Individual Entry

 
Look what came today

Shipped from Kentucky on October 29th, due for release October 31st… arrived in Glasgow on October 31st. Of course, I ended up paying a premium in customs charges, but it’s so rare that I actually order a collector’s edition package of a game (the last one was World of Warcraft in 2004) that I’m not going to complain too much.

Considering that the actual contents of the package takes up very little space, the box is massive, and might seem like overkill to some. Basically, you get the game on a DVD, a second DVD featuring a making-of featurette, various trailers and galleries, and the score in .wav form, as well as a poster map of the various levels in the game and 106-page comic book. Not as grandiose as some of Blizzard’s Collector’s Editions, admittedly, but some nice stuff all the same.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a few hitches when it comes to the game’s optional subscription service. The subscription sign-up process has actually been removed while the matter is investigated, which, as you can imagine, is upsetting a lot of people who planned on subscribing as soon as they got the game so they could enjoy some of the exclusive Halloween content.

There’s also the slight matter of the Founder’s Option, which was promised to those who pre-ordered from selected retailers (Gamestop, from whom I ordered my copy, being one of them). Essentially, the Founder’s Option allows you to pay a one-off fee of $150 to receive a lifetime (the game’s lifetime, that is, not your lifetime) of “ongoing content”, rather than paying $10 per month for this material, as everyone else who wants this material will have to do - a good deal if you plan on playing the game for more than 15 months, which, given the developers’ track record with the Diablo franchise, is a sure-fire thing. Unfortunately (guess what?), it seems that a lot of people did not receive the pre-order keys required to enable this option, myself included. I haven’t decided whether or not I want to go down this route ($150 is a lot of money to lay down in one go, regardless of the developers’ pedigree), but, as you can imagine, I was a bit miffed to discover this oversight. I’ve emailed Gamestop and am hoping for a solution to this problem before too long, because the Founder’s Offer is only available until the end of November.