Thousands attend UK 'WoW' launch

Around 3,000 fans queued outside HMV's Oxford Street store in London last night, all waiting for the chance to grab the highly anticipated expansion pack for the hugely successful online game World of Warcraft. The gamers filled the store, as well as making a line that continued outside and around the block.

The expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, will add two new playable races, a new continent, and raises the maximum level attainable from 60 to 70. There were launch events around the globe, including the one in London, where designer Jon LeCraft signed copies of the game.

Many games had come in costume for the event, some of which had taken days to make. Costumed players were given preferential treatment in the queue for the Collector's Edition of the game. One couple came dressed as a warlock and a succubus minion -- David Groves, 26, who works for Sky TV, said, "It's not something that happens every day, so we thought we'd dress up and come along." His girlfriend, Lellini Santanas, a 19-year-old student, added, "And it's good to have an excuse to wear a corset!"

First in the queue was Ray Li, 22, a student, who had been waiting since 5:40am. When when asked if he was going to go straight home and play the game once he'd managed to bag a copy, he laughed and said, "No, I'm so tired. I'm going to go home and get some sleep first." Beside him in the queue was Elliot Stewart, 19, also a student, who was surprised to find that he wasn't first himself when he arrived at 2pm. He said, "Well, I could have been here at 6am, but you know, we were playing Warcraft."

Jamie Beckingham, 16, took the day off school to make sure he picked up a copy. He said, "I've had the game on pre-order since January. January 2005, that is!"

Also near the front of the queue was Monique Hogg, a 19-year-old who works in a comedy club. She had been waiting since 3pm, but would be unable to play the game as soon as she got home. "My friend deleted my character!" She said, "He did it because he was angry at me for playing so much. So I'm going to go home and update it, but I won't be able to play until I can get it restored." She added that she knew lots of other women who played the game. "I used to play on a US server -- there are a lot of stay-at-home moms there who play, but there aren't so many women on the British servers."

Blizzard's vice president of business development, Itzik Ben Bassat, gave a short speech as the event began. He said, "This is the first time we've done a Blizzard launch in Europe and we were a little concerned. It's a great, pleasant surprise to see so many people with us to celebrate the launch of Burning Crusade."

He added that other Blizzard franchises would not be overlooked in the future. "We'd like to say to our fans of Diablo and Starcraft that we haven't forgotten we have these franchises. We cannot wait to be here in a few years, or however long it will be -- it won't be a decade [until the next one] -- and be celebrating the launch of [the next] Starcraft together."

Designer Jon LeCraft added about the huge number of people who turned up, "It's a little overwhelming to be honest, but it's really good."