In a press release by Blizzard entertainment released this morning, we finally get the skinny on how World of Warcraft will be released in Australia and New Zealand. Hundreds of rumors have been flying around in chat rooms and forums everywhere in Australia about how the game was to be supported, or even released, including some far fetching conspiracy theories by Australian Game Magazine publishers and community enthusiasts alike.

Blizzard have announced that the game will go on sale in Australia and New Zealand at the same time as Korea and North America, further that Australian and New Zealand players will be able to enjoy playing on North American servers, which we’re sure will allow the seasoned MMORPG players out there to breath a sigh of relief:

SYDNEY, Australia – October 18, 2004 – Blizzard Entertainment® today announced plans to release its highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft® in Australia and New Zealand. The game will be available for purchase in both regions at the same time as in North America and Korea, marking the first simultaneous release of an MMORPG in these four regions. The announcement is being greeted with excitement in New Zealand and Australia, where the Warcraft® series is one of the biggest-selling PC gaming brands.* Further details regarding the game’s availability will be announced at a later date.

“Players in Australia and New Zealand have always shown a lot of enthusiasm for Blizzard games, so we’re especially pleased to be able to release World of Warcraft in those regions simultaneously with Korea and North America,” stated Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder. “One of our goals has been to make World of Warcraft available around the world as quickly as possible, and today’s announcement marks a big step for us toward achieving that goal.”

World of Warcraft release date is still unknown, however the game will ship in Australia with two different box creative, including both Alliance and Horde (Standard Edition) (RRP TBA).

The Collector’s Editiion (RRP TBA) will feature 200 page "The Art of World of Warcraft" hard back book, Behind the Scenes DVD, Exclusive In-game Pet, Manual Signed by Blizzard team, Official Soundtrack CD, and Cloth Map.

Read the full press release on AusGamers here, and stay tuned for release date announcements!

So does that mean we can play on US servers?

it means blizzard felt olbliged to release something new after being threatend by valvle
*insert flamebait here*

last edited by smart at 09:21:55 19/Oct/04

So does that mean we can play on US servers?

further that Australian and New Zealand players will be able to enjoy playing on North American servers

it is called reading.

How limited will the Collectors Edition be?

So does that mean we can play on US servers?

Dropped on your head and kicked a few times as a baby were we or just lazy?

Im just wondering what the 'fast paced action' will be like considering the ping times most players will get to a USA server...could be a big factor, and could very well leave us at a disadvantage...

I remember trying the Star Wars Galaxies Trial, where i got a 250ms ping (and im on 512k adsl) and noticing lag in combat, although in SWG, you can get away with it a bit easier...

last edited by mutty at 09:30:47 19/Oct/04

Ermmmmmm holidays are coming up soon, i am considering it...as much as i said i wasnt going to....:S MUST....RESIST....TEMPTATION

What it means is that you won't have to order it from the US in order to play it but can purchase it here in Australia. Furthermore you should be able to start playing immediately, not having to wait for the game to arrive rather than be handicapped by our relative remoteness to North America.

Something which has plagued other MMORPGs, most recently Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes.

Word up to Blizzard.

This isnt star wars galaxies, We did a full latency analasys on the product, and I can assure you latency is fine, no problem at all. Further, there are other considerations in a game like Wow that need to be taken into account beside latency.

The game requires lots of people in the servers for it to work well, specifically, finding people of the same level as you in order to do some specific quests known as 'elite' quests.

Great news, I can't wait :)

Hi Twisted <3

250 ping in swg was nothing ... mmogs are not twitch games

how much $ / month?

niceee :]

Just read the full press release ... Good stuff

The game requires lots of people in the servers for it to work well, specifically, finding people of the same level as you in order to do some specific quests known as 'elite' quests.

So what's the go with the GameArena testing? You guys going to have a server? :] Wouldn't that have been interesting :p

/me slaps Brut!

ping is a problem
im averaging 600~ ms during offpeak (pacific time) and 1000~ on peak
samething with my mate whos also in wa but on iinet (im on westnet)
the 600 is fine for PvM but its going to suck for PvP

edit> probably should have mentioned im in perth ;)

last edited by Jombi at 13:27:27 19/Oct/04

im averaging 600~ ms during offpeak (pacific time) and 1000~ on peak

The highest I generally go is about 550ms, but usually sit around 330ms. Its not as much of a problem as you'd think (though, I guess 1000ms would be a bit of a problem).

I'd say the pvp might prove hard with a lot of lag, some spells like polymorph are 1.5 second cast and you have to try to interrupt it with a .5s delay instacast(dont ask) spell. Add in reaction time plus lag and it doesnt give long to get the interrupt in.

i'd be tempted to get the collectors edition just for that Art of warcarft book that comes with it. Some of their concept art is awesome.

