A die-hard World of Warcraft player has reached level 70 within 28 hours of The Burning Crusade's release.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade screenshot

Gullerbone, a 24-year-old French WoW player, reached level 70 at 4:04 am (CET) on January 17, 2007. He is believed to be the world's first.

The Burning Crusade, the expansion to World of Warcraft, the most popular MMO on earth with eight million subscribers, went on sale in the UK at midnight (GMT) on Monday 15 January.

One of the game's new features was to raise the level cap from 60 to 70. Most experienced players had suggested it would take a number of months at least to achieve the goal.

In an interview with World of Raids.com, Gullerbone, who reached level 70 with a mage class character called Gawell, told how he had help from 40 in-game friends working with him around the clock.

He said: "Cau (the 1st European lvl 60) and I planned the exp(erience) route step by step, trying everything to make sure it was the most appropriate, the groups organization with the guild Millenium and their members. Each member rotated using a definite order to help me to grind on mobs, mostly with AE, surrounded with several guildmate healers, tanks, pullers etc..."

Gullerbone used a tactic of 'tagging' computer controlled enemies, which allowed him to achieve experience points even though his guildmates killed them.

When asked how many players he had help from, he said: "Well at first we had only five (during the first 10 hours or so) so that 10 of the members could get to lvl 62. Then in the morning we were 15 in order to kill the mobs at a faster rate. Finally in the evening, everyone was involved and we could gather a 35 man raid to help me in Netherstorm with our new lvl 62 doing most of the job."

The fact that a player has managed to reach level 70 so fast will not please developers Blizzard, who had hoped to see the Burning Crusade occupy fans for at least a year.

However, given the fanaticism of the World of Warcraft fan base, it was perhaps inevitable that a number of players would have devoted so much time and effort in to reaching level 70 as soon as possible.

When asked if he alone played the character non stop for 28 hours, Gullerbone said: "I sure did. I slept from two to 10pm on Monday (woke up two hours before TBC launch), so the physical preparation was a part of the plan."

For more World of Warcraft info, head over to our Burning Crusade developer interview.