Friday, 0000 hours
AT LAST! All the waiting has been worth it. The last three years, hanging off every tantalising rumour, every bit of concept art, monitoring seven forums constantly, devouring every word from the developers, reading the double meanings in what they say, the triple meanings in what they didn’t say, applying for super secret closed testing, applying for the closed beta, applying for open beta, subscribing to FilePlanet just to get the chance of a key for stress testing, planning my main character, planning the alternative builds for my main character, planning my main alt, rehearsing in my mind the exact clicks and keypresses to complete those initial tutorial quests in minimum time, I AM READY! GAME SHOP, OPEN YOUR DOORS, RENDER UNTO ME MY PRE-ORDERED GAME, PRE-ORDERED COLLECTORS EDITION OF THE GAME, PRE-ORDERED BONUS PRE-RELEASE PACK, PRE-ORDERED PRE-RELEASE DELULXE PRE-GAME T-SHIRT PRE-ORDERED POST-RELEASE SPECIAL EDITION USB PERIPHERAL oh and that Nintendo DS Nasal Training game with Smell-o-meter plug-in.

0001 hours
Seems the game shop doesn’t open until nine o’clock.

0900 hours
COME ON, OPEN THE DOORS, IT *IS* NINE O’CLOCK, THIS WATCH IS SYNCHRONISED WITH AN ATOMIC CLOCK, YOU KNOW! Yessssssssss, here we go, grab the stuff, hand over two month’s salary, back to the car, GO GO GO!

0930 hours
Really, officer? That fast? But it’s an emergency! It’s release day! Even now, the slavering hordes are at the gates of our territory, don’t you see? We must smite them back, DRIVE THEM INTO THE SEA, KILL THEM ALL, MOUNT THEIR MANGLED SKULLS UPON OUR PIK… ow! Ow! There’s no need for handcuffs really…

1430 hours
That trip to the police station has really put a dent in my plans, I’m going to have to triple box levelling just to get back on track, right, main character. Race, sorted, class, yes, name, “Strider”. What do you mean, it’s taken, I’M ALWAYS STRIDER! Dammit. Right. “Aragorn”… taken. “Eragon”… taken. “Drizzt”… taken. “Perrin”… taken. “Garion”… taken. “Belgarion”… taken. “Balinor”… taken.

1452 hours
… taken. “STry1d3rrr”… YES! I HAVE IT! I AM STRY1D3RRR! To the initial quest giver, click, click, yes, click, over here, click, I know, I know, land in mortal peril, kill three gobolds JUST GIVE ME THE QUEST, click, click, my god so many noobs OUT OF MY WAY BOZOS, DO YOU NOT SEE MY DELUXE COLLECTOR’S SPECIAL EDITION PRE-ORDER PRE-RELEASE CLOAK OF A VERY SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT HUE TO THE NORMAL ONE click, click THAT’S MY GOBOLD DAMMIT, click, NO I DON’T WANT TO DUEL, attack, attack, YES! I HAVE KILLED HIM! I AM THE MIGHTY GOBOLD SLAYER, TREMBLE, WORLD! Loot, my god, two copper, this sucks the loot is terrible I got three copper in beta THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!, next gobold, GODDAMN KILLSTEALER right that’s you reported to the GMs, over there, a character called Strider? Reported for naming violation! Anyway, next quest, next quest, come on, I’m seveteen seconds behind schedule as it is!

1924 hours
LEVEL ELEVEN, YES! Two minutes eight seconds behind schedule, but I can make up some of that by not bothering to boil the kettle for this Pot Noodle and just chewing it straight out of the cup.

2149 hours
Haha, the noobs are thinning out now, my uber-levelling skills honed in beta are paying off. Hmm, a whisper from Aragone NAME VIOLATION REPORTED TO GM, “Hi there, want to team up to take on Gutstomper?” Reply: “LAWL NOOB no wai I’m totally going to solo Gutstomper”

2154 hours
“… in conclusion, I am disgusted by the riddickyewliss adjustment in the difficulty of the Gutstomper encounter since beta there is no way it should have been changed even if the quest did indicate it is for five man groups and it was an obvious bug that caused him to repeatedly play the /dance emote instead of attacking players.” Post to forum, click.

2157 hours
Whisper to Aragone PETITION TO GM UPDATED HIS NAME HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED YET: “hey i will help you with Gutstomper if you really need but i get first roll on lewt”

2359 hours
Not a bad day, some time made up after the initial delays, good thing there was a buy one get one free offer on UltraCaff SpazzJuice so I had extra empty bottles, that shaved a good minute off allotted Waste Evacuation breaks. Soon I’ll hit level 21, then I can get to the serious PeeVeePee instead of this lolnoob PvE stuff!