It's a WOWderful life...

Today's the day, ladies and gentle-orcs... Well, midnight is anyway.

At 00:00 tonight, technically 13 November, the second World of WarCraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King becomes available. If you're a WOW player in South Africa and you haven't yet pre-ordered your copy, well, you're out of luck, because all the major local game e-tailers are sold out.

That's Take2.co.za, Kalahari.net and BT Games (unless I'm forgetting someone else).

Who knows what's happening with Incredible Connection, Look & Listen, Musica and the various other game-stocking retail chains?

Anyway, out of the 3 e-tailers listed above, BT Games has proven to be the cheapest, if you collect your game from your nearest BT Games store. Out of interest, they're the only retail chain I know that is actually throwing a midnight launch party. Nice touch, guys - if I wasn't such an old fart who has to get up bright and early for work tomorrow I'd be there!

Anyway, I was very anxious and annoyed on Monday afternoon - just over 48 hours from Wrath's worldwide release - when Kalahari.net (the second cheapest Wrath e-tailer) let me down. It seems the fucktards there underestimated demand and let the pre-orders overrun the stock they were bringing into the country. So I received this coy email:

Hi Noelle

Re: Kalahari Pre-order: XXXXXXX

The initial shipment of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King arriving in South Africa is far smaller than the demand for the game.

Unfortunately, our pre-orders have also been far greater than we expected and we've managed to oversell our allocation – in simple terms, we messed up bad and we now have more pre-orders than we can supply on release day. We've tried to get more stock for the Thursday launch but have failed miserably.

Unfortunately, your order is one of the ones at the back of the pack and we won't be able to supply your copy on release day. We're horribly embarassed about this!

So, here are your options:
- Scream and swear at us (yes, we really do deserve it), cancel you pre-order and pre-book your copy elsewhere.
- Cancel your pre-order and pick up a copy in a store, you might be able to find stock in some retailers from Thursday onwards.
- Hang tight and wait for the next shipment, we're expecting stock during the course of next week and will fulfill your pre-order as soon as it becomes available.

Please contact us and let us know what you would like to do.

Whatever you decide to do, we're assigning a R50 voucher to your profile for the next time you come shop with us.

Our apologies!
The kalahari.net gaming team


Now I'm glad I scored a voucher out of the inconvenience, but I really think Kalahari could have handled matters better. To drop consumers at such short notice, leaving them with little to no back-up options, is unacceptable. I was lucky in that I managed to place my order with Take2, probably 12 hours before they were sold out as well. Out of interest, Take2 seemed to keep a much closer eye on their pre-order stock, stopping orders before they overran supply.

I honestly regret leaving my Wrath pre-order as late as I did (last week), but no sooner had I mentally prepared myself to pay for the Collector's Edition than its delivery to South Africa was cancelled, forcing me to seek out an alternative. Read about that other disappointing Wrath saga here.

With 11 million people playing WOW worldwide, I seriously think Wrath of the Lich King could be the biggest game release of the year. This is impressive when you consider that the vast majority of this expansion's content is not accessible to newbies to the game. You need a Level 55 character to gain access to WOW's first ever Hero class: the Death Knight. And although anyone can go to the icy new continent of Northrend, its content is specifically geared to players who are Level 68 and above, as they race to the new level cap of 80. And, of course, there's an additional prerequisite to play Wrath of the Lich King - you have to own the first expansion, Burning Crusade, as well.


With a wince-inducing local retail price of R370 to R400 (for an expansion!), and a monthly subscription fee in Euros, that translates to around R160 a month (thanks to current Rand weakness), Blizzard really knows how to create addicts whose fingers are never far from their wallets. But man, we really do love it so... FOR THE HORDE!