Posts with tag countdown

So hey, it's really happening. Sure, Wrath went live in Europe already (kind of like those raid bosses and world firsts, huh?) but it's about to go live in about an hour stateside. Well, it's ground zero. We over here at WoW Insider went a little crazy with some giveaways, while silly little 7-11 jumped the gun and sold stocks earlier than was allowed. It's been kind of a whirlwind. Let's take a look at all the stuff that's happened this month leading up to Wrath of the Lich King.

COUNTDOWN TO WRATH

• Of course, this November, we celebrated our excitement by giving away lots of swag in our Countdown to Wrath contests. And I mean lots. We gave away some Collector's Edition boxes, some pre-paid game cards, a few Polar Bear Mounts, and some super sweet Razer gaming accessories. Cool, right? Well, guess what. We're not yet done. Keep your eyes peeled for more contests to come.
• A couple of guys got in line really early in New York. You know the drill.
• Those guys wouldn't have had to wait in line so long if they had just swung by a 7-11, which apparently sold a whole lot of copies ahead of schedule.
• Some people needn't even venture out of the house, actually. Blizzard (inadvertently) made the game available for download despite announcing the contrary. You'll still need a CD-key, though.
• As if you needed any more incentive, there have been a bunch of deals for Wrath all over the world.
• With all this excitement, the fully packed launches, and Collector's Editions selling out everywhere, the analysts seem to be right on the money by predicting that Wrath will sell five million copies within one month.
• If you're wondering why Blizzard bothers to sell boxes at all, maybe this article about Activision-Blizzard's September results will clear things up for you.
• Mike will be documenting his installation of Wrath as well as the first few minutes of his time in Northrend through a live netcast on ustream. If you don't have the game yet and want to live vicariously, it's really something worth checking out.
• If you don't want to feel the pain of watching Mike install and play live, you can always check out the Wrath installation gallery. It's kind of the same thing, but less drool-inducing.
• On the other hand, if you're a real glutton for punishment, you can drool over the unboxing of a Collector's Edition box in this video by some lucky guy who's sitting comfortably at home waiting for Northrend to unlock.
• Blizzard is getting ready to migrate everyone to the new and improved Battle.net. Well, everyone except those guys they banned for cheating.
• You know, if you've been paying attention to WoW Insider, you really should have been preparing for Wrath all this time.

If you just can't wait to read the Wrath of the Lich King manual, Maeglin of Khadgar made an interesting discovery -- it's already on your computer. Inside your World of Warcraft folder, if you go to the Data folder, and then "enUS" and Documentation, you'll see a PDF file called Manual_WLK. It's the Wrath manual in black and white -- there are good writeups in there (spoiler-free, as far as I could tell) on the story so far and Northrend, and some cool concept art for weapons and other sights of the next expansion. The credits are in there, too, and make sure to go to the very end to read all the thanks from Blizzard -- some of them are pretty funny.

This likely isn't the final manual -- there's something in the Death Knight description that still says runes can be customized, and while we heard that earlier in development, it's since been removed from the class. And it's in black and white, while we'd expect the full manual to have color when it's finally printed. But it's a cool find, and something to tide you over until you can get the real thing on release day (which, as you can see from our countdown, is growing ever closer).

Thanks, Wes R.!

Our friends at Blizzplanet sent along a mysterious little tip. Diablo3.com is not actually a Blizzard site (at least currently) -- it appears to be somehow affiliated with Blizzplanet's network (there are also links to WoW Radio, so we're checking with them to see what's up as well). But on both Diablo3.com and Blizzplanet, there is now a countdown leading up to thirteen days from now, which lands us squarely on May 1st. On Blizzplanet, there is a note that says "The Church of the Triune will be shaken in..." On Diablo3.com, the message is much more practical: "The number of days until half the web links to Diablo3.com. But why???"

So what's happening on May 1st? Best case scenario, of course, is the official announcement of a third title in the Diablo series. I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, however -- while it has been rumored for a long time, it seems unlikely that Blizzard would break the news on an unofficial site. But then again, maybe it won't be an unofficial site by then -- if diablo3.com was sold to or otherwise obtained by Blizzard (they obviously own the trademark), and is switching over on May 1st, that would definitely be enough reason for "half the web" to link to it, even without an official announcement of the game.

Either way, we'll keep an eye on it. Keep in mind, also, that Blizzard is having the WWI at the end of June (and both Diablo II and its expansion were released on June 29, of 2000 and 2001 respectively. We're not sure what this countdown means yet, but this summer definitely seems like the right time for an official Diablo 3 announcement.

Update: Whois info on Diablo3.com shows that it's currently owned by Roger Barr, who runs I-Mockery, another link on the sidebar. So this could all just be a hoax or publicity stunt. We'll find out on May 1st, I guess.

We had a ton of excellent entries for the Alliance caption contest on day 7 of our countdown to the Burning Crusade, we've narrowed the field down to ten finalists -- and we want your help to pick the winner! You have 24 hours to submit your votes, which gives you until 5:30PM EST on Friday -- so get voting, everyone!

Who's the winner of our Alliance caption contest?
	Darwf: May I help you? Night Elf: Uh yes, where's Stormwind?
	Crap, you're a guy. From far away you all look the same.
	Ok, I'm only gonna tell you this one more time. Dancing like Michael Jackson will *not* get you hot Night Elf chicks.
	Donald Trump brings his army of real estate to bear against an increasingly chunky Rosie O'Donnell.
	You are the Barry Bonds of dwarves!
	Hey, where the gnome women at?
	1960 called, they want their overalls back.
	My name is Inigo Montoya. you stole my shoulder pads... prepare to die.
	Dwarf: Actually, I prefer to think of myself as 'in weapons range of your groin'.
	I wish I knew how to quit you.
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