I have heard that the launch of Halo 2 had customers lined up all the way to the theatre, which is about a hundred yards away. WoW didn’t come close to that, but because almost all of our customers had paid their copies off before midnight, they didn’t have to wait in line for long. We had over 150 customers through the line by 12:30am. My co-workers and I worked like a well-oiled machine with two of us on registers and one of us doing line management and filling bags with customer’s merchandise. Everything would have been okay had it not been for a few unruly customers…
We had decorations up for the launch, including balloons and a food table. While the line was moving, several customers started throwing matches at balloons. The balloons popped, scared people, made babies cry, and pissed me off. I said, “Sorry kids, but you need to either knock it off or get the hell out of my store”. Yes, that’s me, Trisha the sales associate from hell. You have to understand, after being awake for almost 18 hours, my patience was wearing extremely thin. More examples of crazed WoW fans:
A few customers showed up after midnight with their numbers and started cutting in line. The rule was: if your number is called and you are not here, you must get into the back of the line. I heard some shouting from the middle of the line and saw two men fighting over their place. One guy had just come back from drinking at a nearby restaurant and had missed his turn. He now wanted his place back, but the other guy wouldn’t let him cut. This fight kind of resolved itself, as it seems like the majority of WoW fans are tall, muscular, late 20’s guys and they all started ganging up on this poor drunk doofus. (I personally expected a whole bunch of miniature Jabba the Huts to show up for the launch, kind of like the South Park stereotype… but was sorely disappointed.)
One lady came in, cut through the line, and said that she had spoken with someone sometime that night who said they would hold a collector’s edition for her. If you think this sounds vague, so did we. We told her she was full of it, as all of the collectors editions had been reserved for quite some time and there were none available for people who did not pre-order them. She complained that her 10 year old son would be extremely upset, and once guy shouted that if the kid was going to be so upset, she should’ve pre-ordered it 3 months ago like everyone else. Leave it to the WoW people to defend themselves!
Finally at around 12:30am everyone had left except for a few people who travelled from other stores to pick up their copy. A few people had showed up to a store in one of our local malls expecting a midnight launch, only to discover that no one was there to open the store. A couple other customers had gone to a store close to us, but a few ferocious fights broke out and they decided to try their luck at our store instead. We were lucky that we didn’t have any fistfights, but the fight supposedly stemmed from a person cutting in line again… what’s with that people?! How hard is it to show up at the right time and get a number?
Overall it was a great experience, but I was certainly glad when it was over. All of the chaos about one game was amazing, and I admire the WoW people for being overall nice guys. (Our Madden launch did not fare as well… surprisingly a lot of thugs and less nerds). I hope everyone is having a great deal of fun with their WoW: Burning Crusade swag, flying mounts, new areas to explore, and exclusive Burning Crusade pets (no surprises here, just more dragons… blech)!!!
