Midnight Launch Madness
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 22 Comments Tags: arthas, ebgames, expansion, gamestop, meet-n-greet, midnight launch, release party, wrath, wrath of the lich king  Photo by Robin. June 2007 |
Hey, guess what. Wrath of the Lich King comes out tomorrow morning at 12:01 AM! Score! To celebrate I will be heading to a local midnight release party in the mean streets of South Philadelphia. I took a few minutes out this morning to pack a “survival bag.”
In my “Gigantique” Bag you will find:
- My Nintendo DS, currently equipped with Yoshi's Island DS (possibly the best platforming game ever).
- The new issue of Game Developer magazine.
- My girlfriend's Point & Shoot camera (more on that in a few) and a spare battery pack.
- Some Nature Valley granola bars.
- Miscellaneous junk like keys, wallet, cell phone and the ever useful stun gun (rabid fans are more dangerous than angry critics).
It surprised me how long it took to find a store with a midnight release party. I live in South Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia area is actually the home to EBGames (not that you care or anything). If you punch in 19104 into their store locator, you will be hit with over 50 stores inside a 30 minute drive. Yet, the first seven EBGames/Gamestop stores I called were not having parties. Granted, they don't all need to have a party, but they should know which store is.
In the end I got bumped to their District Manager, who informed me that the closest store with a launch party is at the popular tourist location of South Street. I should have known.
I will be heading there, camera in hand, to chat with the crowd, hang out, and kill those last few Wrath-less hours with like minded individuals. For those who may not be familiar with it, South Street is a bit of a hot spot in Philadelphia, and has become, what I would call, an outdoor mall. The Gamestop is located at 505 South Street (between Fifth and Sixth streets), with the queue starting up by 10 PM. If also else fails, there is plenty to do in the area.
I spoke with a sales rep earlier and they are expecting a pretty large crowd, so it should be a blast. Anyone else going to launch parties? Where and which store is having it? Dare someone come meet me in person?! If you are timid about meeting people from “teh internets,” do not fret, I am not a troll.
Reader Comments (22)
I live across the Delaware over in Jersey. I would definitely come to that same launch party having read this, but I'm not quite 55 yet, so I'm not buying Wrath for another week or so.
Unless you wanna power level me this afternoon :P
How crowded do u think a store with the midnight release will be??? The store im going to is not having the party event, just the midnight release. I just want to know what to expect :)
Soeunds nice :P
I just found out that the store i preordered from has had to cancel there midnight presale. :'(
Apparently the Mall's manager has decided they don't want peeps in the mall after hours. (Damn it they did it for Halo!!)
So, now I can either cancel my order and go to another store (30 min away) or just wait for the mall to open in the morning.
So just how hard core am I, is the question...
well my town we only got one sotre an im not going but as the clock hits 2 im off duty an the first thing im doing is buy wrath :P
I'll be headed over to my local Game Stop (Chattanooga, TN) to pick up my copy of WotLK. Best thing is my roommate is one of the managers there, so I'll have the inside track to getting my game quickly. See you all in Northrend!
Back here in the Netherlands we do have maybe 2 stores that will host this midnight release, I don't think i'll go do...huge crowds flooding the streets because of WotLK madness. besides, i've played retail for a relative short period of time and those low rates where boring me like hell, so i stepped over to the dark side...''private servers''.
After atleast 9 months of private servers, experiencing all the bugs and stuff that doesn't work, not getting patches untill several months later (2.4.0 for example) i am finally thinking of going back to retail. Just for the awesome experience that is the REAL WoW (i heard they have slightly faster rates now /cheer)
But i'm wondering, if you buy the expansion, do you get 1 month for free in addition to the new content or do you need to buy that seperately? Anyway it'll probably take a while untill i'll buy WotLK, i'm still drifting between 2 worlds, plus i find it hard as to what realm to pick, which faction, which class/race etc etc.
Untill i can experience it myself, i'll just settle with some awesome episodes of Project Lore, Keep up the good work!
Well I already got the game(live in Norway), still I can't upgrade the account untill midnight.
I got release date delivery via Amazon since I decided not to burn a vacation day since I don't really expect the realms to be stable/even up. I'll be shocked if they are playable when I get off work tomorrow evening.
Zosarian 70 Enhancement Shaman - Spinebreaker US
I will be at the local Best Buy, some of my friends actually pre-ordered mine for my birthday, so I'll just be picking up my copy :) I work until 10pm, so I won't be too bored all day, and can just head over once I get off work!
