Epic Launch Day Entries
This week we completed a contest to have out listeners tell us about their epic launch day stories. We got a lot of really cool entries, and thought we would share those with you now.
1st place
Hello from Babr (not pronounced Babar) the Seeker, Blood Elf Shadow Priest from Tichondrius server. I wanted to share my launch story…
My husband (Loctar also on Tichondrius server) is probably one of the most diehard players of WoW I have ever met. He has played since Vanilla beta, and stood in line at the Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley, California for Launch of the Vanilla game. He stood in line since 7pm that night. When BC and Wraith came out we lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and standing in line at 9pm would still put you as the first 5 in line.
We are now back in Orange County California and I was curious if we were going to go to Fry’s for the release Monday night, as it is 45 minutes north of us. He said he wanted to go somewhere less crowded and we picked a small Gamestop near our house. So I expected to stand in line from 9pm. My husband had stood in line at the Starcraft2 release at 8pm and was only the 3rd person in line. He really wanted to be the first in line and said he wanted to go over there at 6pm. I called the store, and they said due to the online release they didn’t expect more than 30 people at the release. However, my husband got to the store at 7:30pm anyway, and was seriously the only person there inline until 9pm when I joined him.
The funniest thing that happened was that a couple guys pulled up in a sports car. They wanted to know if the store was closed, which it was until 10pm when they would open long enough to finalize purchases and give the vouchers to pick up the game at midnight. We asked him what server he played on. He stared at us blankly and said he was only there to pick up the FIFA 2010 game. We stared back equally blankly. He called the store standing outside the window and asked if they would sell him FIFA at 10 when they opened to finalize purchases….Which they agreed to do. So he and his friend joined us “WoW” nerds to buy the FIFA game.
The third guy in line was a 74 year old solo player, we originally thought he was buying the game for some grandchildren but he explained he played nearly every night, and that he had bought 300,000 gold to help him in the expansion because he feared he overly inflated prices currently would continue for the new content.
After midnight my husband carried out our 2 collector’s editions and our son’s regular version, and the player’s guide we picked up for our son, and watched everyone’s jaw drop as we walked by them. My husband said at least the collector’s edition boxes were large enough to use as weapons if anyone thought they would “help” him with his games. I considered this….and then remembered we are all pretty nerdy and the idea of confrontation outside our game world is probably not high on our bucket list.
I did upgrade my account but have not yet logged in…I am waiting until this weekend when I have time to sit and explore and that flight trainer in Org is not swamped, my husband did log in and even on his uber computer he was getting a whopping 7 frames per second.
Happy Questing,
2nd Place
Hey guys, love the show so and listen on the podcast so was happy to hear of a competition I could email in for.
I live in London and so naturally went along to the launch party in Leicester square. The weather in England is freezing at the moment and no amount of layers could stathe off the cold on Monday night. A friend and I stood in the que for just over 2 hours , entered a few competitions, saw Ghostcrawler, then got to what we decided was about an hours wait away from the door and decided to head for home. We realized we had got from it what we wanted, as we had Cata on pre-order, so we had only gone along for the atmosphere which was great.
Oh and hats off to the 5 people that dressed up, their costumes were great.
Keep up the good work guys and girls. All hail the aspect of Bacon.
Cheers
Rainari of Runetoem EU
3rd Place
Hello, this is Darksting from the killrogg server,
Im usually working so i can barely catch the live show, but been
listening to you guys for a while now.
Im pretty much a veteran player, and loving loving cataclysm, if they
could pay me to play wow I would do it , haha.
Well my launch day story:
So on monday evening about 9pm eastern I take off to the gamestop I pre
ordered my copy of cata, now mind you I live in Miami,
where we have like one season, but not this day, oh no it drops to the
40s'( ok I realize to most people thats not cold but, we’re close to
being lizards in Miami and we cant do weather below the 60’s lol ) and
so you can imagine, a bunch of wow players stuck in our cars as near as
we can get to the gamestop, as time is getting closer, I finally get
out of my car, get the final reciept in the gamestop and back to my car
I go. Still have 2 hours before we can get my hands on the game, right
about now, I was almost wishing I did the digital but I wanted my box
that said cataclysm, yes im one of those people, I need something
tangible, even if its just a box with one CD in it , lol.
Before its time I decide to go on a quest to get coffee, total fail,
around that time most stores are closed, gas stations dont serve coffee
at that time and well starbucks is way too out of the way, so i settle
for wendys, yep I said it, i had a burger with BACON!!!
