So today is the day that (hopefully) Collector’s Edition pre-orders get to start playing Warhammer Online. Originally the servers were going to open at 7 am, but that’s already been delayed once to 1 pm. Five hours to transition from Open Beta to Launch? I’m anticipating another delay personally.

But WAR *is* coming, and I’ve waited for this day, in a sense, since last February. And now it is here and…

…I’m feeling rather apathetic.

And I’m not sure why. I’ve been playing a lot of LOTRO lately and it could be I’ve just burned out my MMORPG desire. It could be that playing Spore has reminded me of how enjoyable it is to play a game where I can just start up the game and *play* without spending a lot of time traveling or looking for a group. It could be the emphasis on voice chat with my new guild, Casualties of War (and my LOTRO guild). Neither requires voice chat, but both strongly recommend it. Which means most people will use it, which means written chat will be silent. I dislike voice chat in my games, but that’s a topic for another post. But I spent a lot of time yesterday screwing around with various microphone set-ups and Ventrillo options and thinking “This is not fun. This is another hassle to add to my life. Why the hell am I doing this to myself?”

Anyway the one reason I know isn’t true is the game itself. I haven’t played WAR in about a month now and I left it ‘hungry for more’ and the anticipation has been building since. Maybe it’s been building too much. Maybe I short-circuited my internal hype-ometer. But I remember the first Christmas when my mother had to come and get me out of bed because I was more interested in sleeping more than opening a bunch of presents, and this morning feels a bit the same way…