Any announcement about what time we can start prepurchase?

[Deleted]

as the title says. I need to know when i should put my alarm clock on.
i know the 10th, but what time

[Delias]

as the title says. I need to know when i should put my alarm clock on.
i know the 10th, but what time

....... really?
:P
I would assume 12:00AM in your time zone, it's probably set to a clock.

[Spl4sh3r]

I've heard some retailer has at 8am. Which sounds like the time when normal stores opens.

[Delias]

I just don't understand why.
I mean, it's not like you can get right into the beta right when you pre-order, because the first BWE won't be until the end of april.
And it's not like they're going to run out of digital copies, because.. it's a digital copy.
Oh well, to each his own. :P

[Deleted]

I just don't understand why.
I mean, it's not like you can get right into the beta right when you pre-order, because the first BWE won't be until the end of april.
And it's not like they're going to run out of digital copies, because.. it's a digital copy.
Oh well, to each his own. :P

it's fun

[shimerra]

Didn't know it was fun to get unnecessarily worked up. Patience.

[vicious796]

Didn't know it was fun to get unnecessarily worked up. Patience.

I'm psyched that at this time, next week, I'll be the proud owner of... well... nothing, really. But I'll own it.

[lllBlackSunlll]

I just don't understand why.
I mean, it's not like you can get right into the beta right when you pre-order, because the first BWE won't be until the end of april.
And it's not like they're going to run out of digital copies, because.. it's a digital copy.
Oh well, to each his own. :P

There could still be a limited amount of digital copies available. I know that sounds strange, but there are only so many copies they can distribute. You need to consider a couple of things. About a million people signed up for beta, so lets assume they all want to buy at least the regular version. They need to have stable enough servers or more servers for beta testing purposes to hold 1 million players. No beta has, nor do I see that ever happening. The more copies sold earlier the better for Anet, NCsoft, and investers, but realistically, I don't see them giving away 1m copies for beta testing, though it does also lead to the 3day head start.

It's much like how there is a queue in WoW when transferring servers or receiving digital items. It's digital, it should happen instantly. It just doesn't work that way, there are CPU issues you need to consider.

[nocturnus]

I'm psyched that at this time, next week, I'll be the proud owner of... well... nothing, really. But I'll own it.

You'll be the proud owner of a... receipt!

There could still be a limited amount of digital copies available. I know that sounds strange, but there are only so many copies they can distribute. You need to consider a couple of things. About a million people signed up for beta, so lets assume they all want to buy at least the regular version. They need to have stable enough servers or more servers for beta testing purposes to hold 1 million players. No beta has, nor do I see that ever happening. The more copies sold earlier the better for Anet, NCsoft, and investers, but realistically, I don't see them giving away 1m copies for beta testing, though it does also lead to the 3day head start.

It's much like how there is a queue in WoW when transferring servers or receiving digital items. It's digital, it should happen instantly. It just doesn't work that way, there are CPU issues you need to consider.

I THINK they'll be using regular servers to host the pre-purchase beta. A week before it's release they'll clean up those servers and load in the regular client. Those servers should be able to handle more than 1m users.

This is merely speculation though.

[vicious796]

I think folks are greatly overestimating how many people will prepurchase. It's one thing to have 1m sign up for a no-risk beta. It's another to throw down cash. I would expect no more than 500k prepurchases (2-300k in the Americas, 1-200k in Europe, 1-200k in Asia/Australia... yes I know the max adds up to 700k but the point is still there) and, more importantly, the beta isn't for another couple of weeks after the prepurchase. Arenanet will know exactly how many servers they need and will probably overcompensate.

[Mif]

For the UK, Zavvi is 8am local time.

"This Product will be available to purchase on the 10th April at 08:00 AM."

[Delias]

There could still be a limited amount of digital copies available. I know that sounds strange, but there are only so many copies they can distribute. You need to consider a couple of things. About a million people signed up for beta, so lets assume they all want to buy at least the regular version. They need to have stable enough servers or more servers for beta testing purposes to hold 1 million players. No beta has, nor do I see that ever happening. The more copies sold earlier the better for Anet, NCsoft, and investers, but realistically, I don't see them giving away 1m copies for beta testing, though it does also lead to the 3day head start.

It's much like how there is a queue in WoW when transferring servers or receiving digital items. It's digital, it should happen instantly. It just doesn't work that way, there are CPU issues you need to consider.

As Nocturnus said, the chances of them using dedicated beta servers instead of the regular servers is low.
They need to stress test at some point, and it's not like they need to run the game AS WELL AS the beta servers, so the chances of a limit are slim to none.
They anticipate millions of players, and don't have to run current version and beta servers simultaneously, so I can't see a limit existing.

Add the fact that they have weeks between seeing how many prepurchase and the actual event starting, it should be fine.

[Noomz]

I just don't understand why.
I mean, it's not like you can get right into the beta right when you pre-order, because the first BWE won't be until the end of april.
And it's not like they're going to run out of digital copies, because.. it's a digital copy.
Oh well, to each his own. :P

Wanna be there before it overloads and crashes.

[Delias]

Wanna be there before it overloads and crashes.

