Pre-ordering is a big deal in Age of Conan. It’s such a big deal that several retailers have exclusive offers only available to players that pre-order from their stores. To name a few major U.S. retailers: Gamestop has the War Mammoth, Best Buy has the Rhino, and Amazon has the Bow.  Deciding which store to purchase from wasn’t easy. Graev and I immediately ruled out Amazon because we don’t really care about a pre-order bow. That made the debate between Gamestop and Best Buy. We looked at the two mounts and decided that we would go with the Mammoth because the description sounded cool and you can’t go wrong with a Mammoth.
That was a few weeks ago when most details about pre-ordering dates and such were still very sketchy at best. Yesterday Funcom announced that AoC went gold and suddenly several people started reporting that their local Best Buy had pre-order boxes in. Amazon customers are receiving their codes as well. I immediately picked up the phone and called Gamestop. “Have your Age of Conan pre-order boxes in yet?”, I asked. “No, we expect them sometime in the next two weeks”, said the Gamestop’s store manager (whose voice I now know and sadly he knows mine… admittedly I’ve been calling every few days about the pre-orders and had called every few hours for the WAR code’s when they were coming out). So Gamestop in-store pre-ordering was out of the question. What to do next? To the online store I go! …. but their customer service reported that codes would not be available until May 14th at the earliest and it would be first come first serve. NO guarantee that if you pre-order online from them that there will even be codes left — compounded by the fact that their CE has sold out makes for one scary risk.
*sigh* If you’re a regular around here you know my patience with Scamstop Gamestop are already paper thin. I’ve been screwed a dozens ways by that shady corporation and Graev has his own horror stories. No Mammoth mount or in-game item is worth this crap.  There was really only one thing left to do after this and trust me it wasn’t easy for me. I called Best Buy. There, I said it. I picked up the phone and called Best Buy. It took 15 minutes of being on hold, them hanging up on me twice, and all my willpower to finally receive the answer “yes, we have the Age of Conan pre-order boxes.” I asked them to hold two for me.
I got to the store some 20-30 minutes later and when I get there the guy holding them for me says “You only need one copy. We’ll just scan it twice.” …. excuse me? “BY CROM!”, I shouted and cut off his head in a glorious fountain of blood. Okay, that didn’t happen. I rolled my eyes and promptly walked to the PC section, grabbed Graev’s copy, and checked out.
And that, my friends, is the epic tale of how I raided Best Buy for the coveted Age of Conan Pre-Orders. This better be one heck of an amazing Rhino.
lol nice story, cannot believe he said he would scan it twice. I called my Best Buy Saturday night fearing I would end up with someone who didn’t have a clue what I wanted. Surprisingly I asked if the preorder boxes were in for AoC and the guy said hang on, about 30secs later he came back on and said “yea, we put them out today”. Then I got brave and asked what they came with and he actually sit there and read the description including the rhino! I was shocked, usually any store I call I get someone that is clueless and doesn’t want to help. So I quickly drove over and picked up one. You can probably get a mammoth later, just a different type possibly. I’ve only read about 4 mounts but I’m hoping there is more variety at the higher levels.
I have already pre-ordered from Gamestop. Now I have to decide whether to cancel and head down to Best Buy or whether to trust in Gamestop. Damn!!
I’m hoping the first come first serve thing is just marketing strategy to sell more CE’s. I have been pre ordered for only a week so if it’s first come first served(which I’m guessing is the earlier you pre ordered the higher the chance you have) I may be royally screwed. Guess if worse comes to worse I’ll just get it from BestBuy and cancel my order with GS.
It also doesn’t help that every time theres a code or limited of something through GS I always end up getting shafted.
I’m trying to decide now if I want to preorder at the store. They don’t have the CE and I really want the CE. Online they have the CE but don’t mention the preorder bonuses. Hmmm, should I take a chance and preorder online for the CE or just get the regular edition in store. Choices, choices.
I’m so lucky for the fact that I have a friend who works at both Best Buy and at Gamestop, though the latter is ready to quit(again). I remember that like, 1-2 days after the CE info came out for WAR, I got a call from him at Gamestop telling me he already had one of the preorder cards on hold for me, it can work out well like that(Also was able to snatch up Brawl a few hours early thanks to the guy workin at best buy).
We have a local game store I usually preorder from now though, it’s so odd to go to a gaming store where the owner personally makes sure you get all the goodies, too bad these places are now doing these things where certain companies get bonuses, he doesn’t always get stuff for the preorders he puts down.
Well guys first I like to thank you for your class videos, nicely done. Second I did go to my local Gamespot and purchased the CE, since I like the books and other junk give,
· In game items:
1. Ring of Acheron gives the player higher XP points
2. Drinking Cape gives free drinks in all of Hyboria’s taverns
· Leatherette map of Hyboria
· 124 page Art book
· Game on two DVD’s
· 72 page manual
· Exclusive DVD with bonus material, trailers, interview and “making ofâ€
· Exclusive soundtrack CD
· Buddy card (for five friends)
· 30 days free play
Hoping Ring of Acheron is worth it also, and one quick question, is the combat game play speed like WOW or Guild Wars?
