Posts with tag shipping

We'd already noticed last week that the Authenticators in the US store had gone free shipping, but now official updates on Blizzard's site say it's true in the EU as well. American authenticators still cost $6.50, but you no longer have to pay anything extra for shipping, and EU authenticators have had their price dropped to €6.99. That's still over $10, but they're at least cheaper than they used to be. There's a drawback, however: apparently they went with cheaper shipping, because you can no longer track shipments of authenticators, and shipping will take a little longer (up to 15 business days in the US). Which makes sense, given that you want these things as cheap as possible.

Ancilorn answers some other Authenticator questions as well -- there's no discount for buying multiple units at all; what you see is what you get. And while the only authenticator for purchase at the moment is the Corehound branded unit, there may be more art available in the future, and of course you don't need a Corehound-branded Authenticator to get the Corehound Pup pet. Any Authenticator will do that, including any of the authenticators made for mobile phones, as long as it stays attached to your account. Whew -- that should answer all the questions anyone has. As we said the other day, if you don't have one of these yet, it's probably time to look in to getting one. Not only will your account be more secure, but you'll get that free pet as well.

Our buddies over at Figureprints, the company that makes custom 3D printed sculptures of your WoW characters, have expanded their business yet again -- this time, they're opening the doors to you EU players. Ed Fries, who we have spoken with twice now, says that they are finally ready to expand overseas, and EU players can now order their own custom figurines through the website.

There is a small catch, however -- at this point, while there is no lottery as far as we know, they are charging European customers €129.95, which ends up being about $166, or about $30 more than the US price of $129.95. And obviously shipping overseas from the company's HQ here in America probably won't be too cheap either, and shipping is extra no matter where you're buying the figures from. It looks like Figureprints just figured they'd charge "129.95" to both sides of the world, but thanks to the exchange rate, EU folks are actually paying more.

But then again, we're guessing that people who have been waiting for their chance in the EU to pick one of these up will probably go for the higher price anyway. Figureprints started out a little rough with their limited production capabilities, and a few early bumps in quality, but lately it seems like they're rolling along better than ever.

We had heard that there were problems with the Blizzard Authenticator (a few people who'd ordered them had gotten their money refunded by Blizzard), but apparently there are at least a few going out. Mania got hers -- she says that it works great, that she has already associated it with her accounts, and that she's thrilled with her purchase.

Not everybody is so lucky -- reader Tweaky emailed us to say that his order was supposed to go out UPS Next Day Air, but after it didn't show up and he had a tussle with Customer Support, he then found out it was actually going through the USPS and that it would show up late. No word on whether he's seen his yet or not. A few people commented on our last post that they actually had shipping returned to them, so maybe Blizzard originally planned to send some UPS, and then had to switch to a cheaper mailing method.

At this point, Blizzard has the keyfob sold out on their website, and there's no indication when we'll see any more (soon, probably). It appears that not only did they vastly underestimate demand for the Authenticator, but that people are seriously concerned about the security of their World of Warcraft account. No other game company has ever offered anything like this before, but given the response, it could soon become a standard.