I thought it was time to do a quick update because this is an important week for us. Our multiplayer Beta for The Battle for Middle-earth II has gone live! If you pre-order The Battle for Middle-earth II, we're giving you a chance to play the game before anyone else - and even better, help us improve the game before we ship it. We're making two factions and two maps available for on-line play along with two single-player tutorials. We're also opening a forum for reporting issues and suggestions; we want you to provide us with feedback about balance, bugs, and improvements. I look forward to hearing from our community about the game.

So what exactly is in the Beta? The two factions are Dwarves and Goblins - but we're also giving you a peek at our new combined Men of the West side in the tutorials. All Dwarven and Goblin units, structures, and powers are available. The Beta maps are Harlindon (a verdant peninsula that allows for cool battles on both land and sea) and Withered Heath (a frozen wasteland in the northeast region of Middle-earth). The tutorials run about 30-45 minutes (combined) and give you a hands-on introduction to unit control, base building, capturing, formations, powers, and other game mechanics. You'll command troops from Gondor in an operation against the Goblins in the Northern Lands.