
Launch Night Plans

Have you made your launch night plans yet?
When Mists of Pandaria launched, it launched at midnight, Paris time (GMT+1), which for me here in the UK was 11pm. So why Paris time? Simply because that is the server time for the servers in the EU.
Assuming that Warlords of Draenor follows the same pattern, then we can expect to step into the action at 11:00pm on the evening of Wednesday 12th November 2014.
My Launch Night Plans Are:
Attempt to get a good nights sleep the night before (Tuesday 11th), though in all likelihood I’m going to be too excited.
(How to regain that ‘Christmas as a kid’ feeling? Play Warcraft as an adult)Other house members will be fully fed and sorted before I grab a shower, put on my gaming uniform, or raid suit
as I like to call it, and I’ll log in around 9pm and head onto Voice Coms to chat with my guildies.
During this time, I’m going to remove any last item from my characters bag storage that can be stored in the bank until I need them again.
Packing my bag for leveling to 100:
The only thing in my hunter’s bag (my chosen alt to level to 100 first) will be:
- My Hearthstone
- 20 Tome of the Clear Mind
- 40 Flask of the Spring Blossom
- 100 Virmen’s Bite
- 100 Sea Mist Rice Noodles
- Crystal of Insanity (in case for some reason I’m forced to ditch the Flasks)
- Hellscream’s Warbow
- Battle Standard of Coordination
- Skinning Knife
Things I’m taking with – simply to use them up, include:
Note: On Packing Bags
My hunter has Mythic gear (ilvl 582) so I can expect to ONLY start replacing gear around level 98 or thereabouts, possibly even later. I have Dagryn’s Discarded Longbow (Mythic Warforged) so my heirloom will only become more powerful after a level or two.
If I were jumping into Draenor on a lesser geared character, I would also carry with me a variety of enchants, since MoP enchants can be used up to an ilvl of 600. Don’t go ballistic farming and crafting stuff for yourself, I’m only taking enchants because I have them left over and it would be nice to find a use for them on a character that needs a little extra stat padding.
I don’t plan to spend a single minute of leveling to 100 without being buffed to the max. Since my hunter is a pandaren, the food buff (Epicurean) is an absolute must, since it’s more powerful than for any other race.
Around 10h30pm, I’m going to make a huge batch of home made popcorn, get my giant bottle of water
out of the fridge and settle in...
FYI this is where I play (yes that’s Warcraft III on the desktop of one of my minions, I train them young).
Since this was taken I’ve gotten a new Razer Naga 2014 MMO mouse.
It looks like this…and is frankly, totes amazeballs when it comes to World of Warcraft, I have NO idea how I managed to raid before I got it.
You won’t see energy drinks or anything with sugar on my list of all-nighter snacks for the simple reason that I last longer with sustained energy rather than spikes (and subsequent lows), although I haven’t ruled out coffee in the early hours of Thursday morning if I feel myself starting to lag. Though of course you can prep whichever snacks you like! Whatever blows your hair back, and makes you happy and will keep you enjoying the epic fun of launch night.
In my 20’s I would no doubt have prepped my snacks to include a giant plate of nachos with some hideous processed cheese, along with a 2l bottle of cherry cola (leaving me snoring by 2am thanks to carbohydrate overload and sugar slump)! Thankfully having an extra decade under my belt has taught me restraint and I have a better idea of what will help me reach my goal, even if that does include seemingly boring things like carrot sticks and hummus!
The kind of thing I snack on during WoW…
Raid snacks : here’s mine… What do you guys graze on? pic.twitter.com/mBYOTqjOuO
— Hunternessa (@Legolene) June 28, 2014
At 11:oopm on the dot, I’m going to be speaking to Archmage Khadgar at the foot of the dark portal and going through to face the Iron Horde threat on the other side.
For anyone who hasn’t had beta access, and hasn’t seen the cut-scene where we go through the Dark Portal and see the Iron Horde amassing on the other side…
…it’s one of those moments in game, where the hair on the back of your neck will stand up.
Nice! I haven’t actually made plans yet but I’m now closing in on 26 and have a few expansion and MMO launches under my hat, so thinking about the sustained energy as well. Except Pepsi Max. It will always be my life force. And perhaps a book on the side incase of lag, crashes, freezes, and so on.
Oh goodness – don’t even say the word ‘crash/lag/freeze’ ! Too scary to even contemplate! But yes, I remember when MoP launched how hard it was to kill quest mobs during the first hour or so…but I guess then my guildies and I will just talk about stuff 🙂