Midnight Launch Madness: The Recap
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iTZKooPA on Thursday, November 13, 2008 - 19 Comments Tags: cosplay, credit card problems, gamestop, lines, midnight release, queues, ret pallies, too old to play, wrath, wrath of the lich king
iTZKooPA on Thursday, November 13, 2008 - 19 Comments Tags: cosplay, credit card problems, gamestop, lines, midnight release, queues, ret pallies, too old to play, wrath, wrath of the lich king  The Line As We Approach Launch |
I pulled up to Gamestop last night just after 10:15 PM to see about fifteen people milling around outside the store. After fumbling with my bikelock in the 46 degree weather for a few minutes, I finally joined the crowd and jumped in on my first discussion, QQing about Retribution Paladins and how badly they need to be nerfed. Not that anyone would care two hours from now, when they are home and installing Wrath of the Lich King.
The kind employees at Gamestop invited all the fans in while they began processing last minute transactions. Thankfully, the Philadelphia midnight launch did not have any credit card problems. After the first batch of purchasers completed their transactions and the murmurs grew louder, I loudly introduced myself to grab their attention for a highly unscientific poll. “Who thinks the servers will be playable in the next 24 hours?!” I asked.
A few hands went up, but the general consensus was that lag, stability and over population (queues) would cause issues for many players. A few players told me that this thinking was exactly the reason they decided to attend the midnight release. They figured they would have the servers to themselves for a handful of uninterrupted, non-laggy hours to get ahead of the curve. As of press, my server (an original server) is still fine, although there are reports of trouble out there.
After we had warmed up and purchased our copies, the kindly employees threw us out into the cold again (“Line up outside if you want to get Wrath”). As the line grew, passersby asked us what the hell we were in line for. Being the angst-filled, impatient, basement-dwelling gamers that we are, we made stuff up. Halo 4, Gears of War 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, free STD tests, and a few others that I can't print. I also heard a few other items of pure gold while in the chilly air:
- Question: “What do you call a gnome escaping from Alcatraz? A small medium at large.” (Player)
- “Aren't you too old to be waiting in line for a video game?” (An old lady after I told her what we were in line for while taking the picture).
- “All right you little warlords, up against the wall if you want the game.” (The cop helping out with crowd control).
 These fellows demanded that they be put on the interwebs since they were in the front. Thanks to Patrick Mulhern for the pics! |
The line ended up extended well around the corner by 11:30 PM, with every copy the store received reserved and paid in full. By 12:30 the line had been cut in half, with the second purchaser sprinting out of the store, game in hand, as he shouted something like 'I'll be the first to 80, bitches!' He was running so fast that I couldn't hear him clearly. Needless to say, he was excited. By 1:00 AM the line was gone, but the employees were still cleaning up in the store. Sorry guys.
How did your midnight releases go? We didn't have a single cosplayer!
Reader Comments (19)
First Maybe....Who knows :)
Anyway i couldn;t go to a midnight opening since it was in london (greetings from the Eu realms btw) and i live in scotland so it was too far to travel and i had to work today. But i did hear on the news a story about the guy who was first in the queue there. He had waited there for 3 days but eventually became soo exhausted that about an hour before midnight, he fell asleep and at midnight they couldn't wake him up. Anyway they let the guys behind him in the queue go in first. Imagine waiting three days only to fall asleep, not only that but he probably lost out on the goodie bag for being first to get the game.
Major topics of discussion at mine were that Hunters are over powered and only newbs play them ( No worries Zand, I disagree with them too.), How the new abilites released in WotLK are useless in pvp (which to me depends on class and spec, but eh), and how entertaining it was when my gamestop split the registers, one ofr alliance, one for horde, the difference in who showed up at midnight was interesting......
More horde for those who are curious....
FOR THE HORDE!
Being in the frigid temps in the state of Massholes, the gamestop kicked everyone out of their store (hence why this state is full of Massholes). So in the frigid temp, somewhat shivering... some girl starting bitching about some shammy popping bloodthirst before spirit wolves. I thought the conversation would stop... but she kept going on and on about it. After that, we kinda talked about DK's and whatnot.
