WOW release date

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:23 am

http://www.forumplanet.com/PlanetWarcra ... id=1511246

One of the most anticipated PC games of the year now has a launch date.

"World of Warcraft," the online world game from the makers of the incredibly popular "Warcraft" strategy game series, is scheduled to launch the week of Nov. 22, the Free Press has learned.

Most stores have predicted Nov. 15 would be the launch date for "World of Warcraft," guessing that Sony Online Entertainment's behemoth "Everquest 2" would come out on or near the same day. But Phil O'Neil, president, North America, of "Warcraft" publisher Vivendi Universal Games, said the game will actually launch a week after the company's other hot holiday title, "Half-Life 2," which debuts Nov. 16.

Post by **Martrae** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:24 am

Bet Blizzard is happy that Vivendi is announcing the date.

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:36 am

I'm sure at times Verant is irked SOE calls the shot. I'm sure they'll still be a big press release this week. Especially since EQ2 is being announced gold today, supposedly.

Naginataka · Post by **Naginataka** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:40 am

Thats just silly.

After the people who all buy EQ2 2 weeks before plus all the people who buy half-life-2 the week before, they are just hurting the hell out of their market.

Tacks · Post by **Tacks** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:46 am

I don't think it'll hurt them much...they're going to sell copies, it's the Christmas season. They're probably going to have a much more fluid sales curve IMO.

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:04 am

I don't think it'll hurt their sales at all, really. Especially if they time their open beta at the same time as EQ2's release.

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:57 am

That would be a great marketing move by them if they hope to snag more people who are on the fence betwee EQ2 and WoW.

Open Beta for free until release, or buy EQ2 that I may not have tried yet...

The Kizzy · Post by **The Kizzy** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:58 am

Pretty smart if you ask me. EQ is all skeered that WoW is coming out, so they push out a crappy game to make it to the shelves first, so instead of pushing up their release date, WoW will do open betas, and I don't know about you, but I would rather get it for free than pay for it. Hopefully the 2 or 3 weeks is enough to finsih ironing out some things.

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:02 am

I've been playing it all morning, I wouldnt call it crappy yet *shrug*

I'll have a more formed opinion these coming weeks.

The Kizzy · Post by **The Kizzy** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:09 am

Kezz couldnt log on all Saturday becaise of the servers. Thats pretty crappy, if you ask me.

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:11 am

Saturday is when they gave out 1500 more accounts and people were swamping the servers yes? (I might be off by a day, but I am sure it was saturday)

The Kizzy · Post by **The Kizzy** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:12 am

So their servers can not handle 1500 people? Ok got it.

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:14 am

I played all day Saturday and Sunday with only one hiccup, due to an 'entity creation' error, which crashed but let me log right back in.

The Kizzy · Post by **The Kizzy** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:14 am

Good for you, finally something positive from you!!!

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:17 am

Aryylas played all day too, maybe you had a problem on your end somewhere?

Tacks · Post by **Tacks** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:18 am

Saturday from about 5pm to 10pm there were login errors out the ass. It was posted on the beta forum. If they can't handle 1500 account creations, how the fuck do they expect to handle opening day Finawin?

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:18 am

Dang, I broke my streak. My point was it might not have been the SOE servers.

I had a friend who cursed WOW servers for weeks, until he realises his ISPs DNS was borked.

All three people I know in EQ2 who started late last week all played this weekend, with very few issues.

I'm curious if the real reason Taxx wasn't logged into EQ2 was he was sucked back into WOW!

The Kizzy · Post by **The Kizzy** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:19 am

Taxx wrote:Saturday from about 5pm to 10pm there were login errors out the ass. It was posted on the beta forum. If they can't handle 1500 account creations, how the fuck do they expect to handle opening day Finawin?

Im sure tht you are not dumb Lyion, but maybe Taxx ninjka posted, so I will quote for good measure.

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:23 am

Note the times of our two posts.

It is beta, and things will go down. Again, everyone I know personally played all weekend without a hitch, sans some lag from the influx of people.

Some zones were sickly overcrowded, and that is a concern I have for both EQ2 and WOW. The first few weeks of any MMO are usually hell. These two will be especially rough due to the hype and massive incoming kiddies.

Tacks · Post by **Tacks** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:27 am

WoW servers had 50,000 ish people during the stress test and they pretty much had no complaints of lag.

Post by **Martrae** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:44 am

Everything was just about unplayable the first day or so tho due to overcamping.

Tacks · Post by **Tacks** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:48 am

Overcamping, yes? But lag? No

The overcamping was also addressed and the stress testers were thanked. Blizzard implemented a "mob total vs. PC total" code to even out spawn times against how many people were in each "zone".

If you have 100 people in the valley of trials now you will see almost instant spawns Martrae.

Post by **Martrae** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:51 am

Sweet, hope they don't cancel OB so I can see that.

Yeah, we had almost 0 lag, just a couple small spikes and that was it. The game was remarkably stable.

Post by **Martrae** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:28 pm

We appreciate everyone's interest in determining when World of Warcraft will ship, but while we are rapidly approaching the open beta period and we are confident that we will meet our goal of shipping the game before the end of this year, nailing down an exact ship date is a little more complicated due to a number of factors. As soon as we have a specific date to announce, we will be excited to share the news with everyone. Please don't consider any announced release dates official until such an announcement comes from Blizzard. This is true for all announcements related to Blizzard games. - Caydiem -
Assistant Community Manager, WoW

Post by **Lyion** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:41 pm

parsed quote wrote:Thanks for the interest and understanding that I'm a worthless PR prop not given any actual relevant information ahead of time. While we are waiting our bosses approval for the open beta period and also when Vivendi will permit us to release our game, we are confident that we will meet our goal of shipping the game exactly when they tell us to. Nailing down an exact ship date is a little more complicated due to Vivendi not deciding when after Half Life 2 we should ship, yet. As soon as we are told what date to announce by the corporate suits, we will be excited to share the news with everyone. Please don't consider any announced release dates official until such an announcement comes from Viv, er, Blizzard. This is true for all announcements related to V, er, Blizzard games. - Caydiem -
10 dollar an hour Internet Lapdog, Vivendi, er, Blizzard