extended-downtime
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Tuesday Morning Post: Third time's the charm edition
For the past few weeks, Blizzard's toyed with us just a bit. Monday night bought a posted announcement of extended downtime, only for the morning to feature naught but rolling restarts. As of this writing, we're once again starting with a 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST downtime announcement. Will it stick this time? I suppose by the time you read this, we'll know. Still, it's a win-win situation. If I'm right, I'm right. If Blizzard changes back to rolling restarts, we get to play the game again sooner. In the meantime, there's still stuff to read while the game's down. The biggest news we've gotten out of Blizzard thus far has been one of negatives: BlizzCon is gone, at least for this year. This means we'll have to party even harder in 2013, but what do we do in the meantime? For now, I suggest we catch up on reading. We've kept busy even with the dearth of news, offering guides and opinions you'll want to read. While you wait for the servers to come back up, why not read on? Our usual roundup of the best stuff from the past seven days awaits.
Tuesday Morning Post: Are we there yet?
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The steady trickle of blue posts hinting at the possibility of maybe kind of sort of somewhat having some new news about Mists of Pandaria keep coming, but they also speak of a long time before we get something like an alpha test or any meaty updates. And so we are in something of a drought, and it looks like we'll be journeying toward Pandaria for some time yet. Of course, that's not say we've had no news at all. The Dragon Soul nerf news came down the pipe this week, for example, and as you might expect caused a whole lot of uproar. In addition, the Lunar Festival has started up for the year, and we have our usual achievement guide ready to guide you. We even have an interview with a guy who made 1 million gold and gave it all away. Realm maintenance this morning is a nice, extended 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you'll have plenty of time to get caught up on everything. Read on for our usual roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Faire enough edition
The big WoW news this past week was probably the new Darkmoon Faire that just debuted on the patch 4.3 PTR. It has tons of stuff to see and do, and you'll want to attend. Need a tour? We've got a video tour. There are new replica gear sets and new ways to buy heirlooms. There are new pets and mounts ready to bolster your collection. And that's just the beginning. There are new dailies, new ways to level your professions, and more. The Darkmoon Faire's so amazing, the other four weeks of the month are going to be sort of sad. There was also some interesting news from GuildOx. They sent us a list of the most popular WoW character names by both race and class. As a lapsed RPer, you will excuse me if I trudge off to this corner and cry. I swear, my panda shaman will not have a "bear" or a "shock" anywhere in its name, with God as my witness. ... Then again, Bearshock is pretty catchy ... Scheduled maintenance today is from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you'll have plenty of time to catch up on all the news from the past week. There's a lot of it, from supporting the squish to Guardian Cub price wars, and we have it all for you after the break.
Tuesday Morning Post: Fezzes are cool edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. You'd think it'd be a slow week this time around. Gamescom was last week, and Blizzard doesn't seem to have done much at PAX. Patch 4.3 isn't on the PTR yet. Still, Blizzard managed to get enough news out. The Darkmoon Faire is getting a huge revamp in patch 4.3, with new quests, new games, the ability to semi-powerlevel your professions -- and most importantly, a monkey with a fez. Forget fighting Deathwing; I gotta get me a monkey with a fez. The other good news today is that scheduled maintenance is lasting from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT. That may not sound great, but that may mean we'll get patch 4.2.2 on live servers, which itself means we're one step closer to patch 4.3. Of course, if I'm wrong about that whole patch 4.2.2 thing, that just means downtime sucks a little more this week. Either way, you should have plenty of time to catch up on all the news you missed in the past seven days, so join us after the break for our usual roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Guy Love edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! I recently unlocked the Druids of the Talon dailies on my main, and while doing the daily quests, I've been getting an extra dose every day of the saccharine sweet friendship of Tholo and Anren. They're the Hyjal dream team, nearly always together, nearly always talking about each other. They've got a bromance going that's so huge you sort of wonder if maybe you should just remove the "b" already. I have to admit, it annoyed me at first. Night elves and tauren being all cuddly like that sort of bothered me. The Horde's evil, man. Tauren will betray you, Anren. They're attacking your home in Ashenvale even now! But you know, now that I've gotten to know them a little better, maybe it's not so bad. They're just keeping up a long tradition in the annals of WoW. There's been Asric and Jaadar, Thassarian and Koltira, and now Anren and Tholo. Maybe we could all learn to love each other a little more, just like them. So go ahead. Bask in the warm fuzziness of the bromance. And once you're done, keep reading for the latest WoW news from the past seven days. Downtime this week is from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you'll have plenty of time to get caught up.
