When I was 14, many moons ago, I used to huddle up next to my dialup and play MUDs for 14 to 30 hours straight without sleep, the only sleep I got was the few brief moments the Internet went out and my body couldn't go any further - signaling the need for 3 hours of napping in the chair before resuming my addiction. It's not like that now, as an adult, I don't go online for nearly as much - a healthy 8 to 12 hours a day. 

Anyway, Internet aside, I'm getting old. Here in my late 20s, it's becoming harder and harder to stay up for longer and longer periods of time. I can do it, I can totally pull off a 24 hour day, but really only if I have to. Only, seriously, if I have to and even then I don't want to. So why a midnight launch? 

Back when I was a kid, the only way to get a game was to be there at launch day and guess when a day starts? Midnight. So what do game developers do for a fun and exciting promotion? Why not a midnight launch, where you can drag mom & dad to the local game store at midnight to celebrate the latest release of Ultima. Midnight launches are becoming rarer and rarer.  

Now tho, things are different. I only walk into a game store when I want to have my wallet robbed for overpriced used games that may or may not work. I sit at home, take out my card, and voila I'm good to go when the clock ticks over - except it ticks over at a time that no one wants to be awake except the most dedicated, which is cool, but you know if we're going to ditch the entire process then let's ditch the entire process and launch games after work in the afternoon or in the morning on a weekend. Much like the heart of the cards, we can believe in a future with an MMO launch in the afternoon or a weekend morning. Hey, Friday night. How about that.

There isn't any point or purpose for WoW to launch at midnight PST, other than to make those of us on the east coast stay up until 3 A.M. If you don't want to stay up, I guess you could go to bed at the nice time of around 7 then wake up at 3, which by the way, is going to totally screw up your sleep schedule. Oh and yeah, tomorrow is Thursday which is guess what - WORK DAY! 

If you have to work, whatcha gonna do? Why can't WoW launch after work for everyone, so I can go out and have a nice meal, come home, and sit around until it goes live. Not this let's launch the game at 3 A.M. LOL! Yeah, I'm all happy it's just like when I was a kid, except now I can't get to iHOP or Dennys with a bunch of nerds from the game store and talk about how excited I am when the servers come live as everyone downs pots of coffee to get ready for the event. 

There is one midnight launch that I'm aware of, again, this one in Irvine. Which is cool, but I'm not gonna also add flying into the list of things I want to do today just so I can live a true midnight experience. If a game isn't going to have some kind of reason to launch at midnight, then bring it online in the day when everyone can hop in. 

Oh, I guess it gives the dedicated masses (i.e. all the people who took tomorrow off) a headstart, which is great if it was 2004 again and they didn't have hardcore phasing to the point that you'll be able to go through the zones with no issue just like in Pandaria, but even better, even if 14 million players all log on and then they'll just put up the queue and you can order a pizza while you wait your 10 to 20 minutes to hop online. 

Whatever, I'm a grumpy goat over this because I'm old and old people love complaining. I'll take myself, my cane, and my energy drinks and just either play in the morning or take a old man nap and play after that. 

See you all in Azeroth, or well, I probably won't, but maybe I will you never know! 


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Last Updated: Mar 18, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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