It’s 4.40am and we’ve just got back from London. The opening event was purely awesome; we filmed the opening, interviewed the developers, spoke to people in the queue and caught the moment the countdown ended. Videos of all this will be up as soon as it’s been edited, so check back - if you were there you might see yourself!
Now I’m going to head home, install the game, then get some sleep! Oh, and I’ll upload more pictures before I turn in.
EDIT: Ok here are more pics from the launch event! And more after the break! There was an ace ice statue on the stage at HMV, with the Wrath of the Lich King sign inside, and plenty of dry ice rolling around it, very atmospheric! Over by the check outs, there were stacks and stacks of collector’s editions, I don’t think they’ll run out for a while. All sorts of people turned up to queue and get their hands on copies as early as possible, including a nice female Tauren, but there was another unexpected visitor, see who it was after the break…
I don’t think there was much danger of HMV London running out of copies of Lich King tonight, there were stacks everywhere. At the front of the queues inside on the stage was a screen showing the countdown, but in the last few minutes before the launch, look who showed up… Arthas himself! He was a really tall guy actually, and quite sinister, although he didn’t do much other than stand around and look menacing.
When there were about 5 minutes left to go, Blizzard’s Paul Sams and Lee Sparks (make sure to see our interview with them as soon as it’s up) took to the stage briefly. Of course, the obligatory questions “Any Horde here? How about Alliance?” were asked, to be answered by the usual roars from the massed attendees, me included. Then we had the 10 second countdown, a cheer when it reached zero, and the flocks made their way to the check outs.
HMV gave away goodies to the people waiting in queues, including WoW posters and t-shirts. You can see all this and much much more in our video, which will be up very soon, stay tuned!
