Posts with tag launch

We all remember the launch. Even Blizzard admits it wasn't the smoothest, to the point where we were offered five days off our subs and an apology from J. Allen Brack. That's not something Blizzard does very often anymore, and it signifies that yes, this was a pretty big deal in terms of launch screwups. Ironically, for some of us (like myself) it was a pretty smooth launch overall. But for some of us it was so bad that they complained to the BBC, as the above clip showcases.

Incgamers has a long article about the show Watchdogs on the BBC that goes into detail about the piece and its conclusions for the Warlords launch. I feel forced to agree that Watchdogs doesn't seem to have tried very hard here - their example of someone not being able to play WoW is someone on an ancient computer running around Ashran, and he's level 100, so... he played sometime. It's definitely an interesting time to be a World of Warcraft player, as the ten year old MMO seems to regaining cultural relevance with a vengeance lately. I don't think anybody's surprised that the launch troubles have been a highly discussed issue, but this seems like a new extreme to me.

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If you've been waiting on the edge of your seat for Blizzard's release of Diablo 3's Reaper of Souls expansion -- and with content scarce in WoW these days, who isn't? -- your wait is nearly over. However, depending on where you are, your launch time may be a bit different:

• For Asia, the expansion will be available to play at 11:00 a.m. PDT on March 24.
• For Europe, the expansion will be available to play at 4:00 p.m. PDT on March 24.
• For the Americas, the expansion will be available to play at 9:00 p.m. PDT on March 24.

To be ready to play come launch time, make sure your Battle.net client is up to date (launch the client to check for updates or download it if you don't have it), be sure you've downloaded the big 2.01 patch (again, just launch your Battle.net client to check), and be sure you've ordered your copy of Reaper of Souls. Then all you need to do is be logged in come launch time and you'll be ready to jump right into new gameplay. For more tips on surviving launch day, check out Blizzard's launch to-do list.

And, of course, happy demon slaughtering, everyone!

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What are you going to do first when you start playing Mists of Pandaria? If the answer is leveling to 90, you're in for a lot of potentially unhealthy sitting/munching/caffeine-ing. But you don't have to make Rockstar pyramids or worry about Cheetos stains on the keyboard while spreading in your chair, getting repetitive motion injuries, and otherwise straining your body just to get those levels in. Here are some tips for staying (mostly) healthy while progressing through Pandaria.

Get healthy snacks

Snacking, or grazing as my doctor calls it, is actually good for you when small and well-spaced throughout the gaming session. Healthy snacks are best of course, but if you must have your favorite munchies, having them in small doses is better than constant gorging. Willing to substitute for yummy but healthy? Try these.

• Nuts Barring allergies, nuts of all kinds are a healthy snack. Protein, good carbs, iron -- they are full of good nutrients. Nuts will even help balance things out if you choose to imbibe the sugary drinks.
• Crackers If you're into crackers, get the whole grain/low carb ones. I like Akmaks. Thin slices of cheese as toppings are good, but nut butters are even better.

What are you doing tonight? Does it involve standing in a line, waiting patiently to get your gaming mitts on a hot new edition of Mists of Pandaria? If so, we might have a treat for you.

You can find our intrepid team of WoW Insider writers at these outstanding fine gaming retailers. You should come by and say hello, perhaps win fabulous prizes (provided by our good pals Blizzard, to boot)! Or, mostly, come by and say hello.

• Joe Perez at Amherst, New York: GameStop at 1593 Niagara Falls Blvd
• Frostheim at Richfield, Minnesota: Best Buy at 1000 West 78th St.
• Anne Stickney at Grand Junction, Colorado: GameStop at 2536 Rimrock Avenue
• And of course, you'll find more than a few of us at the official Irvine opening!

We hope to see you tonight!

Edit: Frostheim's location has changed!

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

This Monday, WoW fans will line up at stores around the world to buy the game's fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria. For Blizzard, the past eight years have been an incredible run, setting records for sales and building one of the largest virtual communities on Earth.

Let's look back at the game's original launch, when Blizzard wasn't quite as prepared as they are today for the game's overwhelming popularity.