Tuesday Morning Post: The week after
It's been exactly one week since the launch of patch 4.2. As we've all come to expect from the high-end raiding community, raiders have already ground Ragnaros into the dust time and time again on normal mode. As of today, we'll start to see legitimate hard mode kills, and it should be interesting to see which guild comes out on top this time around. Most of us are content with much more humble progression, though. My guild finished the week at 3/7, having taken our usual Monday evening raid night off to celebrate some wacky thing called "the 4th of July." I think it's a holiday commemorating Gilneas' shrugging off the hegemony of the Alliance of Lordaeron and striking out on their own? I'm not really sure, honestly. Today's maintenance will be ongoing for a few hours more as of this posting, so if you're feeling particularly bored, don't worry! WoW Insider had some great content this past week that you can catch up on today.
Tuesday Morning Post: By patch day be purged edition
Last week, Ahune busted our instance servers. This week, Ragnaros gets the chance to do the same as we fully expect patch 4.2 to go live as of this writing. Now mind you, I'm not saying servers will crash, but hey -- might as well be prepared, right? Yes, I know that's the wrong raid boss's catch phrase, but I used my only "by fire be purged" joke for the title. As you might expect, downtime is currently scheduled for 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time, so even if everything goes smoothly, you'll still have plenty of time to read up on patch 4.2 before the servers come up. I recommend starting with Mat's excellent patch 4.2 roundup. Then you can check after the break for a quick roundup of all the other good stuff from the past seven days. Don't stop once that's done with, though; we'll have plenty more piping hot patch 4.2 news and info for you in the coming days and weeks.
Tuesday Morning Post: Hot off the presses edition
Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone! The biggest news this week is, of course, the dawn of the Patch 4.2 PTR. The long-awaited Firelands raid is upon us, along with a bunch of other cool stuff. While Blizzard's dialed it back a bit on official previews as compared to last week, the dataminers have found a lot of delicious stuff to hold us over. If you don't want to partake of patch 4.2 just yet, don't worry, we have plenty of news, guides, and features for other things as well, including a nice little speculation post on the cast of the WoW movie and a guide to aging your elf. With downtime stretching from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT this morning, you should have plenty of time to read it all.
Tuesday Morning Post: Maybe soon edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. With the Rise of the Zandalari trailer out and an official release of the patch notes and major feature descriptions, it seemed pretty obvious that patch 4.1 was dropping today. Then we got an ominous blue post: The PTR is still up. Testing will end "soon." It's unclear what exactly that means, but by the time you read this, hopefully we'll know for sure. In the meantime, we do still appear to have extended maintenance going on from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific, so regardless, you'll have time to catch up on the news. There's a lot of juicy patch 4.1 stuff to keep you busy until they finally give us the patch, as well as other stuff, including a few fun interviews and a look at some of our favorite old content. Take a look at it all after the break.
Tuesday Morning Post: Bugged about titles edition
Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone. Hope your Valentine's Day was awesome. Patch 4.0.6 has been out for a week now. Despite a few nasty bugs early on, Blizzard seems to have ironed out most of the kinks, and hopefully by now we've gotten used to the newness. Besides, the ups and downs of patch 4.0.6 are nothing compared to the furor that erupted over the moving of The Exalted title. Blizzard later reneged, of course, but it was a pretty huge storm while it lasted. If you're still trying to get your head wrapped around all things patch 4.0.6, fear not. We have you covered. You can check out our initial guide to the 4.0.6 patch, as well as all the other articles we've been writing this week, after the break. Maintenance this week is from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific, so you should have plenty of time to get caught up.
