The Starcraft II Forums are in a state of euphory of the hype-hype kind knowing that Starcraft II Beta is officially about to commence in upcoming days. Karune seems to be very excited too, and has been on a posting spree clarifying some doubts among fans concerning beta opt-in, Blizzcon keys, DirecTV keys, and other topics. Below you have a few of the answers, and I take the chance to remind you that Blizzplanet and Starcraft.IncGamers will be giving away Starcraft II Beta Keys very soon so stick around. Many other fansites will be doing so too.

Beware of fake emails though. If you don’t see a BETA started announcement on our front page, most likely the emails are fake. There are reports on fake emails already.

Blizzard Quote:
Is the Obelisk still in the game?

Karune: The Obelisk is no longer in the game. Instead, the time warp ability which allows a building to produce or research faster for a set duration is now on the Nexus. This opens up several new strategies and the development team is really looking forward to what players will be able to come up with utilizing this ability during beta.

Will the first wave of beta invites include any opt-ins or just those who have codes?

Karune: The first wave will include both opt-ins and those who have/won codes.

Have the first batch of opt-in people to get invites already been chosen or will people who opt in now have a chance at being in that first batch?

Karune: If you are interested in beta, you can still opt-in, and potentially be invited into the first wave.

Can you tell us the total # of people who opted for beta? How many you will initialy pick for testing?

Karune: As you would expect, a lot of people opted in for beta. Additionally, there will be a large capacity for players on beta. During BlizzCon in 08, approximately 20k visitors got beta keys to Blizzard games, which could be used for StarCraft II.

We want to get as many people who have promised keys in as early as we can. Nonetheless, we will also have a large percentage in based on computer specs, to adequately test the game on several hardware types as well.

I would wait until beta starts to see if you’ve gotten a key in the first wave if you are only buying a computer for beta. Though don’t forget – betas lead to game launches smile

You wouldn’t happen to know what happened to those random beta invites that DirecTV customers would get, if they watched the Blizzcon stream?

Karune: I believe they have their email info and if selected, they will be sent a beta key when beta begins.

It’s been said that Galaxy will be available in the beta. Will this be available from the very beginning, or will it surface later on in the beta testing phase.

Karune: The Galaxy editor is a project that the development team takes very seriously. They are working very hard to make the editor user friendly and powerful out of the box. Taking these priorities in with also getting StarCraft II ready to be tested in beta, the editor will be available for beta testing, but not at the beginning of beta. You can be sure that beta will involve patches, fixes, content updates- one of which will be the Galaxy editor.

This is going to be fun though – I’m excited!

Will there be a panda bear guy in sc2?

Karune: We love easter eggs in our games – so be sure to keep a lookout.