Lich King launch event photo roundup

By Robert Purchese Published 13 November, 2008

From San Fran, New York, Paris and London.

Last night, London's midnight launch event for World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King attracted the biggest UK crowds HMV could remember seeing.

A spokesperson told us he estimated around 2000 - 2500 rat-punchers queued to get their hands on the game. The previous record, coincidentally enough, was set by previous World of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade, which gathered flocks of around 1500 people.

But London wasn't the only city to welcome the high profile release; San Francisco, New York and Paris all ran similar shindigs. And each sprouted lines of adoring attendees decked out in all manner of World of Warcraft-related costumes.

Our Eurogamer France friends tell us there were roughly 4000 people in the capital split between one Alliance shop (FNAC) and one Horde outlet (Virgin Megastore), which rather trounces our efforts.

Head over to Kotaku and Joystiq for San Francisco pictures, or to MTV Multiplayer for New York photos.

Meanwhile, Pat "paparazzo" Garratt snapped fans at the London event for videogaming247, while Eurogamer France hordes pictures of the Paris launch.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King launches today, silly, ups the level cap to 80, and adds the Death Knight Hero class, graphical improvements, and the entire new continent of Northrend.

This is one of Blizzard's biggest projects yet. You can expect our thoughts on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich king very soon.

Until then, head over to our Wrath of the Lich King gamepage for all of our considerable coverage to date.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Apologie #1 4 years ago

    WoW is old news... the new MMO from EA "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning" is much better, i advise everyone to try it out, you wont regret it, server(s) population are growing at record rate since release, Pq's (public quests) are amazing, and the Realm Vs Realm feature is something you gotta see for yourself... by the way, choose Karak Azgal server (that's where i am :p ) see you in the battlefield. peace
    Edited by Apologie at 13/11/08 @ 14:50

  • mkreku #2 4 years ago

    You know it's bad when even the French girls are ugly..

  • CannonAnBall #3 4 years ago

    ...makes me wanna give it all up.

  • thedaveeyres #4 4 years ago

    People still play this tedious time sink? How quaint.
    Edited by thedaveeyres at 13/11/08 @ 16:29

  • Chimpy #5 4 years ago

    Here goes the WoW .vs. WAR cat fight again.

  • MikeP #6 4 years ago

    Just enjoy your chosen MMO. They both have a lot of good things going for them.

  • Drogul #7 4 years ago

    Its a question of choice, WOW is bigger, better, more hardcore and more, much more time consuming. WAR is more pvp oriented, less time consuming and (to me) more fun. Just take your pick and respect other people choices. Better, if you have the time, play both.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #8 4 years ago

    In all fairness WoW was exactally the same at the same point in it's lifecycle, dissed for being 'too buggy', 'bored at endgame' etc etc now look it's 11 million subs and has a big launch with it's lastest addon.. Give WAR time and it's bound to grow into a good game, after all it's a great mirrior to WoW, you can happly PVE in WoW and then jump over to WAR and just do some drop in RVR(pvp) when you've done all the daily quests for the day or bored with leveling..

    WAR is far better on the pvp front as it feels like your actally contributing to the game, WoW's PVP still feels lifeless and just another means to new gear via player 'farming', although it's still a bit head on pve terms, both are worth subbing to for different reasons.

  • Apologie #9 4 years ago

    SgtFrog

    you dont know what your talking about, if you cant play anything besides WoW that's your problem, dont be biased and blame a great game like warhammer just because you suck at it... leveling is not fast at all, you get to 20 pretty fast but after that it gets harder and harder by the minute... public quests, RVR i repeat, they are great, nothing i've seen before... graphically (not important in an MMO but nontheless really nice) is way better then WoW as well, when i play Warhammer i never ger bored, you are alway's doing fun things like defending/attacking your faction keep, krypt or whatever, doing PQ's, Queue's etc... very dynamic and yes, the pace is faster then WoW but that's a very good thing in my opinion, please dont think im a fanboy or something but WoW bored me to death.

  • Hypercube #10 4 years ago

    Will you two get a room?

  • rudedudejude #11 4 years ago

    MMO's are just stamp collecting anyway.

  • Laika #12 4 years ago

    @thedaveeyres: You don't have to like the game, but you could at least try to make some effort not be a condescending twat.

  • shamblemonkee #13 4 years ago

    how surprising a comments thread full of pompous twunts and trolls.

  • MaxiSleep #14 4 years ago


    @ apologie

    you dont know what your talking about, if you cant play anything besides WoW that's your problem,
    And the problem of at least 4 million others considering the size of WoW base


    graphically (not important in an MMO but nontheless really nice) is way better then WoW as well,

    No it is not. The animation(while better then many of the other pretenders) is below the par set of WoW many years ago. The style is a taste issue.


    when i play Warhammer i never ger bored,
    I do

    you are alway's doing fun things like defending/attacking your faction keep, krypt or whatever, doing PQ's, Queue's etc... very dynamic and yes, the pace is faster then WoW

    How?

    but that's a very good thing in my opinion, please dont think im a fanboy or something but WoW bored me to death.

    Yah.

  • warlockuk #15 4 years ago

    WAT