World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King San Francisco Launch Event

It's not every day that Blizzard releases a game...

... and it's certainly not every day that us Kiwis get to be there for the official launch.

Blizzard's latest game, an expansion to their phenomenally successful World of Warcraft, is Wrath of the Lich King. This expansion lets WoW players hit up the land of Northrend and tackle the undead of that frozen continent as the Horde and Alliance both take the invading scourge head on. While that might not mean a lot to everyone reading this, for WoW players this is a big deal.

I joined up with the mighty queue at around 9pm local time, expecting to stand stationary for 3 hours before walking slowly (but steadily) towards the Gamestop on Powell st and picking up my copy - as it turns out, that's not exactly how it went down.

When I joined the back of the queue, there were probably around 200 people in front of me. I could see the Gamestop around 200 feet away and I could see that there was some stuff going on up there but I really didn't want to let any more people take their place in front of me so I just jumped right on in and settled down for the wait.

The people in the queue with me were, for the most part, pretty normal - sure, trending towards the geek (going way past into nerd territory in more than a few cases I'll admit) but largely they were like me so it was shaping up to be a pretty agreeable place to spend a few hours.

As this was an official Blizzard launch location (complete with Blizzard devs signing copies inside), Gamestop (that's EB to us kiwis - it's the same place, recently rebranded in the US to be Gamestop everywhere) went all out, with more giveaways, competitions and swag than I could ever recount here. Highlights included little flipbooks (you know, you flip them and the pictures they contain appear to animate) that starred YOU - they created them on the spot to capture your excitement of being there, face painting, energy drinks, crushed ice, posters and much more.

Just one of the many things you could do whilst queuing - get your free "ephoto" (they'd snap a picture of you and put it online).

There were also dance competitions (the dances being, you guessed it, based on those performed by player characters in WoW) and loads of players dressed up for the event in their favorite WoW themed cosplay. The costumes varied, of course, with some being rather pathetic and more than a couple being actually very good - two of the female blood elves, for example, actually looked quite shapely underneath their well constructed costumes.

A line of several hundred people in downtown San Francisco in the middle of the night gets a lot of attention - I lost count of the number of bums (sorry - home-challenged) that were working the line, with all sorts of attempts tried (entirely in vain I might add) to separate me from my change. There were the odd hecklers, drunk of course, hurling "nerd!" type abuse as well as some odd looks from people when comedians in the queue would suggest we were waiting for "donkey porn" or Starbucks.

The funniest encounter of the evening was the (incredibly serious and so much more surreal for it) woman carrying a toy dog of some sort who turned up with some policemen in an attempt to get this unlawful (!) gathering shut down. Only later did I learn that she had been successful earlier in the week at the same location in shutting down the Call of Duty: World at War release party!

Once we got to the store it was now 11pm and my question as to why on earth the line had been moving the whole time (albeit incredibly slowly) was finally answered; it turns out that Gamestop were, rather wisely, processing the transactions in advance of the release, converting cash (or in my case, credit card) into receipts and preventing that annoying lag from slowing things down later. This realization as to how smartly this event was being organized was quickly tempered, however, when i found out that not only did I need to join a different queue once I had my receipt, this second queue was much, much longer as well.

In talking to the manager of the store, he estimated that something like a thousand people had now pre-purchased WotLK and were now queued up waiting to receive their copy. My position at the back of this new line was two streets away from the store, I couldn't even see it anymore!

Fortunately this system, whilst somewhat daunting initally, actually paid considerable dividends and I was back in the store, ready to collect my copy and get it signed within an hour of midnight.

Once in the store, I picked up my copy and waited patiently for the short queue to the Blizzard guys to tick over to my turn so i could get this precious collectors edition scrawled on in silver ink. I'm a huge, huge Blizzard fan I should point out - I had a standing order with my local Gamesman (since rescinded after the EB buyout as EB won't do that - if you know somewhere that will, let me know) for a collectors edition of every game that Blizzard ever release, on any platform. I'm not even kidding. So to not only get my hands on the (long since sold out in NZ) collectors edition of WotLK was a big deal in and of itself - that it would be signed by the developers? Wow - in more ways that one!

Two of the Blizzard guys, signing copies of the game.

So yeah, long story short - it was a great event. I had a great time, met some cool people (shout outs to Patrick from AT&T, should he ever see this - top bloke), got my hands on the CE and got to participate in a well-run event of the likes we never get to see in NZ. I do really need to get some sleep at some point, however...