Warhammer Online finally went live for everyone earlier this week, though some players are finding they are not able to log into the game starting this morning. If said players happened to be those who preordered the Collector's Edition of the game online and have yet to enter the CD key that comes with it, then it's certainly no coincidence. Gamers who preordered WAR CE were promised a grace period lasting from Sept. 18th until Monday 22nd that allowed them to enjoy the game without entering the CD key in case their copy of the slick and smooth special edition was slow to arrive in stores/in the mail. At first it appeared EA and Mythic as if decided to cut the grace period deadline to this Friday morning:

This announcement is to let everyone know that if you haven’t yet entered your CD key into the account center, you must do so by tomorrow (Friday) morning at 7:00 AM. If you do not enter your information into the Account Center by the deadline your characters will not be affected, you will just be unable to login until your product key is entered.

The companies surely felt the flack not too long after, as they're since redacted their announcement and have promised the original grace period... for customers who have purchased the WAR CE from the EA Store, Amazon, GoGamer, and The Source.  According to Mythic's Mark Jacobs:

As of this morning, we deactivated a large number of accounts and ended the Head Start for our game. At the same time, we’ve been in touch with the retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar, and while we are getting great data on the number of people who will get their game today; there is still a relatively small number of people who won’t be able to get them due to shipping issues (no matter what the issues are, whose fault, etc.).

So, after a lot of conversations I’m happy to announce that over the next few hours we are going to extend the grace period for all customers of Amazon, GoGamer and the EA Store till the 22nd of September. Based on the data we have gathered, these companies account for just about all the customers that were concerned about their chance to get into the game today. Thus, if you currently have an account with us, you’ll be able to get back into the game while you wait for your game to be delivered.

Now we'll see if EA and Mythic can live up to their word. Here's hoping the deactivated accounts are up and running again before the weekend, or a certain Neoseeker code monkey is going to get all Hulk-ified.  And that's after he had to wait on the phone for over an hour and 45 minutes to clarify things with EA.  What the about the folks who purchased online from EBgames/GameStop, or Best Buy?  Heck we can imagine some folks cancelling their preorders and just walking into the darn stores just to pick the CE up.  Maybe this is just a conspiracy to make digital distribution look better, despite that platform's lack of extra "feelies"!!!  In the meantime at least another Neoseeker code monkey can take solace in knowing GameStop shipped his copy on time:

(Image Source: Warhammer Online NeoWiki)