Tough to accurately pin down the combat speed for the whole game based on the pvp at level 20.. but overall it felt just like WoW’s speed in PvE and pvp at 20.
“Thank you for calling Gamestop where you can buy, save and trade for extremely low amounts of money and preorder awful games that we refuse to take back with our extremely long greetings…how may I help you today?”
/hatred
well crap lol read this an my jaw droppd, i pre orderd the CE on line from gamestop =/ for the most part of where i live its gamestop or bestbuy for games an my bestbuy has crap for games never have anything so of course i went to old gamestop blah same deal really. anyways looking forward to finding out if i am a lucky one to get a code. love the website very helpful keep up the good work an mabye ill see u in the world of Hyboria
If the rhino is worse than a regular mount then hilarity will ensue.
Well its time to get more pratice, the open beta key give away just opened on fileplant. Get em while they’re hot! See you May 1st.
enjoy your reviews for AoC=p, keep up the good work. now i just gotta figure out where to pre order, best buy seems to be my choice.
Hey, the bestbuy by my house does not even have conan, are you sure about this? The offical site too only lists amazon, gamestop, and two others neither of which are bestbuy. Also I am very curious about how we are going to get the information to download early when we preorder, anyone know?
Well I found the answer to my own quest partially. I will post it in case anyone else was curious too.
“North-America: Registration and sales of Early Access open on May 2nd. Download of the client for early access from May 13th, and you can start playing from May 17th.
Purchasing Early Access will not only give you the chance to jump into Conan’s world before the rest of the world, but it will also give you ten extra days of free play time. These ten days are added to your thirty days of free play that is included in the retail
If you have not received your pre-order key by they end of April please contact your retailer directly.”
I went to Best Buy myself and picked up 2 copies. The store had like 50 of them on the shelf. The pre-order boxes are most definitely in stores.
I will have to go check another best buy I went to one last night and saw nothing of Conan. Are they boxes that are just empty and on the shelf? Is it piece of paper? Maybe ill check another bestbuy or 2, because i really hate going to game stop.
Also where did you read that Best buy gave access to the War Rhino? Ive been looking but cant find it.
On the website for best buy it doesn’t mention any bonuses like gamestop does:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8830688&st=age+of+conan&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1207957307964
It says right on this pre-order box that I bought. And on the code on the inside. “War Rhino”
wow that sucks. i wanted the rihno really bad but have already got my pre order at gs. i better hurry and fix that mess today. appreciate that guys
Ohh man I read this about the mounts, I want mine! I read about how you guys are smack talkin GameStop! I orderd my copy from GameStop, I never realy pre-orderd games before. Just kinda went to the GameStop near me and picked up a copy. I guess I’m going to call them up tomorrow and find out where my mammoth is and my 8 slot bag. At the GameStop near me the people who work there seem to know there stuff. They are never rude or stupid to me at all. I just hope I don’t get screwed out of this good deal. I bet this mammoth is worth alot of gold later on. I’m sure I’m going to need this gold for better items and junk, so a free mount will be a good thing.
Ok, I called GS this morning and talked to some guy. I explained to him that I pre-orderd AoC and he understood about the goodies ( mammoth and bag ) but he did not know how about the store was going to give out the codes. I belive he said that a card was envolved. He just told me to keep in touch. Guess I will call back next week or every Friday before the game will be in the store.
This I belive is not a good way to do this. I am lucky because I have a car and can drive to GS and 1.Pre-order the game 2.Drive back to pick up some game card thingy 3.Drive back yet again to pick up the DVD or CD of the game itself. This is a total of 3 trips back and forth, and with the price of gas the way it is now… it just seems foolish thats all. I feel sorry for the people who don’t drive or have to hitch a ride somehow to get there. I guess they would do better ordering it online.
My friend pre-ordered at GS online a week or 2 ago and received his code in his e-mail this morning, this happen for anyone else? Should those of us who are suckers and pre-ordered at an actual GS store go call them? Or if anyone has do the stores have the actual codes in yet, the guy at the store i went to said sometime next week is expected.
I just got my GS code today. /relieved
It will be curious to see how many War Mammoth’s are actually out there in the game. How embaressing for GS if there are Ga-zillion Rhinos and only a few Mammoth mounts running around.
And I take it that once you enter the code that will prevent you from entering in a different code.. such as for $30 you can get all 3 codes and have all three special items (Rhino, Mammoth and Bow) on one character?
hmmm? all 3 for $30? is this the first P2p mmo with a cash shop?! *faints* interesting, dont wanna pvp for it?, cant get the gang together to Pve for it? cash shop it! *shoots self*
so does this mean you can actually play it before the 20’th or something? Or is this just for the ingame items?
3 day headstart and in-game items.
Signed up with fileplanet, got a beta key so looks like tommorow (May 1st) I can get a taste