lot of people – not just from the fanbase, but from the game industry as a whole. We get a lot of other game developers playing our games – months and months before we release – and I would say, look at the success of Blizzard games. If other companies think it's a risk, a bad idea... obviously it's not, because we've done very well on that front.''
==How do I register for the Diablo III Beta Test?==