Dustin Browder interviewed on the duration of the Beta

Starcraft2.net.pl sits down with Dustin Browder in which he reveals insight on the lifespan of the SC2 Beta testing period.

In the interview Browder gives fans a hint at the duration of the Starcraft 2 Beta, reveals some statistics gathered from the beta, and talks about upcoming developments.

Starcraft2.net.pl: How long do you expect that the beta test will last?
-Browder: We’re definitely gonna push it as long as we can, we have some hardware deployment that we have to do. We’re definitely be going on here for about another month and then we’ll see what we can do after that. When we have to deploy hardware, when we have to bring it down, prepare for launch but we’re gonna run as long as we possibly can.

Starcraft2.net.pl: This will be few days before release date or maybe some more?
-Browder: It won’t be necessarily just a few days. We do have to take down the servers to prepare for the launch so there will be some time between the launch and when the beta comes down. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be right now.
There will be at least couple weeks or maybe more where the beta is down before launch.

Starcraft2.net.pl: What can we expect in the future patches? We already know that there will be some Facebook integration from today’s announcement. Can you tell me something more about that? Or maybe about map publishing system?
-Browder: So we’re obviously working on map publishing so that you can publish your map on Battle.net and share it with all your friends. We’re adding two levels of publishing plant. We have sort of a beta test publishing which will share with just you and your friends so that you can test your map and see if it’s any good enough before you publish it live for whole world to see. At that point you will be able to control versioning of your map, decide what version of your map you want people to be playing. We also continue to polish a lot of UI elements that you guys aren’t seeing today. Like we have some very rough version of achievements in the beta right now which we’re gonna keep working on before we go live. We’ve got improved profile functionality, we’ve got lots of little tweaks and fixes across Battle.net to sort of bring it up to speed. Once we go live we have patches planned in the future for things like tournament support, for things like obviously chat channels, lots and lots of little features to happen after we go live as well. We’re sorta viewing Battle.net as sort of a more of a living service in StarCraft II. A little more like we do In World of Warcraft where we’re sort of adding as we go and it’s not just major games that see improvements to Battle.net we also do improvements along the way. I don’t know a lot about Facebook integration functions you probably want Greg Canessa for that stuff but that is something that gonna go live with the product. They are putting it in beta patch so that will just allow you to sort of import your Facebook friends into Battle.net allowing you to quickly populate your friends list with people who are playing StarCraft with you.

Starcraft2.net.pl: How do you assess commitment of players in beta test? Do they provide you enough statistic data?
-Browder: We’re seeing lots and lots of play on Battle.net right now. The average Battle.net player right now is playing over 20 games a week. Which is really great. Our highest end players up in platinum leagues are playing upwards of 50 games a week. And this is including players who tried it out for two or three games got beaten down decided they didn’t want to play anymore until game went live when they had more time to learn and left. So that means that the players that are active are playing well above 20 games. They are playing lots and lots of games. We’re seeing a lot of information about balance, we’re seeing lots of feedback on the Battle.net service itself. Like all our betas it’s a great learning experience for us. The fans have really sort of jumped in with both feet, played our game is not the most polished experience yet but they played our game and gave us a lot of great feedback to improve final product.

Hop over to Starcraft2.net.pl for the full interview

Links
Starcraft2.net.pl - Dustin Browder Interview