Buying From Blizzard is Quickest Way to Play Cataclysm

[Tom Goldman]

Buying From Blizzard is Quickest Way to Play Cataclysm

Blizzard will soon be offering pre-orders for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on the Blizzard store, which will enable fans to play exactly at midnight.

At World of Warcraft: Cataclysm [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/tag/blizzcon+2010] digital pre-orders directly from the Blizzard Store. This is apparently a first for the series at an expansion's release and will theoretically allow players to get started from second one.

Blizzard's Mike Morhaime revealed at the convention's opening ceremony that a pre-order listing for Cataclysm will soon pop-up on the Blizzard Store. Blizzard will allow its direct customers to download and install the expansion before its release date. When the time hits one second past 12:00am on December 7, World of Warcraft players can jump right into Cataclysm's newly destroyed lands.

Installing and/or patching an MMO can sometimes take a good amount of time, so even those waiting outside of a retail store to get their Cataclysm copies at midnight won't be able to play as quickly as Blizzard Store customers. Plus, you don't have to leave your house. I don't need to tell anyone how helpful that can be.

It's not yet clear if Cataclysm's digital pre-orders will go live at midnight in each time zone they're purchased, or only at 12am PDT. For World of Warcraft players on the east coast that want to begin their paths to Deathwing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104461-WoW-Cataclysm-Cinematic-Intro-Blows-Everything-Up-Forever] as quickly as possible, those few hours could make a huge difference. Specific details should come out when Cataclysm goes up on the Blizzard Store in the near future.

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[gmacarthur81]

I don't play WoW, but I have to say that is pretty cool.

 

[Baldr]

I think this is a stupid mistake. They should start up the servers at noon on the day or some reasonable time. Not 3am. Some of us wanted to play for an hour or two that night before getting some sleep and work the next day.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

And by "play" we mean "struggle through crushing amounts of lag and some bugs that slipped through the development process". Day 1 on Burning Crusade was not a lot of fun, which is why I gave Wrath of the Lich King a couple days to settle things down before I hopped in. Will it run better this time? Maybe... maybe not. I don't think I want to stay awake that late to find out.

Still, though I'm not a hardcore "I have to have the hard copy" purist (my Steam games list will attest to that), this is one release I'd rather have the box for. I did take off a couple days of work to give it a go, too.

 

[Woodsey]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

 

[Hiphophippo]

For simplicity's sake this is probably how I'll be getting this game. I could care less about playing at minute one, but I'd like it to be patched and available the next morning.

 

[Gabanuka]

Sounds good apart from crippling lag of everyone playing at the same time.

 

[Numachuka]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Is it new to you that WoW expansions cost money?

 

[Daemascus]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Isnt EvE Online a glorifide chat room with a chance of losing items with a REAL money value?

OT: Sweet. I hate waiting for freaking FedEx on lanuch day.

 

[Mandal0re]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

What the hell does EVE online have to do with World of Warcraft? If you are suggesting that Cataclysm should be free then well-thats stupid.Most expansions for most games are not free. WOW is one of the biggest games in the world and Cataclysm is a huge expansion costing Blizzard millions to produce and market. EVE online is quite literally nothing by comparison. Why would they not charge for it? Plus, players without Cataclysm will still benefit from the overhauled game mechanics and remade world/new low level questing content.

 

[Aurora219]

I have to laugh how people who spend thousands of hours playing a game worry over the seconds they miss out on by how they order the game.

I've been there, done that. Not interested.

 

[mad825]

Blizzard, people need lives.

preventing players from playing the game for several hours wont harm sales but at least then people can get some Vitamin D

 

[Mandal0re]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Is it new to you that WoW expansions cost money?

Evidently.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Isnt EvE Online a glorifide chat room with a chance of losing items with a REAL money value?

