Pre-launch-Roundup
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Wrath of the Lich King: Pre-launch roundup
So hey, it's really happening. Sure, Wrath went live in Europe already (kind of like those raid bosses and world firsts, huh?) but it's about to go live in about an hour stateside. Well, it's ground zero. We over here at WoW Insider went a little crazy with some giveaways, while silly little 7-11 jumped the gun and sold stocks earlier than was allowed. It's been kind of a whirlwind. Let's take a look at all the stuff that's happened this month leading up to Wrath of the Lich King.COUNTDOWN TO WRATH Of course, this November, we celebrated our excitement by giving away lots of swag in our Countdown to Wrath contests. And I mean lots. We gave away some Collector's Edition boxes, some pre-paid game cards, a few Polar Bear Mounts, and some super sweet Razer gaming accessories. Cool, right? Well, guess what. We're not yet done. Keep your eyes peeled for more contests to come. A couple of guys got in line really early in New York. You know the drill. Those guys wouldn't have had to wait in line so long if they had just swung by a 7-11, which apparently sold a whole lot of copies ahead of schedule. Some people needn't even venture out of the house, actually. Blizzard (inadvertently) made the game available for download despite announcing the contrary. You'll still need a CD-key, though. As if you needed any more incentive, there have been a bunch of deals for Wrath all over the world. With all this excitement, the fully packed launches, and Collector's Editions selling out everywhere, the analysts seem to be right on the money by predicting that Wrath will sell five million copies within one month. If you're wondering why Blizzard bothers to sell boxes at all, maybe this article about Activision-Blizzard's September results will clear things up for you. Mike will be documenting his installation of Wrath as well as the first few minutes of his time in Northrend through a live netcast on ustream. If you don't have the game yet and want to live vicariously, it's really something worth checking out. If you don't want to feel the pain of watching Mike install and play live, you can always check out the Wrath installation gallery. It's kind of the same thing, but less drool-inducing. On the other hand, if you're a real glutton for punishment, you can drool over the unboxing of a Collector's Edition box in this video by some lucky guy who's sitting comfortably at home waiting for Northrend to unlock. Blizzard is getting ready to migrate everyone to the new and improved Battle.net. Well, everyone except those guys they banned for cheating. You know, if you've been paying attention to WoW Insider, you really should have been preparing for Wrath all this time.