Around this time there letting people in the gamestop, which for a
midnite opening it was kind of sad, but I think the most hilarious
thing was, the guy behind the register had no clue what WoW was, and he
was asking us , if it was a shooter like halo. So we WoW players that
we are, start making up stuff. That it was a shooter and your able to
fly and have a bacon pet that follows you around, as the story is
getting more elaborate, non of us could hold it and finally gave in.
finally got our copys and raced to my house, just to install , because
apparently I forgot that east coast servers dont go up till 3am, So
yeah I wait, log in, say Hi to my guild and go to sleep , the next day
at work was torture, longest day EVER! lol
Well thats my story, love cata, Im so psyched, Hyjal so EPIC, and yes
my Rogue has become a Goblin.Amazing..
Well I listen your show every week, great show, awesome segments and
love the Giggling Shade which I personally think is great at her lore
info. Great job.
Thanks for your time,
Darksting
Honorable Mention
I was in the Outlands when the world broke. Even though I was a world
away I could hear the screams of the peoples of Azeroth. I could fell
the fear of our world. And I could hear the victorious roars of Xaxas,
the Deathwing, as he tore across the landscape in all his rage. I
prayed to Elune that my friends would be safe somewhere. I would have
gone to help them, but the tremors were too big to even move an inch.
And then, all of a sudden, everything stopped. The universe fell
silent, like the calm after a storm.But there wasn’t like a storm. The
fear that nagged my gut was very real, and, in time, the world would be
filled with black horse-drawn carriages. I wonder if any of my friends
will be in them. Then I thought of my brother, killed by the
Twilight’s Hammer all those years ago, and how the pain dulled, but
never went away. I swore to myself on that day that I wouldn’t let
anyone down again. Rage coursed through me. Anger like red hot fire.
Anger for Deathwing. Anger for the Twilight’s Hammer.Anger for all
that was evil. And then I let out a roar like none that has ever been
heard before, and fell to my knees, weeping. And that is when I
discovered power in its true and purest form. Not the hate I had felt a
second a go, but the peace after it. I have heard it called many
things, Nirvana, Enlightenment, but at that hour, I gave it a new name,
one that I thought suited it more.
Resolve.
And I saw everything. The world in its changed
state. The Barrens split in two. My home of Darkshore ravaged beyond
repair. The Greymane Wall shattered.
And I realized that this
was meant to happen. We should look at this as a blessing, not a
curse. When a phoenix dies, it is reborn from it’s ashes, just as our
world will. Fire is not only a death-bringer, but also a life-giver.
And so, as Azeroth died in flame, it will also be reborn in flame!
-Exert from the diary of Camthalion Elendil, Hunter of Elune
Other entries
Hello, Pepperspray here! I love your show and have a fun story for you.
Like
the Burning Crusade release I went to the local Walmart at 11pm to wait
in line but because of the cold this time, I was the first person
there. A few dozen people showed up over the next hour but I remained
first in line. I got my collector’s edition and headed home to install
it. Having about an hour to kill after the install i logged in to chat
with people and redeem my TCG loot card that came with the collector’s
edition. I was surprised to receive a Swift Spectral Tiger Mount! (and
spectral tiger sand box toy)
I tried for the realm first 525 fishing and failed but still have a cool new mount to show for my line-waiting efforts!
Keep up the good work!
Pepperspray
——————————–
I never have been so pleased with an expansion launch of this scale.
Logged in right a 2 am CST bought my flight license and then logged off
and rolled my goblin with my wife. Had a blast in that starting zone.
I’ll be honest when I first heard about Wargen I was there but as the
months passed and I heard about Wargen vs. Goblin I slowly changed my
mind and I so glad I did.
After a little sleep I hit Hi’jal and was blown away again. I almost
forgot I was leveling I had such a blast and before I knew it I had
finished of 150 quests and was level 82+. My favorite part of all
actually was Joust. For those who haven’t done this yet Blizzard has
successfully integrated Atari (or for me Apple ][e) the game into a 3D
wow quest with pet for completing all 3 waves (yes waves like the
original).
Other than that I’ve hit Va’shir started through that area. Flew down
the Maelstrom which was Epic in a Pirates of the Carabian sort of way.
Keeps up the awesome work on the show and possibly see you on a Horde
side show Guild.
For the Horde! Sorry Alliance Blizzard needs to give you a better rally cry,
James Taggart
@JamesTaggartWOW
