Diablo 3 beta servers down after accidental 'Starter Edition' release

The Diablo 3 beta servers have been temporarily taken offline, after users discovered a glitch allowing free access to anyone with a Battle.net account. Community manager "Nethaera" said an update on the outages will be issued at approximately 11am PDT (2pm EDT). The beta is currently "unavailable until further notice."

Ars Technica reports that starting around 6am EDT, a glitch inadvertently allowed free access to something called the "Starter Edition" of Diablo 3 to anyone with a Battle.net account, whether or not they had access to the Diablo 3 beta.

Here's where it gets really interesting, as if free Diablo 3 weren't already interesting. The previously unannounced "Starter Edition" that was distributed in this manner had all the features of the beta, Ars reports, but occasionally asked players to buy the complete game. In other words, it was a free-to-play version of Diablo 3, or a feature-rich demo. Those are kind of the same thing.