@overmind: it should be downloading upon release, just make sure your WOL is up to date, just open your game launcher right now and let it patch, and if you see anything like downloading data for an upcoming patch, then you should be patching, if not, then you are up to date,

@IRMteal: So this downloading on release, how do i trigger it? Where do I click the shiny install button?

@makuya: give him the collectors edition

@makuya: I just went through the purchase and wanted to gift this to my son's account. There was no option. Once the payment processes it is immediately associated with your account. No gift option was available. Not sure what Blizz has for this, but I'm not associating my payment information on my son's account. I certainly don't need two of the box Collector's Edition either. I submitted a ticket because he plays WOW and D3 so the extras would be cool for his account. Shizzle, even Minecraft permits gifting ...

@Purge: I bought WoL Collector's Edition, and didn't have World of Warcraft for another two years but I still had the Thor pet waiting for me.

@WhitePaws: Sweet thanks for you help man!

@Irosas: Its not out yet....

@SnakeDoc: Normally Blizzard allows you to download a game a day in advance so you can play as soon as it comes out. A lot of Americans are also switching to Korean and European realms since the game just launched there.

@Benk: I think you miss the point. I don't care if I pay for an expansion on the game so long as the quality is there. It is keeping programmers and artists in a job and i get countless hours of fun. Also what about the World of Warcraft players? thay have bought 1 game 4 expansions and the 5 is on the way plus a Subscription fee to play and if you have played since before BC you probably have paid well over a grand for a game. You also only play campaign and no only online so you kinda are only useing half the game so don't complain and don't say they are not a Respectable gaming company Blizzard is by far one of the best Producers out there today.

@Zedzknight: You should read Benks comment thoroughly. He said they used to be a respectable gaming company. Which they were. Warcraft 1-3, Diablo 1-2, Starcraft 1. All games that they produced in between one another with lengthy wait times in between all of them. But when you got the end product you were absolutely thrilled. You hated the whole time you had to wait because it was forever, but you got something damn near amazing. Even the expansions were great. WoW was good at the start, then somewhere along WoTLK it lost its way. The only reason I ( and i'm sure im not the only one ) play WoW still is because i have put so much time into it I hope they find a way to turn it around. Or until i find another MMO that actually looks good. Starcraft 2 came out and I was extremely let down. I thought maybe I was missing something or that I was too attached to the first one, then I realized. Its exactly like Benk stated, why can't I campaign all races at the start? They spent all that time since SC1 to release the sequel where I can't even see the whole story? All of the games they used to put out had content in them. Yeah sure multiplayer is amazing and even though most games these days revolve around it, does that mean you have to sacrifice the solo experience for it? Blizzard has gone from focusing on games and putting out a good product from start to finish that the customers can be happy with, to what they are now. The how can we put out a product that people will buy, and stretch that into a long period of time that we can milk them for more money. Priorities in the gaming industry has gone downhill over the past decade. I am just extremely dissapointed to know that I have supplied Blizzard with as much money as I have to destroy such a good franchise. I'm not sure if its the companies fault or the gamers themselves who have just let their standards fall to the floor.

@ElChiefo: The next big MMO will be Camelot Unchained. They are going bck to a sandbox style and trying to make gear less NPC based. You will still have to raid but I think the days of doing the same raid 100 times and not getting the item you want will be gone

@Zedzknight: I hate it when people complain about people complaining. Seriously, if they want to voice their opinion what is that to you?

@Fizubh: What about people complaining about people complaining about people complaining? We're getting to absurd levels of whine-ception here.

@Ersiusp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JGHI4TAC5U I'll just leave this here. Continue on with the rant people!

