I got World of Warcraft today. I know, I know; you either think I'm too late to the game or shouldn't have walked into that minefield at all. I blame Humphrey Cheung, one of our faithful news editors over on TG Daily who stuck the idea into my head out in LA two weeks ago.

Fortunately for those concerned folk who do not want to see me stuck in WoW for the rest of my days, the WoW Europe website seems to be totally fooked to the point that setting up an account is impossible. Agree to the terms, enter the authentication key, your details; I've got as far as "Choose payment method" on one of about a half a dozen tries before it invariably fails to load the next page or spits out an error message in gibberish.

Wonderful, just wonderful. The

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< img width="100" height="90" border="0" src="http://omidr.typepad.com/twitchblog/images/9.jpg" title="9" alt="9" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left;" /> Going to the midnight launch of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion pack I expected to see one or two nuts (besides the one accompanying me) and a lot of geeks. What I didn't expect to find was a pretty accurate demographic spread of Southern California; ranging from dyed in the wool geeks to what one less politically correct than I might term "hot chicks". Even a square-jawed security guard sidled up to me at the top of the line to ask me if I played. He's a level 60 mage.

We've seen a lot of crazy lines for launches recently, what with the PS3 and Wii launching at the end of 2006; but I didn't expect to find people who had been queuing up since 6.30am for a videogame, easier to mass manufacture than a console as it is. Still, if ever there was a living example of how far video gaming has progressed in terms of the demographic it reaches - everyone, basically - it was this World of Warcrack line.

I met middle-aged and upwards folks who have been playing Blizzard games since time began; and I met high school kids high on caffeine and planning their Tuesday morning illnesses. I met professionals and I even met a three year old girl who had accompanied her mother along for the launch; daddy having been unfortunate enough to have to queue up for his copy on the snowstruck East Coast earlier that night.

So there you have it - everyone's a geek nowadays.

Now this sounds like an interesting MMO: the LEGO Group announced today that it's teaming up with Colorado-based game developer NetDevil to create an online game based on the popular LEGO toys. NetDevil is best known for its MMO titles Jumpgate, a space simulation title, and Auto Assault, a futuristic vehicle combat game. NetDevil is also working on Warmonger, a first-person shooter title based on Unreal Engine 3.

The LEGO MMO will be NetDevil's highest profile project to date. Details about the new LEGO title are scarce other than it's schedule release date of 2008. "Playing with LEGO bricks and developing online worlds are both creative activities. To bring them together is deeply professionally satisfying and we look forward to working with the LEGO team," said Scott Brown, President of NetDevil, in a press statement.

"As children around the world continue to spend more time online we are developing new and engaging ways for them to interact with our brand," said Lisbeth Valther Pallesen, Executive Vice President, Community, Education and Direct Division LEGO Group, in a press statement. "The LEGO brand represents construction, creativity and problem solving - values that compliment the MMOG market. By merging the online world of social interaction with physical play, the LEGO brand is providing new experiences for children, as well as fans. NetDevil's technological capability, openness to work with a large community, and their enthusiasm for the LEGO brand made them a natural partner."