So.. wait a day? As I said, they won't run out of copies, and pre-purchase is of NO benefit to you whatsoever until the first BWE.
In fact, doing it right when it becomes available is probably less smart, because then you have to deal with said overloads and crashes.

[Deleted]

so just zavvi so far?

[Hockeyhacker]

So.. wait a day? As I said, they won't run out of copies, and pre-purchase is of NO benefit to you whatsoever until the first BWE.
In fact, doing it right when it becomes available is probably less smart, because then you have to deal with said overloads and crashes.

Well there will probably be a fairly limited amount of collectors editions and it is possible that some of the pre purchase stores refused to take any pre orders yet on the collectors editions not having a number of how many their store would be getting, so in that case their may be a very limited amount if someone is trying to get a collectors edition from a store that is holding off on allowing ordering of until the same day as pre purchase since they probably got the number of how many that store would get the same time they did or didn't get pre purchase authorization.

As for me it doesn't matter since I am getting either the DD or regular edition, but for some people their is a very limited amount, but for those people question wouldn't matter anyways since it would just be when their store opens up, point being just because your not getting an edition that has very limited numbers doesn't mean someone else isn't.

There could still be a limited amount of digital copies available. I know that sounds strange, but there are only so many copies they can distribute. You need to consider a couple of things. About a million people signed up for beta, so lets assume they all want to buy at least the regular version. They need to have stable enough servers or more servers for beta testing purposes to hold 1 million players. No beta has, nor do I see that ever happening. The more copies sold earlier the better for Anet, NCsoft, and investers, but realistically, I don't see them giving away 1m copies for beta testing, though it does also lead to the 3day head start.

It's much like how there is a queue in WoW when transferring servers or receiving digital items. It's digital, it should happen instantly. It just doesn't work that way, there are CPU issues you need to consider.

A) 1 million sign ups != 1 million people signing up... lots of people signed up with 2,3,4,7,etc emails on different machines just up their chances at getting a key.
B) Free chance to access beta != droping $60, a small handful of the remaining number from your original can not afford $60/$80 currently but where wanting to play a beta since it was free.
C) Because the game is not live they can use the servers that are meant for live as beta servers and just wipe the toons right before the early access, not to mention the main tests of the BWE of all pre purchase people getting in is to stress test the servers and to see if things scale right when you have a lot of people clustered more so then what would be normal in live.
D) The "que" to server change in WoW is more for security reasons then anything else, they don't want to deal with trying to filter through a bunch of extra logs if person A gets hacked by person B, person B sends all of person As gold to character C, person B then makes sure that a toon by the same name as character C is on a server they can sell the gold at a higher rate to then in turn get a free name change to make looking through the logs take more time, if you have transfered 2 toons at once before you may have noticed that if you are transfering a toon you have not done much with recently and one that you play the AH every day the last week with, even if you do the one with more activity first the one with less activity transfers first. (Or atleast it did for me, my less active toon copied in less then 20 minutes while my AH toon took 4 hours even though I did the AH one first)

Either way you make a lot of assumptions in your statements, but yes their probably will be a cap of how many they are willing to sell pre purchase, but that cap will be the same as that in which they are willing to have at launch since as stated during the beta if they need to use all the servers that will be fore live they can, its not like a WoW expansion where you can not use the same servers, which that cap will probably not even be close to being reached.

Edit 2:

I don't think anyone has to worry about losing out on buying a CE because they were 10 minutes late. SWTOR had CEs available months after preorders went up. Just chill.

Like I said I couldn't care less I am not getting a CE, but you also have to remember two things, some companies believe collectors editions should be rare and for collectors, while others believe that as long as they are getting the money for it that they don't care if every single copy sold is a "collectors" edition even a year after release. And point B being also depends on where you live, if the company believes in philosophy of collectors being rare, in that if your in an area where a lot of people want it then you have lower chance to get it as in some place where people don't care and/or have the extra money to blow. (And btw you can still buy CE of ToR almost 4 months after launch because EA doesn't have the philosophy of people spending extra money should get something that is rare, so your ToR didn't sell out comment is kinda pointless)

Either way I really couldn't care less, one way or the other, but to say it doesn't effect some people even if they are a minority just because it doesn't effect you is a bit self centric.

[vizzle]

I don't think anyone has to worry about losing out on buying a CE because they were 10 minutes late. SWTOR had CEs available months after preorders went up. Just chill.

---------- Post added 2012-04-05 at 03:22 AM ----------

Either way I really couldn't care less, one way or the other, but to say it doesn't effect some people even if they are a minority just because it doesn't effect you is a bit self centric.

I don't think I nor the two others you quoted ever said anything of the sort, lol. A+ on words-in-mouth.

[Nexrex]

They would run out of box copies which I hope to get my hands on so...yeah wanna be early...

[barackopala]

I envy you guys, you can pre-purchase it while no stores in my country sells it >:!

May i ask, does anyone knows if arena-net will set up an online purchase on their webpage?

[Marn]

How long are they having this promotion of giving you entry into BWE's and head-start access along with your pre-purchase of the game? I really would like for them to have a release date so that I can see whether I can even play during the week it comes out; if I'm out of town for example, those 3 days of head-start access are not going to be very useful. I'd pre-purchase on the 10th if I knew I could take full advantage.