With Blizzcon 2010 taking place over the weekend and plenty of panel discussions, tournaments and announcements relating to all of Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming games, we hoped we might get closer to hearing about a rough Diablo III release date.

That didn't happen sadly, but Blizzard did talk briefly about an upcoming beta phase that will launch shortly. The first stage of beta is likely to be closed only to specific game testers and Blizzard employees, but Blizzard has said that if all goes well it will be open to the public.

Nevertheless, it looks like we'll still have a long time to wait before the full release.