On the official Darkspore forums I found this important message:

An exclusive EA Store (http://eastore.ea.com) Darkspore beta will be open from Friday 12PM PDT through Sunday evening. If you already have Darkspore, feel free to hop on in! There is no patch for this beta and all progress has been preserved.

An open beta will start April 12th and run through April 22nd. We have a nice set of patch notes for that one . Accounts will be reset for the open beta.

Unfortunately, there was no beta last weekend. But there is good news, announced on the official Darkspore forums. Yesterday evening they opened the beta again and it will stay open through Friday!

Beta 6 has started and will run through Friday, April 1st. Have fun, and please use the in-game bug/feedback tool to submit info to us!

There won't be a Darkspore beta this weekend. But not to worry, more betas will follow in the next couple of weeks:

The beta is closed this weekend, but we're setting new beta dates right now. We'll post them as soon as we can. Can't wait to play with you!

Today, the Darkspore team announced a change in release date:

We're moving the Darkspore release date to April 26... and we're going to have more betas!

On the bright side, we will get more betas!

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the Darkspore beta! We’ve received really positive feedback about the game, as well as some suggestions of things you’d like to see. We’re really close, but in order to make the best game possible, the team has decided to take additional time to incorporate more of your feedback. Darkspore will now be available in NA April 26 and across EU/APAC beginning April 28. The beta will not be available this weekend, but we’re excited to announce that we’ll have more betas where you’ll have a chance to experience new game updates. We’re also planning an open beta for everyone in April, so you can invite any friends to play with you to check out the game and have the opportunity to provide further feedback. Thanks again for your support, and we’ll see you in the game!

With the new theme, I also worked on a couple of other changes:

• Sporepedia is no longer a link to another website, but a new encyclopedia for all Spore games. It's not a wiki! Sporepedia already contains some information, but it's not complete yet.
• A couple of menu items have disappeared in the new theme, such as screenshots, videos, information, help and some more. This can now be found under Sporepedia and saves a lot of space.
• There was a lot of spam in the comments section, so we deleted all the comments (as far as we could see it, the website didn't contain any real comments anyway. We also deleted all the spammers. To prevent more spammers from joining the website and commenting, the comments are now moderated. Accounts have to be approved. But you don't need an account to post a comment.
• The forums have been reorganized. The Spore showcase forums can now be found under Spore. A Darkspore forum has been added. So be sure to pay the forums a visit!
• There is a new poll about Darkspore!
• Old release dates have been removed (you can still see them in Sporepedia), and updated with Darkspore release dates!
• The website members list and profile pages have been given a make-over! In the members list and on profile pages you can see difference between male, female and gender unknown profiles.
• We updated the affiliates block, since some affiliates have closed their websites.
• The social networking block has also been updated; We have a new Facebook page!

With Darkspore being released this month, we decided to give SporeNetwork a new look. A somewhat darker design for both Darkspore and Spore. If you don't like this dark theme, you can still go to your account (yes, members only) and choose the old "Spore" theme. As for the forums, I haven't had time to create a matching forum theme yet, but I'll work on that one very soon. Enjoy the new theme!

MaxisDave announced the 5th Darkspore beta test, which will be open from noon Friday until midnight Sunday (PST):

This week's Beta test will open Friday, March 11, at noon pacific time.

I have been able to play the Darkspore beta ever since it opened about a month ago. I got a key through Maxis, but also several keys through EA Netherlands. I mainly gave away these keys to my team members, so I didn't offer them on SporeNetwork. However, I got a new batch of beta keys from EA! If you are interested in playing the Darkspore beta, but don't have a beta key, contact me through our contact page! We'll contact you a.s.a.p. about the beta keys!

Lucky for us there will be another beta run this weekend! Unfortunately all accounts will be reset again. Awww, I had such great heroes... Ah well.

This week's Beta test will open at NOON on Friday, March 4th! (pacific time)

ADDITIONAL INFO

The Darkspore Beta servers are being upgraded this weekend! Players worldwide should see better ping times and more responsive gameplay. As part of the server upgrades, all Beta accounts will be reset (including Friends lists), and a new patch will be available. The patch includes many bug fixes and, based on Beta player feedback, new PvP tuning.

If you’ve played in the Beta before, you can press Ctrl-X to skip the opening movie and get right to gameplay.

(Note: Like most online game betas, Darkspore Beta accounts will be not be carried over to the final game)