For World of Warcraft players who over the years have grown accustomed to seeing busy in-world auction houses, the last few weeks may have seemed odd.

Normally bustling with players eager to buy or sell weapons, clothing, armor, or other goods, business at the auction houses has recently slowed to a crawl. But it's not because of the global economic crisis.

Rather, say WoW aficionados, players have been hoarding their gold in anticipation of the release Thursday of the game's latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and holding off on buying items that would soon be obsolete.

This is just one example of players of the hugely popular massively multiplayer online game behaving differently as Lich King's release approaches.

The game will go on sale nationwide after midnight (12 a.m.) Thursday, and retail stores expect lines across the country.

And while not all 11 million WoW  level players plan to upgrade to the new $40 expansion, it seems that enough will do so that life in The Burning Crusade, the first expansion, which came out in January, 2007, will likely resemble the empty streets of an urban downtown in the middle of the night.

According to Colin Sebastian, a senior vice president of equity research at Lazard Captial Markets, Lich King is likely to sell 4 million copies in the first quarter after its release. That means, Sebastian said, that WoW's publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, is looking at potentially $120 million in revenue for the quarter.

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