When conflicting demands occur I look for ways to provide a win-win situation. I only wish Blizzard would do the same when it comes to their midnight launches on a Monday night/Tuesday morning and allowing retailers to sell boxed copies of the game prior to the launch date.

Let me explain the issue. I'm a bit (OK maybe a lot) of a WoW fan, I like to be there first when the big in game stuff happens, I may not kill the big bads in world first or server first time-scales but I like to get my ass in the door of the new content when it happens. Blizzard loves faithful players like me.

Because of my love of the games, I buy the Collector's Edition too, not because I want the pet (or the mount in Pandacraft) but I like the big box on my shelf, the artwork book and the soundtrack and the DVD too. Therefore when they announced the launch and the CE I pre-ordered the boxed version on the day. I was, what we English call "keen as Mustard". I wasn't able to get what I wanted digitally direct from Blizzard.

My usual game provider, ShopTo.net, are great at getting games to their customers the day before big releases (I think Pandacraft qualifies as a big release) and for Cataclysm they had dispatched my boxed CE on Friday December 3rd 2010 and it arrived late-afternoon on Monday 6th December 2010. Awesome! Fast forward to 2012 and they didn't dispatch my order last Friday, I have been checking all weekend and my pre-order is still that a pre-oder. No dispatch time or anything. This morning I checked expecting to see that it was dispatched already and it wasn't. It is now 15 hours before the midnight launch I want to be experiencing so I call ShopTo, they advise they have not been allowed to dispatch until today which means I will get my pre-ordered boxed Collector's Edition "sometime tomorrow" Which most likely means late afternoon tomorrow.


This means this WoW fanboi will have missed the midnight launch excitement, leveling through content with my friends (who all slacked and bought the digital copy) and all the fun that goes with it.

I'm not a happy, in fact you could say I'm a sad panda, heck I can't be a sad panda cos I have no panda!

There is a solution for me though, I can buy the digital verion and then upgrade my account. Great! Except that my £60/€70/$80 Collector's Edition will now cost me an extra £30/€35/$40. Sure there is a chance that I will get a replacement key for a standard account when I upgrade, but I have an account I don't need a 2nd key. 

What would be great is if Blizzard changed the system a bit and used one of the following solutions:

• Credit me with £30/€35/$40 worth of gametime when I upgrade to a CE account if I buy the standard edition from the Blizzard Store;
• Supply companies selling pre-orders of the game a code that they can pass onto their customers that allows 48 hours of upgrade to an account (not a subscription);

Either work for me and my situation and I'm not the only one suffering from this scenario I know as I have read forum  posts like http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/5348735687.

This has put a real downer on the start of the expansion for me lets hope Blizz learns from the experience this time.

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We have waited a long time for this and oh boy was it worth the wait,despite the fact there is yet again no gnome in the cinematic. Unlike cinematics from the past there is no big sell in the trailer. Which is odd, no new class or race announcement within it, But the quality is awesome and make me think that the delay to the mythical Warcraft movie is only delaying the inevitable outcome of Blizzard doing it in house, which would be awesome!

The other big news, is something that I know will be welcomed by all new players, the ability to create a new toon of ANY race come 5.0.4 (except Pandaren who will be available to ALL players (even those without the Mists of Pandaria expansion) on September 25th. It is move like this that keep Blizzard and WoW at the top of the MMO tables, awesome work.

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In only a few short weeks, we will begin the charge to Pandaria and to level 90, but before September 25 arrives, we even begin preparations for the big day.

We need to consider many things for our characters and our computing hardware. Many of these tasks are quick and simple housekeeping type of things that if we weren't so busy we would keep on top of all the time but always find some excuse to put them off. But now there is precious little time remaining, we can procrastinate no more, the time for action is upon us!

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A few friends now have their beta keys. Looks good by all accounts and if previous betas are an indication looks like we could have a late Summer/early autumn release.

A quote stolen from Heldy (an SKF guildie)

- awesome new character creation screens
- nice animations on monk class
- skills are all aggregated now in the spellbook now which make them a bit confusing to retrieve (sorted between passive and active skills) but plenty of new stuff, changed effects etc.
- new cool animations, glyphs and spells overall
- new profession level is "zen master"
- Pandaria is not yet open :-( (apart from 1-10 zone), new dungeons are not yet open :-( so can't comment on that...
- leveled a human monk and liked the feel of the abilities very much.

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