Im just wondering what the 'fast paced action' will be like

It means you die quicker if you're in Aus

Just get a better ISP if you want a lower ping.

probably should have mentioned im in Perth ;)

The Korean server would be better for you latency wise depeding on on your ISP.

I get a 400 to 500 ping in the closed beta.

Unfortunately blizzard are doing some forced regionalized server selection based on postcode of billing address. Aussie get no choice. USWest apparently.

Yes they are aware of the impact this will have on various people and guilds etc etc. But they feel it will make for better play and communities long term. ... or something

any game i have played on US west has never been a problem with the ping

Thats ok, US West is where I would have chosen to play anyway.

Edit: Actually, that line of "Its for your own good, and it will be better for you in the long run" line that Blizzard still seem to be towing is still pissing me off. Obviously its not for some people's own good if its gonna f*** up their guilds and not let them play with their friends...

last edited by Khel at 15:42:20 19/Oct/04

I'm with khel.. USWest for the win.. latecy aint a problem in mmorgs ffs.

yeah i would say the set server rule is only for the sake of helping blizzard with billing...

my suggestion would be have a central billing server which all the realms report to... then each account can play on any server... but have the same rules as diablo 2 where realm chars are not transferable accross realms...

although i can see how ths would be a pain in the ass for blizzard to control... each server would be open to account holders giving there details to 5 ppl allowing 5 ppl to play on different realms at the same time...

the only reason they are doing it is because its a pay/month game and they can fob off the excuse as 'well its for your own good' which is prob true cause otherwise they would have to do checks on all servers to make sure there wasnt single key being used on multiple servers... this might slow the servers down... especially if the servers were doing cpl hundred thousand checks every 5 mins or so

well back when i played diablo 2 and then diablo 2: lod (probably a year and a half all up) i played on USWest, more often then not on my I'node 512k i was getting pings around 250, sometimes alittle lest but usually around that mark.

I highly doubt there would be much more if any (maybe less since they've gained alot more experience running b.net for a massive 40k + userbase) lag.

I can't wait :D

ping is VERY important when it comes to PvP
and you cant stack spells/abilitys server side in WoW which makes it even worse

the only reason they are doing it is because its a pay/month game and they can fob off the excuse as 'well its for your own good' which is prob true cause otherwise they would have to do checks on all servers to make sure there wasnt single key being used on multiple servers... this might slow the servers down... especially if the servers were doing cpl hundred thousand checks every 5 mins or so

Not really, CD keys are used to create accounts, and you need to login before you play the game. All the logins are handled through an auth server, so all the logic to detect if someone is already logged in with that account and what action to take can be executed there.

The large majority of mmorpgs on the market already do let anyone from anywhere in the world play on any server they want, so its not like it can't be done. I'm sure theres a real reason behind why Blizzard are doing the forced regions thing, I just wish they'd actually make the reason known instead of hiding behind the "We're doing it for your own good, now bend over and take it like a bitch" line.

Congrats Aus Gamers but what about Singapore? Now that latency is no longer a issue, no reason why we cannot be allowed on the US server at launch. Sigh

i'd be tempted to get the collectors edition just for that Art of warcarft book that comes with it. Some of their concept art is awesome.

i bought the wc3 collectors box and the art book that came with that is fn awesome. might be the same one..probably is.

When I played Diablo 2 I was on dialup and the game was perfectly playable with 400ms ping. Not pvp of course but pvm was fine.

When I played the WoW stresstest I was getting about 250ms to the server and I could feel the lag a lot more than in d2. Not sure why..maybe the netcode isn't as good.

Getting to the point though..the lag didn't really matter. I guess I won't be able to pvp in this game either but that's no great loss IMO. If I wanted to pvp i would be playing a FPS.

Yeah I agree the forced server thing initially disappoints me. But that said it may lead to a tighter Australian community in the longer run and as daoc and eq players can tell you there are low numbers in our prime time and that isn't a good thing. So if it leads to overall less dilution of our players thats a good thing.

So its wait and see.

Atleast all the ausgamer people who want to play on pvp should most likely be on the same server even if they are too dumb to join the right server any other way.

Term:

The Ausgamers press release itself doesn't mention NA server stuff. You have the skinny on the details for this?

I'm with Khel on this one, the "for your own good" stuff just on principal annoys the s*** out of me.

Just out of interest, are there any Aussie WoW clans running yet?

Yeah Term, im in no way doubting WoW as being a super game to play, regardless of ping times, i was just concered that it may effect the 'fast actioned game play'. I know WoW isnt SWG, but i simply used it as a reference, as the server i played on was American, and whilst it was pretty much perfectly playable, you could definatly notice the slight delay with some actions (most noteably during combat) that comes with having a 250ms ping.