Err... No.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

What the hell does EVE online have to do with World of Warcraft? If you are suggesting that Cataclysm should be free then well-thats stupid.Most expansions for most games are not free. WOW is one of the biggest games in the world and Cataclysm is a huge expansion costing Blizzard millions to produce and market. EVE online is quite literally nothing by comparison. Why would they not charge for it? Plus, players without Cataclysm will still benefit from the overhauled game mechanics and remade world/new low level questing content.

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

If you are going to make retarded posts then you have to expect some retaliation. The point you made in response to me is completely valid and rational. However, it is not what you said in your initial post. What you said in your initial post was that EVE onlines expansions are free, a point with zero relevance to this topic.

OT: I assumed it would be available at midnight but being able to actually download it before that and play right away is pretty awesome. Not that i will be playing WOW in the small hours of the morning on release day but still...

 

[Woodsey]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Is it new to you that WoW expansions cost money?

Evidently.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Isnt EvE Online a glorifide chat room with a chance of losing items with a REAL money value?

Err... No.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

What the hell does EVE online have to do with World of Warcraft? If you are suggesting that Cataclysm should be free then well-thats stupid.Most expansions for most games are not free. WOW is one of the biggest games in the world and Cataclysm is a huge expansion costing Blizzard millions to produce and market. EVE online is quite literally nothing by comparison. Why would they not charge for it? Plus, players without Cataclysm will still benefit from the overhauled game mechanics and remade world/new low level questing content.

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

If you are going to make retarded posts then you have to expect some retaliation. The point you made in response to me is completely valid and rational. However, it is not what you said in your initial post. What you said in your initial post was that EVE onlines expansions are free, a point with zero relevance to this topic.

OT: I assumed it would be available at midnight but being able to actually download it before that and play right away is pretty awesome. Not that i will be playing WOW in the small hours of the morning on release day but still...

There's plenty of relevance.

EVE is a smaller MMO yet none of it's (fairly regular) expansions are charged for - so I questioned why it's paid for ("Pay?").

Blizzard are owned by Activision though so I guess it's not too hard to find an answer.

 

[obisean]

Where was this when I actually played the damn game?

 

[Eri]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Is it new to you that WoW expansions cost money?

Evidently.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Isnt EvE Online a glorifide chat room with a chance of losing items with a REAL money value?

Err... No.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

What the hell does EVE online have to do with World of Warcraft? If you are suggesting that Cataclysm should be free then well-thats stupid.Most expansions for most games are not free. WOW is one of the biggest games in the world and Cataclysm is a huge expansion costing Blizzard millions to produce and market. EVE online is quite literally nothing by comparison. Why would they not charge for it? Plus, players without Cataclysm will still benefit from the overhauled game mechanics and remade world/new low level questing content.

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

If you are going to make retarded posts then you have to expect some retaliation. The point you made in response to me is completely valid and rational. However, it is not what you said in your initial post. What you said in your initial post was that EVE onlines expansions are free, a point with zero relevance to this topic.

OT: I assumed it would be available at midnight but being able to actually download it before that and play right away is pretty awesome. Not that i will be playing WOW in the small hours of the morning on release day but still...

There's plenty of relevance.

EVE is a smaller MMO yet none of it's (fairly regular) expansions are charged for - so I questioned why it's paid for ("Pay?").

Blizzard are owned by Activision though so I guess it's not too hard to find an answer.

Or maybe they're charged for because they handle 12 million people and not less than a million? Also, these expansions are no doubt larger than eve's.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Yes they are, but each game has it's own model (and I pay to play for both of these I might add).

WoW expansions cost money true, but are often fairly massive additions to the game, and they feel comfortable charging for this content.

EVE expansions can be fairly massive too (e.g. Trinity with the new engine and all the new models/textures or the wormhole systems and their content from Apocrypha), but some are considerably smaller, fairly light on new content, but heavy on improvements on older stuff (Quantum Rise for instance). CCP have always committed to keeping the expansions free, and they do.

But EVE also gets these smaller expansions far more frequently (as in twice a year), rather than once every 2 years or so that WoW releases a new expansion.