A moonlit walk

Blizzard's chief operating officer Paul Sams couldn't wrap his head around what he was seeing. Just after 11 p.m. on November 22, 2004, he was sitting in deadlock traffic on a freeway offramp in Fountain Valley, California. He looked over at the Fry's Electronics outlet not far from the road. The store had been surrounded by some sort of dark, seething mass.

Caught in traffic, Sams was in danger of missing the game's launch event at Fry's. Rather than fight his way through the jumble of cars, he decided to park some distance away. It was still unclear to him what was happening. The electronics store was only minutes from Blizzard's headquarters in Irvine. He thought he had left the office with plenty of time to spare. He never imagined that getting to the store would be difficult this late at night.

WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

When Mists of Pandaria goes live later this month, players will all begin leveling in the same zone for the first time since 2006. In Cataclysm and Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard gave us two zones to choose from at the beginning of our adventures. Wrath split players up on either side of Northrend with Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. Cataclysm's starting zones put players on different sides of the planet with Mount Hyjal and the less popular but unique underwater saga of Vashj'ir.

In contrast, The Burning Crusade's Hellfire Peninsula put us all on opposite sides of the street. That is not a joke. It is literally true -- see the image above! As you can guess, this led to problems. Let's look back at the Hellfire experience and try to gauge what we're in for when we arrive at the Jade Forest shortly after midnight on September 25.

Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions.

Cataclysm is upon us, and if you are already maxed out on your professions, you may be considering trying for one of the coveted feats of strength for realm first profession master. You're not alone -- believe me when I say that the competition will likely be fierce; however, if you're prepared, you'll stand as good a chance as anyone. I had the chance to talk about this subject with Kaliope from Crafterstome.com on episode 23 of Call to Auction this week; however, that was a long show, so I figured I'd put down some of the tips in writing.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the game's third expansion (and biggest one yet), is releasing in just six days. To help you prepare, we've got articles to last you all the way through launch day and beyond, starting tomorrow. We'll be covering all aspects of the expansion for all types of players.

Here are some of our helpful Cataclysm articles to get you started; be sure to keep an eye out for more in the days to come!

• New around here? Learn about Cataclysm and nab some tips and tricks for lowbies from WoW Rookie.
• Remember, you can play Cataclysm at midnight PST on Dec. 7 no matter how or where you buy it!
  
• Want to turn your character into a goblin or worgen? You're in luck -- race changes to the new races are available on launch night.
• Learn more about rated battlegrounds in this FAQ.
• Ghostcrawler and the design team have some notes about DPS spec design, and changes and notes for tanks, too.
• Coming back after an absence? Check the new system requirements for 4.0.3 and Cataclysm.
• If you're excited to get into heroic dungeons and raids, check this progression chart for the expansion's intended progression.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Here's a bit of sad news for all WoW players not lucky enough to live on the west coast: Blizzard CM Bashiok has announced that the official Cataclysm start time for all North American servers will be Dec. 7 at midnight PST. This will include servers on other time zones. So, sorry eastern time people. You may be able to pick up your copies of the game at midnight EST, but you'll have to wait a few hours for the west coast to catch up before you play.

The full announcement is as follows:

Bashiok

Wondering exactly what time you'll be able to begin playing your goblin or worgen or making your way to level 85? On all North American realms, World of Warcraft players who upgrade to Cataclysm will be able to begin experiencing the new content at 12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) on December 7, whether they purchase the digital download through Battle.net or buy a physical retail boxed version in stores. Players will not be able to access Cataclysm expansion content prior to 12 a.m. PST, regardless of how they upgrade or what time zone they're located in.

source

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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We haven't heard much from the folks at You Play or We Pay lately, but maybe that's a good thing for them -- after all the noise from their initial launch, it seems like things have calmed down over there. They're giving out "Compensation Credits," it looks like they've started running a few ads, and it seems like they've finally settled on a model that works for everyone -- both the founders of the site and the people who sign up for compensation. While we heard the first month of slots filled up pretty fast, the second month seems to be going a little slower -- they've still got about half the slots for March still available as of this writing. But as you can see from the picture, they're promising some real items in exchange for those Compensation Credits. With 150 slots in March and about 100 credits given out last month, you may be waiting over a year to save up the credits to buy a 30-day game card, but the site is working the way they planned: you can sign up for free and eventually get something back for your realm's downtime.

