An interesting article regarding both the sales and virtual lines in the actual game come The Burning Crusade launch. A game as popular as World of Warcraft is bound to have queues at the stores to the extreme!
CareerLinked.com has the following to say:
We all know very well that a lot of stores do not guarantee results with pre-orders if there is too much demand for supply. So come that fateful Tuesday morning, there will be many disappointed gamers, what I would suggest is to start lining up now so that you will ensure that you get your copy and are able to experience the burning crusade as soon as it comes out.
Comments
@Popov147
actually, yes you are getting in. you don't need a tBC key to log into the game. you just won't get to the new content.
Good thing I pre-ordered off this very site, late October sometime. :)
Does anyone actually know any stores that will be open at midnight on th e 16th?
I think they will use queues just like they always have. There isn't any need to limit buying the game through artificial shortgages when you can get the money right away and use queues to limit game access.
Whilst it may be true you only need the key to upgrade your account remember the key is in the box and if the box aint on the shelf you aren't getting in ;)
8+ million users do not play in the same area. there's also a lot more instance and raid content. most expansion players will be in a unique area of the server not inhabited by other players. i would submit that the smaller area was also designed to increase the lack of world pvp. server transfers were opened up a long time ago and a lot of guilds have moved around. more realms and transfer abilities continue to arise. so all of this was by design.
if major patches of the current game are any testimony then the lack of server connectivity should not be surprising come expansion time.
Most likely it will be like back in the beta times. I'm basically still using my closed beta installation. Patched up to 2.0.1 but the basic installation is the closed beta client from december 2004 :P.
Since I'm owner of the BC-Beta client (tho not my own beta key) I will probably be able to log in right away by just upgrading my account to BC (serial to enter on the wow-homepage I guess) and using the BC-beta client without downloading much patch :)
well, tBC in hand or not, those people will still be able to log into their realm and play. they will not experience new content, but it won't prevent them from logging in and checking things out. So 8 million people is still 8 million people.
while the concept is nice that you think blizz will purposely hold back release software, its probably not going to happen.
1. the software will be a donwload patch the day of release. the fact that the x-pac is being sold in a box is irrelevant. you won't need it. 2. the software being purchased is only necessary for the tBC key that is being sold.
these are my opinions, and not fact. so i may be wrong.
Em.. yea. They have a point there, only.. the 8 million is including the huge number of players in China who will not get TBC yet. So the actual number of required TBC boxes is much smaller.
haha, I didn't actually catch that one! At least this remains true to the source! ;) Editing tho!
Nice to see that they are still in 2006 :]