We’ve been playing the World of Warcraft open beta for a couple of weeks, and it has been cool. Sales were to begin tonight at midnight. We joked about trying to find a store open at midnight. But, we aren’t that kind of game weenie…
Then Nan said the house was getting too hot, and she asked me if I could do anything to improve air flow. Well, one of our box fans died, so I guess I could replace it. Suddenly we were headed to Wal-Mart at 11:30 at night. The same night that World of Warcraft was set to start selling… Can you see where this is leading?
So, Doug and I go to the Wal-Mart around the corner. We happen to pass by electronics on the way to the box fans… There are a LOT of people in the electronics section for this time of night. Not the usual walking dead you normally see at Wal-Mart this late. These are alert guys and gals, our age and younger. I recognize the gleam in their eyes… Someone asks us if we are there for World of Warcraft… We say yes, and he tells us that we are too late, they have already sold them all. Uh, huh… then why is this guy still hanging around?
So, we wander, wondering who we can ask. Someone calls out to Doug, someone waiting. We get clued in that they store only has so many copies, and the manager has been taking names and they are all spoken for, not sold yet. Bummer. This guy tells us that the other Wal-Mart a couple of miles downt the road has seven that are not spoken for. Suddenly we are headed down the road. How did this happen? We only needed fans…
On the road… driving… pull into CompUSA’s parking lot, just in case they have opened up for a midnight sale… We are such weenies…
Wal-Mart number two… Electronics… Nobody there. Well, OK, there are other people clustered around the electronics section, but they are all waiting for the latest Harry Potter DVD… I find a manager, and ask about World of Warcraft. He goes and checks the back, and can’t find it. I give him some BS that I had spoken to someone and was told that there were seven copies. He can’t help us, he looked everywhere. So, we wander off dejected. We stop by electronics, in the hopes that maybe someone there knows something different. And then we hear on the PA: “Can the people looking for the video game come to the double doors in the bath section”. Repeated three times. The manager is standing there, with a box of World of Warcroft copies. He went back and kept looking, and then was cool enough to page us on teh PA just in case we had not left yet. He has five, and he gives us three. I ask for the box they were shipped in, just for kicks; and he gives it to me. This guy who followed us to the doors winces, and says “I was here first, and I want one.” We are not sure how he defines first, as he only walked into electronics when Doug and I were about to give up. We hadn’t seen him for the fifteen minutes we were working the manager to go searching in the back for us. Well, he got one, and was happy. Sorta. He looked like the walking dead type.
Doug is logged in creating characters on all the servers with his favorite character name and I’m posting this, with pictures, so I can gloat…
We are happy gamer weenies.
-Chris
