World of Warcraft

Record-breaking opening for Lich King

Thu Nov 13 11:22AM GMT by Yahoo! UK Game

Gears of War 2, the Xbox 360's flagship game this Christmas, might have had a fair few punters queuing up to buy it early last Friday morning. But this was nothing compared to the hordes that turned out for the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, the latest chapter of hugely popular online fantasy game World of Warcraft.

Blizzard, the developers of the game, must have known they were on to a biggie when they planned an unprecedented number of midnight shop openings for their World of Warcraft expansion pack. A sensible move too, given the untold number of eager punters who lined up for hours to buy the game. Indeed, an estimated 2000-2500 attended London's HMV Oxford Street event, easily breaking the previous record of 1500 held by Burning Crusade, the previous World of Warcraft expansion pack.

And spare a thought for Scott Hamshere, the guy at the very front of the queue. He stood in line from 6.00am until midnight only to collapse from exhaustion just as the barriers were raised, thus missing the launch event entirely and handing the first-ownership honours to second-placed Ben West instead. D'oh!

World of Warcaft has over 10 million players worldwide and is far and away the most popular online fantasy game in the world. This means Wrath of the Lich King is hugely anticipated by fans. Lich King adds a whole new continent - called Northrend - to explore and more epic content than you could ever wave a magic wand at. However the game costs £24.99 and requires a copy of the original game plus the Burning Crusade expansion to run. Oh, and don't forget the £8.99 monthly subscription. So you're looking at the better part of £200 at current list prices just to join the fun.

Hardcore addicts will tell you it's worth every penny but is this now preaching to the converted? Or, has the latest furore inspired you to finally take the plunge?
 

Well ...it seems the launch in the UK was a success, way to go blizzard.

It's a shame Amazon are screwing up left right and centre again with UK deliveries. I've just been reading the feedback from angry customers fuming that they haven't had the game today, despite being told it was shipped on the 11th.

I'm at work at the moment so I don't know if it's been delivered, but I won't be suprised if it hasn't. I was going to buy it in my lunch break - but that would have meant my flatmate knowing I play WoW - HA!

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Originally posted by Zayne3145
It's a shame Amazon are screwing up left right and centre again with UK deliveries. I've just been reading the feedback from angry customers fuming that they haven't had the game today, despite being told it was shipped on the 11th.
I'm at work at the moment so I don't know if it's been delivered, but I won't be suprised if it hasn't. I was going to buy it in my lunch break - but that would have meant my flatmate knowing I play WoW - HA!

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Very poor. I only ordered my two copies on Tuesday morning from Gameplay and it arrived yesterday morning. My fathers copy was ordered early Tuesday afternoon from the same place and arrived this morning.

Originally posted by jason_webb

 

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Originally posted by Zayne3145
It's a shame Amazon are screwing up left right and centre again with UK deliveries. I've just been reading the feedback from angry customers fuming that they haven't had the game today, despite being told it was shipped on the 11th.
I'm at work at the moment so I don't know if it's been delivered, but I won't be suprised if it hasn't. I was going to buy it in my lunch break - but that would have meant my flatmate knowing I play WoW - HA!

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Very poor. I only ordered my two copies on Tuesday morning from Gameplay and it arrived yesterday morning. My fathers copy was ordered early Tuesday afternoon from the same place and arrived this morning.

I've always found Amazon to be poor, they will take orders for a product until it comes out of there ears ...so they could have 1 million orders pending but only have half a million of the required product in stock. I avoid them, try a reputable high street gaming chain and if you can't get to one just go to there site, the worst thing that would happen is the product would be out of stock...unlike Amazon who would make out  that they will always have the product you require...even though they don't...

No leveling race for me, I had three WoW accounts and on the 14th the final one lapses, no more subscription fees for Blizzard. I'm not going to go through the process of leveling up another ten levels and restart gearing my Toons again, there are too many games out there that are of a higher quality and actually stick with their level cap. I'm sure that eventually all games start finding ways to keep long term players going but this method of raising the level cap just pisses me off.

So I'm glad Blizzard is having a good showing, but they should just remove the level cap altogether if this is going to be their trend.

Originally posted by jinxit

I've always found Amazon to be poor, they will take orders for a product until it comes out of there ears ...so they could have 1 million orders pending but only have half a million of the required product in stock. I avoid them, try a reputable high street gaming chain and if you can't get to one just go to there site, the worst thing that would happen is the product would be out of stock...unlike Amazon who would make out  that they will always have the product you require...even though they don't...

Yeah, I pre-ordered against my better judgement. It will be the first and last time I do so.

From now on I'm sticking to the good old fashioned high street. You just can't trust delivery estimates any more.

Originally posted by Zayne3145

It's a shame Amazon are screwing up left right and centre again with UK deliveries. I've just been reading the feedback from angry customers fuming that they haven't had the game today, despite being told it was shipped on the 11th.

I'm at work at the moment so I don't know if it's been delivered, but I won't be suprised if it hasn't. I was going to buy it in my lunch break - but that would have meant my flatmate knowing I play WoW - HA!

its what people get for being lazy and not going to the damn local game store. I have no pity for these people even if it were myself because thats the risk you take when you think it will be delivered to you on time.

Originally posted by Darcknyght

its what people get for being lazy and not going to the damn local game store. I have no pity for these people even if it were myself because thats the risk you take when you think it will be delivered to you on time.

That's unfair, many people have a long way to their gamestore, would you spend hours and a lot of cash just to go to a store when you can get it mailed to you instead?

If everyone lived in a big city, no problem. But everyone don't. And if you don't have a local game store you're screwed.

Still, they should order it from someone else than Amazon, everytime it's the same story.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Darcknyght

its what people get for being lazy and not going to the damn local game store. I have no pity for these people even if it were myself because thats the risk you take when you think it will be delivered to you on time.

That's unfair, many people have a long way to their gamestore, would you spend hours and a lot of cash just to go to a store when you can get it mailed to you instead?

If everyone lived in a big city, no problem. But everyone don't. And if you don't have a local game store you're screwed.

Still, they should order it from someone else than Amazon, everytime it's the same story.

Indeed, take what happened with the London HMV store as stated in my original post, people queued  for 12 hours +, in the freezing cold...possibly took a day off work and with no pay just to stand there and wait