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DiabloDay - Polish BN-Retail Chronicle

The Beta Versions

There were actually two beta versions of Diablo:
-Beta1: This version is technically equal to the Beta2, except that it included all 16 dungeon levels and a different graphics set for cain, not found in any other known version of the game.

Besides some balancing changes and bugfixes these versions are pretty close to the final version.
We also have all three character classes with different graphic sets (finally!)
-Beta2: This version was limited to 1000 players (the ring of 1000) that were supposed to test the reliability of the battle.net. They got to play all three character classes and were able to clear the first five levels (4 church, 1 catacombs). The interface was equal to the final version with the exception that you had a spellbook with six instead of four pages. Some quest descriptions were different and some weren't working. Check the quest section for more information.

Detailed Screenshot analysis!
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This warning will be displayed every time you start the Beta2. Note that Blizzard talks about multiplayer quests. In the retail version of Diablo there are 16 quests and only four of them are available in multiplayer. They intended to make the multiplayer part as interesting&complex (story- and questwise) as the singleplayer, but never got to it as the number of MP quests available in the Beta (Leoric and Butcher) hasn't increased in the retail with these two quests still being the only available quests in the first five (three) levels. The addition of all quests in MP mode (and the quests that were taken out completely) would've made Diablo an even better experience!
But as the multiplayer mode was a quick addition, shortly before the release of the game, I guess they ran out of time and couldn't fix the synchronisation issues that came with most of the quests.
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Here we see the title screen of the Beta2. The main difference is that it uses a "high quality" rendering from the game's intro instead of the well known Diablo head. The position of the Diablo logo and the displayed text is a little bit different.
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The main menu. Note the version number in the lower left corner, which is actually the date the beta has been compiled. The retail version was released only 21 days after this beta had been compiled and the beta phase ended about a week before the final release. In this short timespan there couldn't have been any major changes to the game, most notably multiplayer quests. As the main purpose of this beta was to test the battle.net that was to expect (unfortunately).
The single player option is disabled and the only multiplayer option available is battle.net so even of you still have the beta, you can't play it, because it's battle.net code isn't compatible anymore.
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This is the only genuine complete beta ingame shot I know. It shows the 6 pages spellbook. Unfortunately, there's nothing else here to see.
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This shot is from Beta1 and shows an interesting picture of Cain resting on a chair. Well, standing there all day and identifying items can be tough. This shows that Beta1, given to magazines for review purposes, is actually older than Beta2, which already had the Cain animation we all know.
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To ensure that only registered testers could play the beta version, Blizzard included a system similar to todays CD keys in Blizzard games. Unfortunately a key for the beta hasn't surfaced yet, so we don't know what lies beyond this screen ;)
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Here's a picture of the D1 BetaCD. The most interesting fact is that it's not labeled "Diablo Beta"...it's officially just a test for the Battle.net.
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Everybody who played through the single player part of Diablo knows this scene. It is played in the video when entering Lazarus' dungeon level. But in the Beta version of Diablo a high quality version of this scene was also used as the loading screen for the town of Tristram, looking much better than the one we know.