Then a chic that was working at the Gamestop was dressed as a nightelf... Sweet.....
SANTA CLARA FRYS HAD LIKE 2K PEOPLE THERE
i was there with a friend and we grabbed a copy of the collectors edition
we thought we'd be there about 3 hours but they moved everyone through in about an hour it was awesome Xb
pics coming of my project lore shirt with WotLK!!!
Best Buy, Watertown, Massachusetts
A relatively quiet line at the ol' Watertown Mall. The line went back just past the corner as the mall bends toward Target. (For those of you not familiar with the mall...which is 99.9% of you...that's about two Best Buy store widths.) Some people had pre-paid for their copy, some had not.
They opened up the store promptly at 12:00:01am and about 50 people fit inside. Roughly 75% seemed to be coming out with the Collector's Edition.
It seems that the people that ordered it on the web site for in-store pickup screwed themselves over since you couldn't get CE online. I paid in person and went home with the CE.
It was about 1:00am EST before the updates were complete and I was online. I told my guild, "Hey, check this out!" Then I activated my CE pet and the achievement was sent to the guild. "Gratz!" replies came in. Then I walked out of the inn, got on my polar bear mount, and was ganked by Horde. I rez'd and got ganked again. Someone obviously did not like my rare items and was jealous.
I rez'd in the inn and hearthed to Outland. Headed from there to Stormwind to join the masses on a boat to Northrend. After about an hour, I headed back to Stormwind. I was the only person on the boat back, but was greeted by dozens of people waiting. One guy on the boat claimed not to have the expansion and said nobody could since it wasn't midnight yet (on the PST server). Obviously, he wasn't seeing my pet. He probably ended up in the ocean and died of fatigue.
Was a fun night about 2000 people queuing at HMV London was a great event and we even ended up on telly woot lol but i was so excited when i got my copy i just jumped into the car with my friends and we all headed home and played the game until 4 in the morning but then i forgot i had school that day and had to wake up in 3 hours to get changed lol i fell asleep in school and got sent home lol but guess what i did then lol
Ok, I did post a summary on the other blog, but I'll have a quick recap on this one too.
We had 4 "cosplayers", one with a 600 euro leather armor, 2 crappy night elves with just ears and mascara, and a warlock with a eye-on-a-stick off-hand (which was actually cool). The night elves pissed me off, because their "costume" was kinda cheap and they only waited for half an hour. And the best 3 cosplayers got the CE for free, along the t-shirt. Then there was this guy with a scarf and a toy-sword. "There's one guy with a proper costume, two girls with crappy makeups, and a guy who thinks this is some kind of a Naruto event...."
My waiting began 3 pm (europe time, 2 pm to you guys) and all the way to 00.01 next day (total of 9 hours). By then there was already about 20 people there.
I got a cronic back pain for sitting in a bad posture, but the sensation when I got the CE was worth it (I'm still admiring my new mousepad and fiddling with the TCs)
We were lining to Gamestop too, more than 100 of us, mainly because most of them had reserved WotLK from there. But what bugs me is that the store 30 feet away had a midnight launch too, with T-shirts for 100 first buyers (Gamestop only had about 15-20, about 5 of them was taken by the employees themslelves). But I did get one of those rare huge-sized stickers witht he same print as the shirts and a poster.
And when they started selling, I shouted Leeroy Jenkins! as loud as I could ^^
And I also tried to sneak to the VIP line by being a Chinese Gold Farmer...
(Yes, I'm a Chinese xD)
I think for the first gnome joke to make sense, you have to say it's a physcic gnome or maybe a warlock gnome, hence it being a medium (someone who communes with the dead). Small medium at large. Heh.
My town is rather small but I guess everyone plays because the line around our Gamestop was very large. There was a single cosplay outfit there, and it was rather disturbing. There was a 10 year old kid dressed up like an orc. He just may have been so ugly he wasn't wearing a mask.
To the man standing in line next to me: Thanks for introducing yourself. In the land I come from I live among anti-technology hippies and your company and the WoW dialogue we shared will be forever remembered.
I am fairly certain that there was a couple in their 70's in line, and I don't mean their characters. Just curious if anybody else had a VERY old person in line.
