Wrath Of The Lich King Players Report Crashes, Bugs

Blizzard Entertainment on Thursday switched on servers that support Wrath Of The Lich King, a World of Warcraft expansion pack in which players can traverse new territory filled with a host of never-before seen enemies -- but many users hoping to enter the virtual world have spent the past 24 hours struggling with more mundane issues, such as computer crashes and programming bugs.

A full day after the game became available for play, Blizzard's online support forums were filled with posts from hundreds of frustrated users. Many of the posts focused on installation issues.

"When I open the installer, highlight WotLK upgrade and click OK, it says, 'There is not enough disk space,' " user "JohnDaBaptst" wrote Thursday. The user complained that, even though his PC had 200 GB of available disk space, and though the upgrade requires only 8 GB of available space, he was unable to install Wrath Of The Lich King.

"This is strange, I am having the same problem," wrote support forum user "RavenNight," a comment that was echoed by numerous other would-be players.

Lich King's launch was plagued by other bugs, as well. Player "Maethorinn" complained that all of his in-game progress in the expansion pack was lost after Blizzard rebooted some of the servers. "Not sure if this is a common issue or not, but it would be impossible for me to ever complete those achievements if they aren't restored," wrote the user.

Blizzard's servers were apparently overwhelmed by the number of player attempting to log in to play Wrath Of The Lich King. "I sincerely apologize for the gameplay disruption this morning. We've already informed our technicians," a Blizzard staffer said in a forum post Thursday.

The expansion pack officially hit stores Wednesday, with numerous outlets, including Best Buy, holding midnight sales events for the hotly anticipated software.

World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online game that's developed a cultish following, currently boasts more than 11 million players worldwide. In the game, players assume online identities to seek adventure in a Tolkienesque virtual world populated by giant spiders, trolls, dragons, and other monsters.

Wrath Of The Lich King introduces players to the Lich King Arthas Menethil, a holdover from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. From his enclave in Icecrown Glacier, the Lich King works "to bring all of Azeroth under his twisted dominion," according to Blizzard.