Midnight on January 16 marked the official release of The Burning Crusade, the first official major add-on for the blockbuster massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. Computer stores across the country re-opened at the stroke of midnight to sell the expansion pack to Warcraft die-hards. The really big events hosted by the game's manufacturer, Blizzard Entertainment, are all in California, complete with signings by some of the game's developers. Here in Orlando, FL the launch didn't arrive with quite as much heraldry, but crowds gathered and lines formed at every GameStop and EBGames store in the area. Read on for the full report.

The Burning Crusade

A few days ago Blizzard announced that it had reached the 8 million subscriber mark for World of Warcraft, putting them above many of the world's top Internet service providers in terms of sheer number of customers.

World of Warcraft -- or WoW for short -- is an online roleplaying game where players choose a faction, race, profession class, and skilled trades and build their characters up by completing quests and fighting players of the opposing faction. The game world is divided up into the Horde (which encompasses the undead, tauren, troll, and orc races) and the Alliance (humans, night elves, dwarves, and gnomes), which are perpetually at war with one another in a gigantic world where at any given time you could be playing with hundreds of other characters, both computer- and human-controlled. A subscriber may join as many servers as he likes, and have up to ten characters on each server.

WoW is built on years of game lore introduced by the fighting/strategy Warcraft game series, and has an in-depth storyline that has spilled over into books and card games, and even a music CD of the game's soundtrack. Although it has its own storyline, like nearly all modern-day "sword and sorcery" fantasy stories, the WoW backstory, universe, and music are clearly based on Lord of the Rings.

The Burning Crusade expansion pack adds another world to explore, flying creatures to help explore it, new trade skills, a new level cap (you can now go as high as level 70, whereas the maximum level in World of Warcraft is 60), and one new player race for each faction -- blood elves for the Horde, and alien-like draenei for the Alliance. There is also a new player-versus-player battleground called The Eye of the Storm, only available to players above level 60.

EBGames Michigan St.

Even at 11:30PM, there were more than a dozen people waiting at the door to the EBGames franchise on Michigan St. in Orlando. Before the last customer was served, at least 50 people had lined up to buy a copy of The Burning Crusade, and none were turned away. A police car seemed to keep watch over the store's late night opening in light of pre-Christmas PlayStation 3 violence in waiting lines, but it turned out that one of Orlando's finest was not just there to make sure we were safe -- he'd preordered the game and was there to pick it up.

Most of the people waiting for the midnight release had preordered the game from the store and were divided into two lines: those who had already paid, and those who had yet to pay but had made a reservation. Only a handful of people showed up without a reservation, and had to wait until all of the other customers had been served to make sure that there were enough copies of the game. As it turned out, a number of people who'd reserved a copy did not show up at midnight to pick it up.

The people waiting in line were clearly excited not just about The Burning Crusade, but about meeting other WoW players and being able to talk to them about their adventures. Most had multiple characters and had been playing for more than a year. One man who'd preordered the game and was among the first few people in line claimed to have been a beta tester not only for The Burning Crusade (which had a closed, secretive group of testers), but for the original WoW itself. He goes by the name Asheru on the Deathkiss server, and most often plays on his level 19 "twink" (a word that identifies a character that has spent a great deal of time and game money to obtain the most powerful weapons, armor, potions, and enchantments that are possible for that level so that they can do well in level-restricted battlegrounds). He could hardly wait to get home and start a draenei warrior character, and to level up his druid so that he could get the new flying form that the druid class can assume. He actually ran out of the store with his copy of the game in hand.

Another of the front-liners goes by the name Raelsmar on the Bloodelf server, though he has characters on the Hellscream server as well. It took him about six months after the initial WoW release to get into the game, but once his friends and family members got him hooked, he was in the WoW world of Azeroth to stay. He was looking forward to The Burning Crusade's new flying mounts (mounts are horses or other animals that you can ride by spending a lot of game money after you reach a certain level), and planned on creating a paladin of the new draenei race as soon as he got the expansion pack installed.

A guy who goes by the name Jais on the Mugthol WoW server and has played WoW almost from the very beginning was at the midnight opening as well, and said he probably wouldn't immediately create a new character -- he'd rather level up his current cast of characters to the new level 70 limit and get some new high-end gear for them. He was definitely looking forward to the new jewelcrafting skill and some additions and modifications to the existing skills and abilities that his characters have. "A lot of people in my guild are professionals," he told me. "Some are lawyers, doctors -- one's even a judge. Everyone's an equal in World of Warcraft, and there's a lot of camaraderie without the sexism and racism that you might see outside of it. It's a great community where you can feel comfortable and let off stress," he told me. He was also interested in seeing more real-world gatherings of WoW players than just midnight lines at EBGames so that he could meet and connect with more WoW players.

Then the wait was over -- the rolling fence came up from in front of the door and the two EBGames employees who were working the launch shift came out and announced that the pre-paid, pre-ordered customers needed to form a line and would be served first. Everyone else lined up on the other side of the door and waited. A few of the people in the non-preorder line had been discouraged by long lines at other EBGames and GameStop locations and came over to the Michigan St. store because they figured it was out of the way and would have few people waiting in line.

While in line, the excited gamers told stories of their WoW adventures -- especially the pre-launch world event of a difficult boss character named Kruul that terrorized the most populous WoW cities -- and lamented expected problems with The Burning Crusade, chiefly increased network lag and concerns about being able to wake up to go to work the next morning after being up all night playing WoW. Everyone I spoke with or overheard was on the Alliance faction -- the Horde did not come out in force during The Burning Crusade launch for reasons yet to be determined.

The man in charge of the store for the brief midnight event was, not surprisingly, also a WoW player. He goes by the handle Deathizhere on the Burning Blade server, where he mostly plays as a level 60 warlock. He's been playing for more than a year, and looks forward to creating a "twink" paladin draenei character, but not immediately -- he'd rather get his current characters to level 70 first.

But does it run on Linux?

I bought my copy of The Burning Crusade last, after everyone had left. Unfortunately since I play through TransGaming Cedega on Mandriva Linux, the add-on won't immediately install because it can't find a current WoW installation. Unbelievably, in the time it took me to return home and write this article, the issue has already been resolved on the TransGaming forum. Oh -- and you can look for me as Valour the human rogue or Aponius the night elf priest on the Bloodscalp server. Yes, like more than 8 million other people around the world, I'm hooked too.

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Copyright 2007 JEM Electronic Media, Inc. No reprints without written permission.