"Can you tell us the total # of people who opted for beta (rounded of course)how many you will initialy pick for testing, what criteria you are outright eliminating for people (such as crappy graphic card specifics) And approximatly how many people will you introduce after initial picksI would like to know if I should even get my hope for getting into beta b4 I get a new comp."

"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 :)"

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

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

"Two questions:
1) Will the first wave of beta invites include any opt-ins or just those who have codes? I know the Wrath beta had both... but there were fewer guaranteed invites than there are for sc2 so I'm curious.
2) 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?(I opted in ages ago - the first day it was available, but a couple of my coworkers didn't know about the opt in until yesterday so I'm asking on their behalf)
If one of you lovely blues would be so kind as to answer these questions, it would be so greatly appreciated ;)"

"1) The first wave will include both opt-ins and those who have/won codes.
2) If you are interested in beta, you can still opt-in, and potentially be invited into the first wave."

"Karune, can you tell us if any/how many Blizzard employees will be participating in the beta along with all us rabid fans?"

"There will be many. I will be on there as well as Karune. Look forward to some challenging matches :)"

"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.
Also, have you considered holding a beta map contest? I might be cool if you did so, with the winning entries shipping in the final game while giving credit to the authors.
Thanks."

"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!"

"I still believe that X amount of people who opted in on day one were guaranteed a spot in beta."

"It doesn't matter at what point you opted in. Those dates will not be considered when the names are taken out of the pool of people that opted in. So someone opting in today will have the same chance of getting into the beta."

"will there be a panda bear guy in sc2?"

"We love easter eggs in our games - so be sure to keep a lookout."