World of Warcraft Launch Date: Nov. 23, 2004

[eyelleye]

"Blizzard is pleased to announce that in fewer than three weeks, World of Warcraft will begin hitting store shelves throughout North America. Starting on November 23, players will be able to pick up a boxed copy of the game, or the collector's edition, and finally begin playing! See the press release for further details."

[James]

You need a US Billing Address tho. Gits :P
Ahh well, we'll let you Yanks iron out the bugs for us :)

[Jess-e]

us? did you say us?
Ole swisseroo buying the game afterall? I knew you'd give in, I always knew you were weak ;)
I'm not getting it, well not right away, that's for sure. I've got too much on my mind right now, perhaps things will cool down when I hit uni and I'll get it then. The thought of seeing you guys once again in game puts a smile on my face.

mofarulez

[Cray]

So whats it going to be Horde or alliance? Either way I'm going rouge.... hmmm can gnoms be rouges? Nothing says Bullshit like having a 2 foot retard looking thing sneaking up on you and gutting you with out you knowing.

[James]

I read a while ago most people were going for Alliance, based partly on the fact they have more attractive races. It's also like in SWG where tons of people went for Rebel, because they were the "good" guys. I'll more than likely have at least one of each. Though knowing me, I'll favour the Alliance character :) Depends, it'd be nice for a game not to neglect the evil ways of playing. I think only the top RPG's cater for that (ie BG2 and KOTOR) so far.

[eyelleye]

Jebus... NOW IM IMPRESSED.

I've been following the WoW forums since launch yesterday, reading about folks trying to play on the central & eastern servers... apparently the incoming tide was limited so the newb zones wouldnt be overpopulated. As a direct result of this, there could be a 2-3 hour wait on some of the central & eastern servers.

From what I have read, some of the PvP server names leaked early & guilds did what guilds do... announce they were going to THAT server. As a direct result of so many folks trying to play on said servers... they were overwhelmed & Blizzard implimented the newbie zone cap policy. Official word from Blizzard has been "please make a character on a west coast server." Sounds like the west coast aint so populated atm (great news for me anyway).

So, to get to the part that impresses the hell out of me: I just read the following official post:
11/24/2004 3:03:20 PM PST
Hi all,

We wanted to let you know that we are bringing up 16 new servers in the Eastern and Central time zones. They should be up in just a few minutes.

Exactly 1 day after launch, to help alleviate problems for their customers, they are bringing up 16 new servers. WoW indeed! Thats a fair ammount of hardware cost right out of the box & a pretty damn good dedication to their customers. Cant wait til my copy arrives.

Of course you'll still have the nay-sayers... but fuck em... '-)

[Cray]

When Blizzard says collectors edition, they fucking mean collectors edition. This thing has to be about ten pounds plus. The art book is really nice to, and the theme music and... nm I'll stop there before I have a whole post about nothing.
Anyways back to the question at hand. What server we going to join up on?
And what side Horde or Alliance? Oh Oh Oh and PvP server or the regular server? And And And... so many questions head going to explode. But yeah after the past week trying to get back into SWG and SoE just laughing at me, yeah I hope WoW burries EQ2 and lucasarts takes SWG away from SoE, Then everyone at SoE dies of some terrible plauge empty and alone in a gutter somewhere. Then they burn in hell having to watch Rosie o'donald reruns and pokemon for eternity. Then I'd be happy :D

[James]

Everywhere but England is getting the Collectors Edition.
What did we ever do to the rest of the world? Even Germany gets the CE!

[eyelleye]

That blows! No CE for the UK? Ive read the ingame pet is worthless... but I want it for the art book & soundtrack bits. Plus, cool games like that, I tend to purchase the collectors ed anyway. When UO came out, I decided not to get the CE & somewhat regretted it ever since (just woulda been cool to have).

As far as what server n whatnot... I dunno Cray. Im planning on staying on the West Coast (should be faster for me). I was thinking I wasnt going to play on a PvP server at start. I know enough about the game mechanics n whatnot just to be dangerous & get my ass kicked... plus there were lots of PvE things to do last time I played... so, Im thinking a PvE server. As to Alliance or Horde... Uhh... not sure. I think in the beta I only made Alliance characters as I had heard the Horde were more difficult to play up front. I know Boskos was askin what server we play on too... he's thinking about picking it up, but going to wait a short bit I think.

I still havent recieved my copy of WoW yet... should be here friday I think. EB Games shipped it via priority mail on monday... I was hoping it woulda showed up yesterday, but nogo. If it werent for the holiday, it would probably have made it here today... no matter I can wait.

So, being as I dont have the game yet, Im not sure of all the server names & populations n all. I played a human type & a night elf in the various betas... think those are alliance. What did you have in mind Cray?

[Cray]

AUUGH!!!! What is it with games and patches. This ones only a meg, so it will take me a hour or two, but I should be in tonight. Yeah deffinatly west coast server, I'll have a lousy ping as it is so anything to improve that will be a plus. I'll try to get in and look around tonight, see if I can find a PvE server thats acomadating.
For the Alliance vs Horde. On the stress test all I played was undead and Orc. So I have a fairly good understanding of the hordes lands. But I'd go alliance, could always just be human or a gnom. I'd just want to be the gnom to piss ppl off though. So I'll try to get in tonight and snoop around.
I'll be back with my findings later.

[Cray]

Yeah, all that stuff I said before... you can toss it right out the window. Atleast the getting on part, Looks like me and Microsoft will be spending the rest of the night together. Oh and I should really learn to read crap, looks like the initial download for WoW is 19. something not 1.9 MB. Well anyways none of you guys are in yet, so I'll be getting reaquainted with Microsoft hoping I didn't buy another 60 dollar game thats going to collect dust here on the desk.

[eyelleye]

Yeah... play around with it. I have the most experience playing Human, but the short time I spent in open beta I played a night elf (which was pretty cool). I don't particularily have an druthers either way... just hoping my order shows up today, twould be nice to be able to play (tho now that I have my thrustmaster HOTAS controlers working right... jtl has been quite a fair bit of fun).

[Cray]

Must be nice, I'm really getting tierd of these patch downloads. All I want to do is play a game, is that to much to ask? Well going to try to start the download yet agian. Wish me luck.

[eyelleye]

LOL... good luck there buddy. Im still hoping my order arrives today, although I work today. I'll stop & check the mail on my way to work. If Im lucky (and it arrives today) it'll be small enough they can put it in one of the boxes. If not, then I have to goto the window to pick it up, which is somewhat of a problem. The window doesnt open until 11am which is when I have to be at work, which usually means I have to sneak away on a delivery run (if its not too busy) and stop n pick it up... oh well, probably wont even show up today.