Headstarts redux

Ok, I thought I was going a bit crazy this morning when I read the coverage about the headstarts announced as 14th and 16th at 7am EDT.

Previously, we’d been told 14th and 15th September for these. And that’s what I reported a while back, when the news was given.

I’m not really able to make any comment on this, I suggest though that we assume the American dates are the correct ones and don’t hassle GOA about it too much until the issues with the open beta are done with. Am fairly sure we’ll know before it matters!

Have HMV got it all wrong?

We spent a while in the early days of the blog pondering when Play.com would send out their CE pre-order codes, and kind of wishing we’d gone to an HMV store and picked up the pre-order box there.

It now seems that HMV are having issues with the way they handled the pre-order programme. Right from the start people had conflicting reports about whether HMV staff were asking for their details to reserve them a copy of the Collector’s Edition when it came into the store. Some were being asked, some weren’t.

Now, over at Freddyshouse, there’s a worrying thread which goes into quite a few details of people being told by various sources at HMV that they might not have enough CEs to cover the pre-orders they took. As they were haphazard about recording people’s details – this could be of major concern to people who went this route to the CE pre-order.

Our advice:

• Check with the manager at the HMV store where you bought your pre-order box
• Email HMV (consumer-power!)
• Check over at Freddyshouse, since obviously quite a number of UK buyers there with similar problems, post your experiences so that everyone can benefit from any information gleaned
• Hope that HMV can come up with a solution to this

European SE pre-order

It’s being discussed over at Warhammer Alliance and Iain C has stopped by to make the following clarification:

The European SE pre-order program is not announced or available yet. We will be launching it at the end of August.

So, if you are waiting to participate in the SE (standard edition not special edition!) pre-order thing over this side of the pond, you need to wait for more news, and hold off on pre-ordering until the end of August.

In fact, the 28th August, as Iain says in a separate Warhammer Alliance thread:

On the subject of the standard edition pre-order in Europe. The EU pre-order for the standard edition begins on the 28th of August and the full details haven’t yet been announced for it. As Mark has said however the EU version won’t have the open beta access. This is mostly because we are instead going to be making open beta places available through partner websites in the different European territories instead. European communities are different to North American ones and we feel that this is the best way to support them and to give EU WAR fans the opportunity to take part in the open beta.

Right – so our pre-order program for the SE can start later than the American one, because ours won’t include open beta access. That seems a reasonable assumption anyway, or the one I’m drawn to. Anyway, it does mean you should look out for the open beta spaces available through partner websites (not here, unfortunately, I’d give you all a beta slot!).  But anyway,  spread the word to anyone you know thinking of buying it, so they get the full benefit of it.

European Standard Edition box

With thanks to Romeo Knight over at Warhammer Conflict who brought this to my attention!

Jeux Online have posted a picture of the European Standard Edition box for Warhammer Online, and very pretty it is (as they themselves point out).

As they also remind readers – don’t forget we’re waiting for confirmation from GOA about the different bonuses for pre-ordering the CE and the SE.

But, what the hell, here’s a little taster of the pic to whet your appetites.

It’s official!! Play.com has sent the codes

Quite a few people on Freddyshouse and Warhammer Alliance forums have reported receiving their codes from Play.com for pre-ordering the Collector’s Edition. So it looks like they have, eventually, been sent.

Nothing at my house though 😦

But hey, it’s progress

How to pre-order the Collector’s Edition at HMV

Because Play.com are sold out, here’s a quick rundown of the HMV situation for those in the UK still wishing to pre-order a Collector’s Edition. Benefits of pre-ordering can be found here.

1. Go to an HMV store and purchase the pre-order pack for £9.99 – it is a DVD case with all the codes in
2. Get staff to take down your details to reserve you the CE when it comes out
3. When CE comes out, go to HMV with receipt from pre-order, and buy CE
4. HMV staff take the £9.99 off your CE final cost

That’s the theory. Not everyone has found it that easy to complete steps 1 and 2, but go speak to staff first, get them to look up the memo from Head Office and to take down your details. If you bought the pre-order pack but didn’t get your details taken down – it might be worth popping back into HMV with the receipt.

As IainC notes, HMV may put excess stock up on their website, but your guaranteed pre-order pack and CE will take precedence over any internet sales, so if you can get to an HMV then do so to make sure you don’t suffer any disappointment and/or ranting.

HMV do apparently have quite a few copies left on their shelves currently. I’ve heard that the store in Angel (London), has ‘loads’ (our roving reporters are about as exact as we are!), and I know spinks saw some too.

play.com blank out ‘buy’ button

Looks like Play.com has sold out of pre-order Collector’s Editions.. Now, when you go to their page for it, there’s no option to ‘buy’. Intriguing, although I’m not 100% convinced this is a sign the beta keys will be being sent out anytime soon.

That being said a couple of people on Freddyshouse forums have reported phoning up and being told the keys were in the process of being sent out now, so who knows!