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Monday, January 24, 2005

World Of Waitcraft.

Ugh. Nothing is worse than trying to bid on a sold-out game on eBay to find that:

1. Merely finding the item is a quest in the first place. There are so many "Character Stats Hacks Game Guides" (whatever it is, it's only $14.99) Power-Leveling Services (where players in China will get your character to level 60 in 18 days...for only $700) and in-game money (200 Gold goes for about $50, close to the current exchange rates for the Malaysian Ringgit) that the search string I'm using looks like some kind of Blizzard game cursed item. ("-gold -level -stats -LQQK") (OK, the last bit is just there because I hate it when eBay sellers put "LQQK!!!" in their titles.)

2. People are willing to pay a lot more than I consider reasonable...I saw people bidding $90+ on the STANDARD version of the game. You can imagine how much the Collectors Edition was going for. I mean, sure I can support sellers making some extra cash on the deal for their trouble, but this is getting in the realm of the absurd. (So why am I still bidding?) I mean, I saw sellers whose "buy it now!" price was $120. Again, for the standard version. Hey, dream big.

3. People are willing to buy used, open, pre-played (no trial period) copies of the game for similar prices to the new versions. I am already paranoid enough that buying a "brand new sealed in box" copy only means that the seller has only opened the box once, given the CD Key to three of his 14-year-old friends to share, and re-shrinkwrapped the box shut.

4. Bidding, when I do it, is marred with tragedy. I found an auction for the game that was going only slightly over the actual cost for the game. The seller had decent feedback. I girded my loins and reloaded compulsively. The price didn't move; there was still just an opening bid. I had found an abandoned one! I was going to get it within my price limit! My hands shook, I was soaked through with sweat from nerves. At the last second I tried swooping in to make my bid at a great price and...eBay decided that I was not logged in. I missed the end of the auction by seconds. I beat the end of my head for minutes afterwards.

5. I've gotten obsessive about bidding now, and have been sitting with hundreds of windows open and reloading all evening. Every movement on my computer is incredibly slow, even the clock in the menu bar. It's 10:00pm as of this writing and I haven't even thought about making dinner yet, though my stomach is growling. At least I showered today. (There was a break while I was waiting for an auction to close.)

New copies of the game are likely to be relased in March, when the server issues they've been having will be more manageable too. I could just wait. Maybe I'll just do that.

Just after this one last bid...it closes in only 16 minutes....

12:01 AM PST (link)