To me a 250ms ping to a USA server is to be expected, but the delay, regardless of the game and who made it, would be the same. I have faith that what you say is true, and that WoW will be totally playable and enjoyable. I was just voicing my major concern in regards to the news post.

Unfortunately blizzard are doing some forced regionalized server selection based on postcode of billing address. Aussie get no choice. USWest apparently.

Well yea but if you want the best ping and don't care about anything else you can always just use a billing address from Korea. I mean that goes without saying really.

Well yea but if you want the best ping and don't care about anything else you can always just use a billing address from Korea. I mean that goes without saying really.

You do know that Credit Cards can be identified by the region they where issued with ... don't you?

As for Korea, it really isn't that much better (at least from the east coast). At the very best situation people who hop on clipto's magical man train to korea are going to play with an interface designed for koreans, including korean sound bites and text.

Not to mention that playing on ewok servers isn't fun, unless you can speak ewok.

Just out of interest, are there any Aussie WoW clans running yet?

Depending on what kind of guild you want to be in ... this question is loaded.

Not many who are worth pursuing.

My advice is to play the game, and join a guild after you start playing. That way you know what they play like, you know if they match your play style, and more importantly you know how many f***wads are in the guild.

My experiance of guilds that form up (and recruit) before MMOGs start range from ok right down to the realms of s***ty and gay. Mostly because they recruit any f***wad who happens across their s***ty webpage.

Also the way that WoW is built, you probably don't need to be in a guild to promote to the vast majority of the content in WoW. All you need is a few good buddies and off you go.

If you just want to chat to people while you play, run WoW in a window and log on IRC.

The main issues with forcing servers are that:
1) Korean, Chinese and Euro clients have language options the US version doesn't (and maybe the Korean and Chinese versions don't even include English)
2) Different divisions within VU Games want to protect their own income - VU Games Europe don't want thousands of their potential customers importing the game from the US

Fortunately for us we use (virtually) the same language as the USA so VU Games Australia don't have a localised version of the game to protect, so there was no good reason to not include us in the game's launch. Nice work VU Games Australia :)

I hope that a few qgl people will band together as a group. It sure would be fun.

Just out of interest, are there any Aussie WoW clans running yet?

You obviously didn't read the other WoW thread. The guild I'm in is called De Nachtuilen, all its members are in the current closed beta - condition of getting a key from the guild master was that you had to join the guild.
Don't know if I'll be in the guild after release though, because the majority of its players are now inactive and bored of WoW. I also want to join a guild of Demon Hunters when hero classes are implemented anyways.

I also want to join a guild of Demon Hunters when hero classes are implemented anyways.

They haven't even released information on hero classes have they?

Not to mention the gayness of joining a guild of peole who are all the same class ...

last edited by typo at 23:48:16 20/Oct/04

Well, I pre-ordered my collector's edition of WoW today from EB. Dont actually know how I'm gonna pay for it once it arrives, but I figured its best to at least have one pre-ordered in case :P Maybe I can call in an early christmas present from someone.

Also, sounds like EB hasn't been updated with the new release information (either that, or the world-wide release date has slipped back a bit) cos they have WoW listed as coming out mid December.

khel whats the monthly charge?

They haven't announced it yet I dont think, but it'll prolly be about $20 - $25 a month (thats AUD), thats pretty standard for mmorpgs these days.

You do know that Credit Cards can be identified by the region they where issued with ... don't you?

Jesus christ typo, get a f***ing korean credit card or someone in korea to pay for it, are credit cards even madatory? What the f***? You really think this is some sort of insurmountable s***?

it really isn't that much better (at least from the east coast)

It can be quite a bit better from Perth.

$25 to $20 a month. Bah.

Feels like 1998 all over again with the text based pay for play RPGs.

$25 to $20 a month. Bah.

Heh, theres always gotta be one. I guess a discussion about the monthly costs of mmorpgs wouldn't be complete without the obligatory baseless "OMG asif you'd pay to play!" comments.

If they keep adding content then I have no problem paying $20-$25 a month.

I think cliptos retard.. wait theres no doubt about that.

A korean credit card? KOREAN....

How would one go about getting a Korean credit card?

oh yeah GOING TO KOREA! that or getting a korean who flys over there everyday who trusts you like a brother to get you one... sure.

Jesus christ typo, get a f***ing korean credit card or someone in korea to pay for it, are credit cards even madatory? What the f***? You really think this is some sort of insurmountable s***?

