If you’re a World of Warcraft player and you haven’t made arrangements to purchase the Burning Crusade expansion yet, jeez, you really procrastinate.
Today is the last day to purchase the expansion through Blizzard’s online store and receive it in time for live date, January 16th. You need a hard-copy to become BC-enabled. (Forum thread with phone numbers for questions, etc.)
I’ve been watching the ebay auctions of the Collector’s Edition, checking to see if any go for a crazy price. $200 and change is the craziest so far. (darn.)
Finally, in prep for a post-expansion crush of players, Castle Blizzard is testing out a new system to split realms. Although they’ve technically split realms before to a new server, (my server was a new server offered to several old, crowded ones), the new system is an opt-out system — you’ll go where they want you to go unless you choose otherwise.
When a realm is chosen to undergo a split, an in-game message at the character-selection screen will prompt all affected players to choose between one of the two new realms being created. The player will be able to make this decision (or change his or her decision) up until the realm-split process has been completed. The realm that the player chooses will be the destination for all characters that the player plays on that realm.
Or else:
If a realm is not chosen by the player, each character will be individually relocated to one of the two new realms based on a priority system. The system will first determine whether the character is in a guild and move the character based on the destination of the guild’s leader. If the character is not in a guild, the system will then check if the character is part of an arena team and move the character accordingly. If these conditions do not apply, Blizzard will make the decision for the character(s).