Everyone been enjoying the server craziness?? I wanted to finish power leveling my rogue(Deeleigh) and haven't been able to do that since the last 36 hrs have been WoW hell... although if anyone remembers the server madness after BC expac, then I'm sure it will not be as easily playable tomorrow or Friday, either...
Have fun!
The always sexy,
Svenofnine
Eldre'Thalas
@Farsythe - The Netherlands have several Midnight Opening Madnesses planned :p (http://media.wow-europe.com/wrath/midnight-opening/en/index.xml)
Only one "Special" event though, in Rotterdam... but stores will open at/around midnight nationwide :D
Not going to visit one myself, unfortunately I still have to work tomorrow.
BUT... luckily I pre-ordered my WotLK copy, and I just received confirmation they've put it on mail, so it should be waiting for me at home when I come back from work tomorrow.
Now I only have to get them 4 more lvl's I need to make my DK :-/
Looks like I'll be non-stop gaming this weekend.
Enjoy everyone, and maybe we'll meet!
Ðanny - 51 Warrior, Bronze Dragonflight
I went the smart way and ordered it via Amazon :D
I'm praying that by 3 o'clock tomorrow it will be at my doorstep so i can rush in and play....though the realms will probably down with the rush of people frantically installing and signing on.
The 5 minutes of WotLK will be nice though :)
Izaya - 70 Resto Shammy
HMV Oxford Street London time is about 22:56 and its freezing but the entertainment is really good lol and the amount of people in costumes is amazing lol i love mobile internet and laptops lol
Im going to our local GAmestop tonight and can't WAIT to get my WOTLK!!!
ARGH I STILL HAVN'T DECIDED BETWEEN THE COLLECTORS EDITION OR THE BASIC! Xb
Sadly my house has banned wow for a while, hopefully i'll be able to get it soon though.
I didn't know I could do it, but I did.
After school I went to the central mall and saw a line of about 20 people waiting for the release, at 2 pm.
I was thinking of buying the normal edition, but the extra stuff you get from the midnight release seduced me.
I went there 3 pm, and yes, I waited for 9 hours in the line for my Collector's Edition (which rocks!). Sadly, they ran out of T-Shirts.
There were also a VIP line for cosplayers, which turned out to be quite a easy way to get ahead of all people in the normal line. 3 of the best cosplayers got the Collector's edition. There was one human rogue (with a suit worth 600 euros) and two 14-year-old nightelves (with only pointy ears and makeup).
I tried to sneak in the VIP line as a Chinese Gold Famer, but I guess missing a shovel was fatal for my "costume".
(Note: Yes, I'm really a Chinese ^^)
But after the cronic back pain for sitting in a bad posture for 9 hours, I finally got the CE and ran back home, and also saw more than 100 guys who were in the line behind me. People were really nice, and I broke my record of talking to strangers (met about 20-30 new friend and some old ones too).
So, how long did you guys wait?
Omg a stun gun...
I ordered my copy through amazon which is great since i have school today which means my copy will be ready and waiting for me to install when i get home.
there were about 2000 people at frys in santa clara for the wotlk launch. i was in the endish part of the line, and they got everyone a copy in about 45 minutes. when we got there we expected to be there for like 3 hours. it was awesome
There WAS a midnight party here in Ottawa at the FutureShop near my place and the BestBuy down the street from it. Now THAT was wild. I have never seen so many Orcs and Blood Elves in one place, save for my forray into Ogrimmar to get Old Crafty. The deal was, the person with the best costume got a $100 gift card to the store and got bumped to the front of the line.
I was just there to see the nut cases as I had pre-ordered my CE 2 months ago. BTW, it arrived at 10:30 AM EST today.
Me happy ^_^ Guess what I'm doing this weekend? ^_^
Well in my crap ass city of Brockville (in between Ottawa and Toronto) there are only two game stores, EBGames, and GameStop. I went to the GameStop in the worlds crappiest mall and there were only 18 people. They had 15 CE Wraths, sadly I didn't get one but they gave us lots and lots of Swag, posters, bookmarks, T-Shirts, game art books for other games like GoW2 etc. But at the EBGames near are WalMart, there was said to be over 100 people. Thank god I didn't see any Night Elves or anybody dressed up, or they so would have went to the end of the line and had to get made fun of by everybody else.