After Blizzard said they would be inviting 275,000 more beta testers into Diablo III, Blizzard allowed gamers to play the open beta for oneweekend for stress-testing. The beta will be open from 8 p.m. BST. The beta is open to anyone with a Battle.net account. The client is available to download via the Battle.net blog. The beta will last until 6 p.m. BST on Monday. Player classes will be unrestricted, but players will not be able to take their characters past level 13. Blizzard says the purpose of the open beta weekend is to "put the game and servers through their paces" ahead of launch.

The core game will be the same for everyone, but access to beta forums and some aspects of auction-house testing will be for the people invited to the beta tester only.

Blizzard also offered a warning for those who would participate that technical issues were to be expected. "It's very possible that players connecting to the stress test could experience issues with the service," the firm said. "While not ideal, this is exactly why we're having a stress test. We want to catch and analyze as many bugs as possible during this stress test period, so that we can try to ensure a smooth launch."

The closed beta test will continue until May 1, two weeks before the game is officially launched on May 15.