Hearthstone open beta delayed to next year

Blizzard has delayed the open beta for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, saying it's not ready yet. But, it has sent out invites to everyone who signed up by this week, and plans another large scale invite on January 7.

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Last month, Blizzard promised that the Hearthstone beta would begin in December. Considering we have just over a week left in December, and that Blizzard is unlikely to make its employees work over the holiday with only one piece of coal for the fire, it only makes sense that that goal is being pushed back. The company recently confirmed it.

"We believe the right thing to do for the game is to not rush it out into open beta, but to instead hold onto it a little longer to make sure it's ready for wider testing," the company said in a blog update yesterday. "At BlizzCon, we mentioned that we hoped to get the game into a state where it's ready for open beta this month, but we're just not quite there yet. The development team has been working hard to get this out before the end of the year, but our highest priority is that Hearthstone has an awesome launch when all gates are lifted and everyone can download it and play at the same time."

The team says they're "very close" to an open beta, and encourages those already in the beta to keep trying it and reporting feedback as much a they can. To widen that net as much as possible, it has now invited everyone who opted in before December 16. If you've tried to sign up any time before this week, you should be in now. You can still sign up, though, and on January 7 Blizzard will close the opt-ins for the beta entirely and invite everyone who's signed up. That will be the final stage, it seems, before the open beta.

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  • reply
    December 20, 2013 7:40 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Hearthstone open beta delayed to next year.

    Blizzard has delayed the open beta for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, saying it's not ready yet. But, it has sent out invites to everyone who signed up by this week, and plans another large scale invite on January 7.

    • reply
      December 20, 2013 7:50 AM

      That's crazy, this game is more polished than most other companies final release.

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        December 20, 2013 7:58 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 20, 2013 8:16 AM

        If you counterspell a counterspell the card overlay gets stuck on the board, happened to me last night.

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          December 20, 2013 8:36 AM

          Oh I'm not saying it is without bugs but hey a games like BF4 ship all the time. Believe me I am happy they are not pushing it out the door, just surprised they didn't release it for open beta.

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      December 20, 2013 7:53 AM

      At first I was like WHAT?! then I realized that next year is like 12 days away, lol.

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      December 20, 2013 9:22 AM

      WTF I've been signed up for beta for like 6 months and haven't gotten shit!

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        December 20, 2013 12:20 PM

        ^^ this

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        December 21, 2013 8:20 AM

        Search your email acct for Blizzard. I overlooked one from Dec 2. A lot of people have found it this way, seems Gmails filters specifically put this email in a unusual place.

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          December 21, 2013 12:45 PM

          email or not it should show up in my battle.net games right?

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            December 22, 2013 9:30 PM

            No, they send out beta keys. You don't automatically get access to the game.

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      December 20, 2013 9:28 AM

      I've been opted in for the beta since it was announced. Still have not received an invite. Oh well.

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      December 22, 2013 5:14 PM

      I got an invite on dec2 and jist found it yesterday. Im almkst done the tutorial seems pretty cool so far

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