is the fastest-growing MMORPG in history, Blizzard Entertainment announced today, and had the most successful North American launch of any PC game in history as well, according to the developer's distribution partners. In its first 24 hours on November 23, the new online RPG sold through more than 240,000 copies.

When the players who bought those copies hopped online, they created more than 200,000 player accounts on day one. By the evening of launch day, the game cracked more than 100,000 concurrent users, filling more than 40 servers to capacity.

For a bit of a historical comparison, even two years after its release, Sony Online's EverQuest could claim around 85,000 simultaneous players at peak hours, although more recently it's reached well over 115,000 simultaneous players. Star Wars Galaxies, meanwhile, reached 275,000 players in its first month, a figure World of Warcraft may have already equaled.

The game's subsequent launches in Europe and east Asia -- scheduled for early next year -- may be expected to spur even further growth.

Those crowds have of course caused a lot of trouble for new players attempting to get in the game (GMR's James Mielke has some especially picturesque descriptions of the game's present lag issues), but Blizzard claims more than 40 new servers were deployed by the end of this past weekend to meet the growing demand.

