That’s Certainly One Way To Look At It

Posted on January 5, 2007 by Scott Jennings| 13 Comments

Tobold has a canceled World of Warcraft account (being one of them Eurotypes he migrated to closer shores when the European servers opened), so he received (and helpfully reposted) Blizzard’s mash note to ex-subscribers.

Blizzard Entertainment proudly invites you to return to the World of Warcraft on January 16th and journey beyond the Dark Portal, where an infinity of new experiences await you. Given the high volume of returning subscribers we expect when The Burning Crusade™ expansion goes live, if you are planning a return to Azeroth, we recommend reactivating your account as soon as possible in order to avoid the expected rush of launch-day activations.

While it’s difficult to fault Blizzard for expecting activation server woes (with millions of people probably hitting them up that day, it’s doubtful that a cost-effective short term solution to remedy that even exists), one can only marvel at the chutzpah of using this as a marketing tactic. “You know we have queues, in fact it may be why you left! Sign up now and avoid the lines!”

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  • http://www.moorgard.com Moorgard

    What’s even more amazing is that it’s really about avoiding one line so you can get into the *actual* line even faster. “Sign up now so that you can get right into the server queue!” Brilliant!

    But that’s cool. When a game I work on hits 7+ million subscribers, my balls will be so big that I won’t even fit into the same room with them.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    They sent this email to basically, everyone.

    http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=62318827&sid=1

  • http://www.cesspit.net Abalieno

    Better if you go check that Q23 thread where they said that if the server load is too high they’ll split servers under your ass.

    I know it was the worst moment possible to stop bloggin.

  • http://therrik.blogspot.com Therrik

    You really do have to appreciate the irony. The queues on my server (Icecrown) have been hellish lately. It’s to the point where if I’m not going to be playing for at least 2 hours, I don’t even bother trying because I’ll be spending at least 20 minutes in a queue to log on.

  • Scott Hartsman

    You know it’s going to be a questionable day when Google Alerts serves up an article that comes complete with testicular commentary from Danuser.

    Did I mention I think in pictures? I’m skipping lunch.

  • Rich

    I got one of these. I hardly have time to play the games that I’m playing now, much less a game with infinite content.

  • http://www.nerfbat.com/ Ryan Shwayder

    I’m still trying to figure out the logic behind any of this at all. You have the hit against this is a marketing tactic, because it’s a little weird. Then, you have the fact that it makes no sense that rejoining the game now would make it easier to get through the queues on launch day. Maybe they’ll start prioritizing queues so people who have longer subscriptions get on quicker?

    Or maybe they’re expecting account registration to get bogged down on the day Burning Crusade launches? I guess that would kinda make sense, but that’s not why people quit in the first place, so then it becomes illogical to mention it once again.

  • Naladini

    Can’t they just shift their logon servers out to their P2P patch system? :)

  • wrg

    Log on now, stay logged on for over a week (doesn’t that thing time out, though?), and enjoy The Burning Crusade at release! That is, assuming the latest patches already include everything you need, so you can just enter a CD key on the web, and that you won’t be required to log in again to get the server to recognize that.

  • Jadawin

    While I am no Blizzard apologist (I quit WoW 3 months ago and won’t be coming back for BC) I don’t see a lot of difference between this email and an email from Sony or Nintendo encouraging known customers to hurry and buy a PS3 or a Wii because supplies will be limited. Now the queues once people actually try to log into the server are another issue.

  • xzzy

    “an infinity of new experiences”?

    This could well be the last $40 I’ll ever spend. No wonder the expansion got delayed, it took extra time to cram all that infinity into the box.

  • Agmon

    The Irony is that the store page seems to have crashed.

  • http://......right MrOrange

    There will be no more queues with the forced realm splits next week,queue joke=moot :)