StarCraft II Beta Patching, Phase Two Imminent

A new patch for the StarCraft II beta test has hit Europe, raising hopes that the promised phase two of the test will be starting shortly.

It’s been a month since Blizzard shut down phase one of the StarCraft II, and fans around the world have been patiently waiting for the second phase of the test to begin. Blizzard indicated an early July launch for phase two, ahead of the game’s July 27 worldwide release. Now it’s early July, and something is definitely happening.

That something is a 500MB patch that folks in Europe are busy downloading as we speak. The patch notes are still forthcoming, and upon completion of the patch and launch of the game, players are greeted with a “Battle.net is down for maintenance” message.

The North American version of the beta client currently brings up the game’s login screen, delivering an incorrect version message when players attempt to log in.

Crafty players in the StarCraft II forums have figured out a sneaky way for folks in other regions to get the patch early, though it requires a little editing. There’s a file called ‘realmlist.stf’ in the game’s support folder. Changing an instance of ‘us’ in the file to ‘eu’ changes your region, allowing the patch to download.

I’m sure the Europeans suddenly facing horrifically slow download times will appreciate this tip.

Note that my patch download, seen above, is much larger because I had to do a clean install.

So, who’s suddenly feeling too sick to go to work today?