I'd like to thank Gamestop for getting the entire line out of the store in 15 minutes. A far cry from other releases, as the nightmare of Halo 3 was.
pre order from bol.com got it today im playing now in the most west-south zone with my hunter doing alot of quests and loving my new best friend a wooly rhino with his funny stampade that blast mobs awey from me im waiting now to get in but server is full
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.
Is 46 degrees supposed to be cold?
Anywho, I'll be waiting a while to get the expansion (I know, I'm insane, but I hat huge lag and large crowds.)
:)
It was nuts over at the http://www.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=15916" rel="nofollow">official launch event in Anaheim!
i have to wait till christmas cause im broke right now...
im veryververy sad
I was lucky. The line was short and no one really showed up until after 11PM. I was the first one to get the game in the line and was out of the store. Headed home and was playing Wrath by 12:45AM. Not too bad, let me tell you. No server issues. Lag and queue's didn't show up until the next day. Even the DK area was tolerable. Didn't have to fight for too many quest mobs (except those DK Initiates you need to get to duel, I hate that part). All in all, a great night of gaming was had.
http://ysoserio.us
I have been very blessed. I worked across the street from Gamestop for years, and recently got a better job out side of the city, so i dont go there anymore. But the folks there know that im a die-hard Warcraft fan. Anyways, they failed to tell me that they were taking preorders for WOTLK collector's edition, nknowing that I am a die hard fan. It's the only game I play and the only one i'd ever buy (well reconsidering the Wii this Christmas).
So I go to reserve the copy, only to find out the reserves were taken. But the girl who did accept my payment ended up helping me out.
The girl ended up being a warlock in our guild, and is the girlfriend of my friends' brother, who is also in the guild and who I worked with. She was a lock who was leveling to 70, and having a lock who was 375 in tailoring myself, I would make and send her upgraded gear that i would make, and I hooked her and her boyfriend (a warrior also in our guild) with 18 slot bags. She remembered me because she said I was someone you could never forget (i hope that's a good thing).
And I did voice my love for wanting the collector's edition.
So time goes by and about an hour before I head to gamestop to go to the midnight launch I decided to log on to WoW to park my toon near SW Docks to be ready when i got back. In guild chat, she said she had been waiting all day to see me come online and told me her boyfriend's brother had decided NOT to get the collector's edition and wanted me to have it. She works at gamestop and worked things out where I wouldn't get mauled by the crowd because I got the collector's edition. It really made me feel good inside and the collector's edition rocks.
I got in line around 10pm...was out of there around 12:20am. There were about 200 people at the launch, and this is a small town in Arkansas, so I was surpised that that many people play WoW! The police came by because , i guess, they were bored.
Well, me and my friend went to the closest EB Games to us. We got there around 9:30 central time, with only 5 people already there. So we waited in the car, listening to some Van Halen, then at 10 the store opened their doors and let all 7 of us in. So just to pass the time all of us were just talking about past and present, then the line started to grow gradually. Luckily there were no costumes. So around 11:50 they opened the door to the backroom, made a blockade of GH3 and Rock Band boxes and just waited patiently. So come 12 they started handing out copies, and since we were in the front of the line we were out fast. I was so surprised to see that many people waiting outside since there weren't that many at first.
I was at the GameStop launch in Philly you are writing about here (but didn't make it into your photo)... they did have the credit card problems as well. Cash only. I got the last copy before the store sold out, without a pre-order.
I went to my local GameStop around 8:30 and was 3rd in line. Talked about WoW for a while, all from different viewpoints (first three in line: PvP Server, PvE server, and RP server, resp.)
And sadly, no cosplayers. I was supprised, but to be honest, I didn't even hear about the contest until two days before the launch where I got a message from GameStop about it.
There were some credit card issues, I noticed, which stopped the guy in-front of me for a while. Lucky for me, I paid for the game upfront; no problems what-so-ever.
A few friends of mine even stopped by to support us waiting in line (we got there at 4:00 originally, but we didn't want to loiter, so we went and did some other stuff). A few even came with cameras to write a story for our school newsletter. I thought it was pretty fun, and I can't wait for the picture of me walking out the store screaming when I got my copy.