Dumbest post ever.

wow is going to converge the gamers once again, or so i'm told

well since my everquest guild is since infested with tards i know IRL and all the cool people are gone, i'll probably go with my daoc guild

still the largest and most organised on alb lancelot... pity i'm a hib

The only time you have major lag for WoW is in major population areas. Ogrimmar etc. I play on an average system and have had no problems. You will not have a problem with PVP/grouping any more than US folks will. Raids may be another matter 8)

Orgrimmar is laggy and runs like s*** at the moment though because of a bug, it shouldn't actually be as bad as it is.

What blows my mind, is not that you guys don't know the most basic stuff about credit cards, but that you still happily denigrate others who do despite your ignorance. I'm no expert, but I don't need to be to know you can get a Korean credit card with little effort. Even easier is using a visa debit card (whatever they are called, the kind that is indiscernable from a credit card but is otherwise just like a debit card) based off a Korean bank account.

And if your too stupid to fill out some simple forms? You could pay some Korean in advance to make you a account...

Really, you guys are f***ing morons.

last edited by clipto at 11:36:30 25/Oct/04

Why would you bother when you can go to your local EB and buy a copy and play it straight away? Sounds like a whole lot of trouble to play one game otherwise.

And if your too stupid to fill out some simple forms? You could pay some Korean in advance to make you a account...

but why the f*** would you want to play on a server where the occupants speak mostly korean, the game text is in korean and the npcs all speak korean.. All your mates will be playing on the US servers and you'll be stuck playing in KEKEKEKEK GEM land

Only reasons I can think of is if your concerned about lag, or if your friends play on the Asia server, or you think the Asian server would be better for some reason like maybe more hardcore players, perhaps Korean is your first language. f***s me, hardly seems relevant, the thing is these fools are saying you can't because you need a Korean credit card, what idiots.

based off a Korean bank account.

Please explain how a person can get a korean bank account?

Clipto ... How are you going to get a Korean Billing Address ?
And CC to match said Billing Address?

Most banks require some proof of identity and location.

Please explain how a person can get a korean bank account?

Certainly, there are many business' that offer services to people planning to travel overseas that include assistance in setting up bank accounts in foreign countries. What did you think people did, haul massive wads of cash overseas and try to set up a bank account in person on arrival when they can't even speak the f***ing language? Is that what you thought they did? How could you be so stupid? More importantly, how could you take it upon yourself to criticise others, when you don't even know the most fundamentally basic mundane s***? Do you even have a credit card? Is the only real obsticle you have encountered thus far regarding CCs been how to convince your parents to grant you permission to use one?

Sigh, as for the billing address, well I suppose with this particular way your billing address would initially still be in Australia, but you could change it to a post office box in Korea, or even better, just some random address out of the phone book, as long as you keep paying your bills they won't give a damn if the address is valid or not. I also sincerely doubt they will check that your details are appropriate for the server more than once.

last edited by clipto at 14:05:01 25/Oct/04

The address on the CC and the one you enter as billing have to usually be the same, its not something they check electonically but it can be checked.

It is not so much the "pay for play OMG asif" its where the money is going which is what I'm worried about.

Also that Australia isn't designed to handle great broadband speeds yet. Telstra's supposed maximum speed is 1.5 megabytes. Which makes a mockery of Europe and even Korea where they have speeds of up to 4 megabytes and 8 megabytes a second.

If we had even 4 megabytes a second LAG wouldn't even be an issue in Australia anymore. I suppose I could even sleep at night and not worry about Telstra running the country like an empire.

Then again I could put forward the arguement "that you buy the game and you buy the broadband to play it, but whats more you have to then pay for the updated content?!."

Oh but thats right we live in a capitalist society where everyone is chasing around bundles of money tied to strings.

Let alone more Australian money going overseas. Great welcome to 1996. Whatever happened to keeping money in Australia.

So how else do you propose the continuing development of the game and upkeep of the servers be paid for?

The only person suggesting that korean servers could be good is clipto ...

So how else do you propose the continuing development of the game and upkeep of the servers be paid for?

By selling Korean credit cards to people who want to play on the Korean server !!!

The address on the CC and the one you enter as billing have to usually be the same, its not something they check electonically but it can be checked.

You can use a PO box as billing right? Another expense but unncessary if as you say they don't check them as a matter of course, they won't be going out of their way to block the few who are interested in playing on the Korean server.

If we had even 4 megabytes a second LAG wouldn't even be an issue in Australia anymore.

Well thats just totally incorrect, it would make almost no difference whatsoever.

The only person suggesting that korean servers could be good is clipto ...

All I'm saying is you can play on whatever server you want. Theres no question that some would prefer the Korean server.

last edited by clipto at 21:38:31 25/Oct/04

Theres no question that some would prefer the Korean server

Yeah, Koreans.

Precisely, you have any idea how many Koreans have moved to Australia either permanently or temporarily? At least one.