Wrath of the Lich King launched today. Or at least it will. You see, I'm writing this on Tuesday because I have had my copy of the second expansion to World of Warcraft on pre-order for nine months and, assuming that it drops through the letter box on Thursday morning, there is
no
way I am going to be wasting time with blog posts. I'm a freelancer; I don't have a boss to justify my day off to. I don't need to pull a
or swap shifts with my co-workers. I have planned my writing deadlines around this release for the last month and a half. Because I have a busy day ahead:
- 07:00 Wake up exhausted after 3 hours sleep, having stayed up late to run Karazhan for the last time pre-expansion
- 07:15 Boot up computer, still in my jim-jams with a cup of coffee and check the official website while I wait for the post to arrive
- 07:30 After mashing the refresh button non-stop, the website finally loads with an error page to say that it is down due to heavy traffic.
- 07:35 Try curse-gaming and WoWACE to update all my 107 add-ons. These sites are also down
- 09:20 Finally manage to find working torrent sites with the add-ons. Download and install these
- 9:30 Quick shower and more coffee
- 9:35 Still no sign of the postman
- 9:50 Pointlessly click on the 'Where's my stuff' link in Amazon to get an ETA on my package. It is showing as 'dispatched'
- 10:30 Read various WoW blogs that have updated in the last few hours. All from people waiting for their pre-orders to arrive
- 11:45 Post finally arrives. Rip open box. Pause to savour the packaging within
- 11:46 Stick the DVD in and install
- 11:54 Savour the intro cinematic, previously only seen in low res on YouTube
- 11:59 Attempt to upgrade my account with the serial number from the box
- 12:00 Account management web page is down
- 12:05 Still down
- 12:20 Still down
- 13.15 Still down
- 14:03 Finally in. WoW launcher pops up. Click 'Play'
- 14:04 Downloading patch: 13 bytes downloaded. 1.2Gb remaining
- 16:30 250K downloaded 1.175Gb remaining
- 19:22 Download complete. Enter World
- 20:45 You are in a queue for server [Kilrog]. You are currently in position 984.
- 23:58 You are currently in position 982.