And they're planning on expanding soon -- the site reports that by the 15th of March, English EU players will be able to sign up for compensation on their realms' downtime as well. This site caused a lot of controversy when it first opened up, but we have to give it to them: it looks like they've worked out a way to do what they want to do.

We knew it was going to be a lot, but I think the game outsold even our expectations: Blizzard has announced that the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, sold 2.8 million copies worldwide in the first 24 hours, and undoubtedly many more in the weekend after that (we're expecting an announcement later this month around five million in the first 30 days). That makes the game the fastest selling PC game of all time, and by far the fastest-selling expansion of all time (remember that this isn't even a complete game that's flying off the shelves). The previous record, of course, was set by the Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million copies during launch.

Pretty huge, but when you consider that the game has 11 million subscribers around the world, those numbers are just about right. Looks like Morhaime is on to something -- as long as they have players ready to buy the game in numbers like this, Blizzard will undoubtedly release expansions as long as they can.

Thanks, Doug!

MTV's Multiplayer blog has an interview with Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime (who is apparently sitting pretty with the elven ladies after last week's big expansion launch). He says that he sees no end to the expansions -- Blizzard has told us before that as long as they have ideas (and players), they'll keep making content for this game. He also says that they're happy with the subscription model in the United States -- although we'd imagine that both of those things might get rethought if Blizzard's subscription numbers were going the other way. For now, though, while things are headed up, Morhaime sounds pretty happy with the way things are.

Finally, they ask about an iPhone app, and Morhaime says Blizzard is working on connecting mobile devices up to the game, but he also specifically says they're not looking at a stand-alone app. So maybe a mobile version of the Armory? I'd love to see an iPhone app, as we've said before, with mail or auction house functionality, but maybe Blizzard doesn't see the majority of their audience on the iPhone anyway. Then again, their Mac guys always need something to do...

What are you possibly doing up this morning? Didn't you stay up late last night and play Wrath like a normal person? Oh well, since you're up and around, let's give out some free stuff. The good folks at Red Sun Comics (hit them up for all of your comics and collectible needs -- here's their Warcraft stuff) have kindly supplied us with not one but two /slashdance loot cards. Yes, that's right, now there's an item other than the Piccolo that will make your friends dance with joy whether they want to or not.

So here's the deal: leave a comment on this post telling us why you're up at this ungodly hour, and we'll pick two lucky winners to nab two different /slashdance loot cards, good for the ingame G.R.E.N.A.D.E. that'll make your friends (or raid, or just random people in the IF bank) dance like maniacs. You can be in anywhere in the world, as long as you play on a US or EU realm (because that's where the codes work).

Enter a comment before Saturday night (November 15 at 6pm Eastern), because after that we'll be closing the comments down and your chance to win will be over. And do go check out Red Sun Comics -- they were nice enough to hook you all up, the least you can do is find some cool stuff on their site.

Today's the day! After years of speculation and months of waiting, Blizzard is finally officially releasing Wrath of the Lich King. More than a few people have grabbed their copies already, but the vast majority of us are heading out to midnight launches all over the country (and indeed, the world) to pick up the game's second expansion.

Blizzard has their own launches planned (there's a rumor going around that the NYC event is canceled, but we've confirmed that's not true -- everything is still on as planned), and so do we here at WoW Insider -- in all the places that we're going out to take pictures and grab our own copies, we're inviting you to come along with us and say hi. We've reprinted all the meetups after the break -- I'll be in Chicago, we'll have people at the Blizzard events in Anaheim and Austin, and in North Carolina, California, Maryland, Minnesota and Florida, and our own Jennie Lees is hosting an event in Scotland. Take a look after the break, and if you happen to be in the area, definitely come out and meet us.

No matter where you are, good luck getting the game, and have a terrific time. We'll be around tonight with coverage of the event as it happens, interviews with devs on the scene, and of course in-depth coverage of our (and your) first steps into Northrend. Today is the day!