WoW Dated For Europe News

Christmas has come 11 months early for Blizzard fans, as today Vivendi-Universal confirmed that World of Warcraft will be arriving at retail outlets throughout Europe on February 11th 2005.

The European launch follows a hugely successful roll-out across North America for the Massively-Multiplayer-Online-RPG (MMORPG), where it broke day-one sales records to become the regionâ??s most successful PC launch and fastest ever MMORPG. The game recently launched in the online obsessed region of Korea, where a total peak concurrency of more than 100,000 players was recorded after just one day!

With the European beta-test attracting over 400,000 subscriptions throughout Europe and pre-orders exceeding 110,000 units, itâ??s fair to say that the worldwide success looks set to continue.

â??We are thrilled to welcome European players into the World of Warcraft,â? said Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. â??Itâ??s been exciting to see so many people playing the game in North America and Korea, and we hope that European players will enjoy World of Warcraft just as much.â?

The game is set for release in two formats, with a standard edition released for the PC and Mac at a suggested retail price of £29.99 and will include a free one-month subscription. Initial shipments will come in two unique box covers, representing the two major factions within the game, namely the Alliance and the Horde.

However the true Warcraft fanatic will want to pick up the Collectorâ??s Edition for a suggested price of £44.99, consisting of the game on both CD and DVD, a free one-month subscription, a World of Warcraft â??Behind the Scenesâ? DVD, an exclusive in-game pet, a cloth map of the game world, a soundtrack CD, an Art of the World of Warcraft coffee-table book and a commemorative game manual signed by the team.

After the initial one-month subscription expires, players can select from one of three different subscription plans. The basic month-to-month subscription costs £8.99 per month, while the three-month plan costs £8.39 per month and the six-month plan equates to £7.69 per month. The subscription can be paid for with all major credit-cards, direct-debit and pre-paid game cards available in retail outlets that stock the game.

Weâ??ve hardly been able to pull ourselves away since getting consumed in the world of Azeroth, however you can bet weâ??ll have more coverage soon.