@ElChiefo:

When looking at "what should be" in a game it is imperative to look at the whole picture and not "what we alone expect from only one past example". Doing otherwise is indicative of being a blatant and superfluous complainer with no real aim other than stating only subjective rhetoric, which may spark arduous discussion. Indeed, what we really need to examine is the content of one versus two and the reasons for any deviation beginning from the start and the development process thenceforth. Each of the race's campaign in the first Starcraft were little more than 8-10 missions, most of which were excruciatingly small and without extension. The banter contained in between mission consisted of only speech allow the story to flow, and there were little to no graphics (or time spent on such) to create elaborate in-engine cutscenes, interactable environments, voice overs, mini games and generally a lot of fluff text to satiate the lore nerd of the Starcraft Universe. When you take this into account and notice the true and unfettered polish that went into each mission and in-between, you have a game that surpassed the original by quite a large margin. This is especially true when you realize that Wings of Liberty had roughly 26 missions, almost matching the first Starcraft II, which was void of anything other than simple level design, text and the occasional cutscene.

This is not even taking into account the development process, and the fact that by allow for each race to have 20+ missions and focusing one on each expansion, we get much more game play then we ever would have with a single that has 8 missions dedicated to each race. Not to mention the flow of the game would be absolutely and atrociously hindered switching perspectives at such a high rate. Given adequate contemplation and common sense, one could easily deduce that the current model of two expansions and the pure focus of a flowing story is the optimal route for both a developer and a consumer / fan of the series. No one race will be skimped on or cut short in the interest of making those who cannot sufficiently comprehend such a simple concept that it is in fact much more ( and not less ) that we get rather than fitting everything in a couple missions and hope that everything flows with the efficacy that lore nerds have come to expect.

I remember the rhetoric and nonsensical conversations and assumptions people were giving out when they claimed Blizzard would sell each race centric game at the full price of $49.99-$59.99 and that they felt like they were getting ripped off. It's sad that some still buy into this, as it was proven false back then (even though some still spread the false rumors, and others believed without doing appropriate research) when Blizzard said (before and after these comments) that each one after will be priced at the normal expansion rates. They even said that WoL will have about the same amount of missions as the first Starcraft, which it did, but also a tremendous amount of more complexity in all things, including the establishment and further advancement of the Starcraft universe. Simply placing the blame for what is was originally a troll argument (in that the perception of having the one race with the same amount of missions isn't the same as having each race at one third the missions in the first release) isn't required. We do indeed seem examples of their original intent of such with the five Protoss levels located within the WoL campaign, but ultimately we received more than enough content for the money and HoS is looking to be the same way (though judgment should be reserved for when we actually have access to the single player). There are times when the gamers do just let companies roll all over them (unacceptable forms of DRM and the like), then there are people who just whine for no reason. Sadly, all evidence points to this situation being in the latter.

Would have it been nice if each race had 26-28 missions on Wings of Liberty? No. It would've been awesome and worth three times the price the game costed. But there was nothing lost, and much more gained when comparing to the first Starcraft release (minus the big issue of LAN and a better b.net experience in my opinion). It's just that people see one race instead of three and process the simplest form of math in their head that one does not equal three. They do not look at the reasons behind this, the additional math (the missions) and how well it was executed and produced. Even Korea eventually went the Starcraft II route, which many of us expected they would resist for at least five years. This is because objectively the game was superb, and most sites that gave ratings gave it a 9 or 9.5 out of ten on their systems. We haven't even touched on some of the other major features of Starcraft, such as the powerful Galaxy Editor the game originally came with and the countless hours of fun that was to be had there. Yo

@Sindothyx:

You may not have thought all of this was worth the money, but I can tell you from an objective standpoint that it was worth it ten times over simply from the sheer amount of content and potential content you could get out of this single purchase.

While I understand that the whole "starcraft" experience to some is having the ability to see the story from all vantage points (back to back), I can't help but feel a bit uneasy by the reasons of some who instantly think there's a party to blame or that Blizzard just wants to rip people off.

@PortCitySlay: Raynor* :)

@Stormfire: I agree that ultralisk skins the reason I paid 80 dollars because the d3 stuff is nice I like d3 but that ultralisk is !@#$in awesome