Friday, November 7, 2008

Planning for the Midnight release

Where will you be at midnight the 12th/13th of November? Will you be queuing outside a game shop in order to tear your box out of the hands of the retailer?

I will. Not that it really make any sense. I’m not having vacation the next day, so it’s out the question that I could spend the whole night installing the game and then launching myself into the Brand New Laggy Exciting World. At the most I’ll have a cup of coffee and START the project to install the game. But I don’t expect to make it work and to be able to enter the new version until the following weekend.

A ritual
So what’s the big deal? Why can’t I wait until the regular opening hours during daytime?

I think it’s because it’s a part of a ritual. By attending the release the event becomes more real to us. It’s a clear marker in time and space that this actually is happening to us.

And for all of us who haven’t been able to attend any Blizzcon event in US or Europe, it’s a chance to see a bunch of other crazy creatures that have fallen in love with this game – to feel the fellowship, to share the feeling of excitement and expectations.

It’s exactly the same thing that made me and my daughter go out and queue outside a bookshop for the midnight release of one of the Harry Potter books. Of course we didn’t expect the shop to run out of books the following day – that would have been plain stupid. The book stores are far to goblin minded to let that happen. But that hour we spent outside the shop was something of a party. Candles burning everywhere, plenty of girls dressed up as witches. As time went by we found ourselves speaking not only to ourselves, but sharing thoughts about the books with strangers. Because in those situations we don’t feel like strangers anymore, we’re more like sisters and brothers.

I wonder what kind of people will show up at the event in the town where I live. Will I be the oldest one? Will people even consider the fact that I may buy the game for myself and not for my children? Or maybe I’m the one who’s prejudiced. There may as well be bunches of middle aged people, what do I know.

Discretly staring
Since I’m going to the shop on my own, I expect spending most of my time in the queue discretely staring at other people, trying to listen to their conversations. Above all I’ll try to figure out what class they play. Can you tell it from their exterior? Maybe. I’m pretty short myself, so I don’t think anyone would be surprised if they found out I’m a gnome. So what else? Is it likely that a slim, tall person is playing nightelf? And how would you then expect the horde characters to look in real life? Hm. No probably there isn’t any evidence supporting a people-look-like-their-character-theory.

Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone going to the shop could carry a little sign, telling what race and class you’re playing, and maybe even server name? Is it possible that there are more players in the town where I live who’re playing at my server? This could be the one and only chance to find out.

Meet WoW Bloggers
There are a few WoW bloggers who have announced where they’re buying to buy their copy of the game, inviting readers who want to see them to come to the same shop and say hi.

  • Lassirra at The Hunters Mark will be in South Burlington Vermont (I guess it’s the US)
  • You can see Big Red Kitty in Orlando.
  • And Big Bear Butt in a place called Maplewood (I’m sorry to say but I have no idea where that is located, though it’s a beautiful name of a place).
I can’t compare myself in any way at all to those awesome, respected bloggers. Still I can’t refrain from mentioning where I will be, in case that there actually is any of my Swedish readers who happen to live close to where I live (which is extremely unlikely). So if you want to see the real life Larísa, come to the GameStop store in Uppsala. I know they’re planning some opening event in Stockholm, but that’s 70 kilometres away and I can’t bother to go there.

To everyone else I send you a warnning for this night. I guess our friends in Australia won’t be too bad off, since spring is about to arrive. But in Northern Europe we can expect to be freezing. Dress accordingly! I wish I could set up a temporary outpost of The Pink Pigtail Inn, providing a fire and some nice hot brew to keep up the spirits. Be assured I'll do it in my thoughts.

6 comments:

Gevlon said...

I took some payed leave for 12-14, so did my GF, so we are good to go. We pre-ordered the game, but will not queue up at midnight. Will pick it up at 8 AM and play.

I can't say I understand the "part of the event" thing, I'm way too rational for that. However I wish it will work out for you and all the others and you'll have fun!

WTFspaghetti said...

haha...I loved this post.

I wish I could go to the midnight release party here in the states but I actually work from midnight till 8am. So I took a vacation day on the 14th but, I still wish I could see all the "noobs" like myself lol

Excellent read

Anonymous said...

No i will not be midnight buying it i stand by my word i will be witing 2-3 weeks so that my Paladin is 70 i have some gold saved up and all professions maxed out.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon: it really doesn't make sense, I know! And I know my family will be less than understanding me sneaking out in the middle of the night. Oh, well...

@Dr.Wang: I don't feel so sorry for you since you've got that day off... It surely beats being at the release party.

@Esdras: it will be interesting to read about your experiences. Will you be lonely in the old world or will there be others around, applying the same strategy?

Fish said...

When the playstation 3 released here I actually went with some friends to camp out for one. I personally wasnt getting one (I have remained faithful to my xbox360), but it was a unique experience, a fairly miserable unique experience lol.

I've gone to midnight releases before, but even if I was going to get the expansion, I think it could wait till I could actually install/play it, so friday 11/14.

GoW said...

My wife and I are having Amazon teleport our copies into our mailbox. They have the fancy-schmancy release-day shipping, so we'll have it the same day as all the other cool kids.

We did the midnight-at-the-store thing for TBC, but that and similar escapades work less well with an infant in tow. :)