 

[Woodsey]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Is it new to you that WoW expansions cost money?

Evidently.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Isnt EvE Online a glorifide chat room with a chance of losing items with a REAL money value?

Err... No.

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

What the hell does EVE online have to do with World of Warcraft? If you are suggesting that Cataclysm should be free then well-thats stupid.Most expansions for most games are not free. WOW is one of the biggest games in the world and Cataclysm is a huge expansion costing Blizzard millions to produce and market. EVE online is quite literally nothing by comparison. Why would they not charge for it? Plus, players without Cataclysm will still benefit from the overhauled game mechanics and remade world/new low level questing content.

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

If you are going to make retarded posts then you have to expect some retaliation. The point you made in response to me is completely valid and rational. However, it is not what you said in your initial post. What you said in your initial post was that EVE onlines expansions are free, a point with zero relevance to this topic.

OT: I assumed it would be available at midnight but being able to actually download it before that and play right away is pretty awesome. Not that i will be playing WOW in the small hours of the morning on release day but still...

There's plenty of relevance.

EVE is a smaller MMO yet none of it's (fairly regular) expansions are charged for - so I questioned why it's paid for ("Pay?").

Blizzard are owned by Activision though so I guess it's not too hard to find an answer.

Or maybe they're charged for because they handle 12 million people and not less than a million? Also, these expansions are no doubt larger than eve's.

Yes, but as far as I'm aware they're less regular, and since they're earning roughly 12x as much it makes more sense - from the customer's point of view, obviously a company would consider it best to be able to charge for everything - to not charge for it.

 

[John Funk]

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

To clarify - the major changes that Cataclysm makes to the world/game systems will happen for everyone as part of Patch 4.0 (which is free), just like the WotLK/BC changes to the world/systems happened for everyone as part of Patch 3.0/2.0, respectively.

If you don't buy the expansion, that just means you don't get access to expansion-only content. For BC, that meant no Belves/Draenei and no content above level 60, for WotLK that meant no Death Knights and no content above level 70, and for Cata this means no Goblins/Worgen and no content above level 80.

So you're correct in that the changes happen for everyone for free. But the expansion content is something you have to pay for.

As I understand EVE, their expansions are more like major patches.

 

[Woodsey]

Pay?

Aren't all of EVE Online's expansions free?

Yes they are, but each game has it's own model.

WoW expansions cost money true, but are often fairly massive additions to the game, and they feel comfortable charging for this content.

EVE expansions can be fairly massive too (e.g. Trinity with the new engine and all the new models/textures or the wormhole systems and their content from Apocrypha), but some are considerably smaller, fairly light on new content, but heavy on improvements on older stuff (Quantum Rise for instance). CCP have always committed to keeping the expansions free, and they do.

But EVE also gets these smaller expansions far more frequently (as in twice a year), rather than once every 2 years or so that WoW releases a new expansion.

I was assuming that since the update makes massive changes to the game world that it'd probably be required; not to mention that the cost is probably easily covered in subscription fees.

Scrub the sand out of your vagina.

To clarify - the major changes that Cataclysm makes to the world/game systems will happen for everyone as part of Patch 4.0 (which is free), just like the WotLK/BC changes to the world/systems happened for everyone as part of Patch 3.0/2.0, respectively.

If you don't buy the expansion, that just means you don't get access to expansion-only content. For BC, that meant no Belves/Draenei and no content above level 60, for WotLK that meant no Death Knights and no content above level 70, and for Cata this means no Goblins/Worgen and no content above level 80.

So you're correct in that the changes happen for everyone for free. But the expansion content is something you have to pay for.

As I understand EVE, their expansions are more like major patches.

I'd just like to thank you two for not replying to me like I'm some sort of moron, and for having the reading ability to understand the relevance of my point.

I'm looking at this from an outsider's point of view (although I've dabbled a little in EVE).