Tuesday Morning Post: Daniel mostly talks about patch 4.0.6 and maybe a little bit of RIFT
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. I heard you were all tired of seeing pictures of Alex's RIFT characters, so I figured I'd break up the monotony by showing you a picture of my RIFT character. But yeah, forget what I said in WRUP. I spent my entire weekend playing RIFT. Specifically, I was playing a ranger/bard/marksman who looks suspiciously like Kevin Sorbo. My opinion of the game is pretty close to Alex's, so I won't say much else except to note that I want Blizzard to steal rifts, and I forgot how much I missed playing a bard. That said, I'm not too bummed that the beta is over (for now), since we got plenty of juicy new stuff coming after today's extended downtime. Patch 4.0.6 should be dropping today, and you should definitely read over the patch notes. There are long-requested (or unrequested) buffs and dreaded nerfs a-plenty. In other news, Love is the Air on the live servers as well, along with quite a few bugs related to said holiday. Luckily, most of those bugs should be fixed in this patch, and we'll be able to stop obsessing over Cairne and Magni's deaths again. We also got a surprisingly early announcement for BlizzCon 2011. All these stories and more await you below. With today's extended downtime of 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time, you should have plenty of time to read it all.
Tuesday Morning Post: Never tear us apart edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! You know, I feel like I really should say something. Blizzard, despite all the rockiness, be it the Real ID fiasco or the huge 31-point talent tree changes, I still love you. I don't think anything can tear us apart. You know, except a 24-hour downtime. Luckily, my server's not in today's batch of downed servers, but Zangarmarsh, home of <It Came From The Blog>, is; yours may be as well, so be sure to check the list. If your realm is listed, that just means you'll have plenty of time to look back all the big news from the past seven days, such as the new 31-point talent trees or the massive Twitter developer chat. And anyway, we do have normal downtime at the somewhat early time of 1-7 a.m. Pacific, so you may still have a bit of a time to read up regardless. With all that in mind, we have the usual roundup of news, opinions and guides from the past seven days ready for your perusal. Once you're done reading those, you can prepare to join all the 24-hour downtime refugees on Shadow Council.
Breakfast Topic: Where were you on your day off?
When your server is down for extended maintenance or just down for no reason how do you handle it? Being one of the players on the realms which was stuck with 24-hour realm maintenance when Ruby Sanctum came out, I was stuck on a different server for the day. I headed over to our WoW.com guild "It Came from the Blog" and played on my Choose My Adventure character Sandwichdoc and got his fire totem quest finished up and wrote an article my paladin article for today. How do you handle your server downtime? Do you pop over to another realm or just return to real life for the day and head to the park?
EVE Online server move delayed by database issues
Last week, CCP Games announced that the EVE Online server was heading for a move and a bit of an upgrade. Hidden within a few cabinets in a single datacenter is everything that makes up the EVE universe, from characters and ships to planets and the market. The cluster of hardware has been expanded over the years and now exceeds the limitations of the hardware cabinets it occupies. Moving the cluster to a new location within the datacenter should help support future upgrades to keep up with the game's growing subscriber-base. The shuffle began early yesterday morning at 09:00 UTC and was planned to be completed by 15:00 UTC the same day. Unfortunately, the transition to a new locale has had some unforeseen side-effects for Tranquility. After a long day of server work, final testing of the cluster revealed database issues that must be corrected before the game can go live. At 03:00 UTC this morning, the estimate for restoring Tranquility and the EVE website was mid-day today. With that time having now passed, CCP has released a new estimate of 16:00 UTC. If necessary, further delays will be announced on the official EVE Facebook page, the CCP Games Twitter page and the game's main website. UPDATE: The server is now up and players can log in again. CCP has explained the reasons behind the long downtime and detailed their plans to reimburse players with skillpoints in a news post.
Tuesday Morning Post: The long downtime of the soul edition
Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone! If you were part of the massive rush to get BlizzCon tickets this past week, I hope your luck was good, because they are now officially sold out. If you didn't get one, there's probably nothing left to do but hope you win one as a contest prize! Whether you were successful or whether your hopes were dashed, you will, alas, have quite some time to brood or celebrate if your characters are on a list of servers slated for a 24 hour downtime today. Of course, even if you dodged the bullet, we still have the normal 5 AM to 11 AM Pacific time maintenance period coming for all servers. Luckily, there's plenty of news to catch up on, including a good selection of official news on patch 3.3.5 and some of the new features of the Cataclysm expansion. Read on for all the latest, and keep coming back all day for the latest news, tips, and guides. Whether your server is down for the morning or down all day, we'll be here for you.
24-hour downtime this Tuesday for 72 servers to make them Cataclysm-ready
Blizzard's announced a 24-hour downtime window for a large group of servers, from 12:01 AM Pacific time on Tuesday, June 8th, to 12:01 Pacific time on Wednesday, June 9th. All other servers will have a normal downtime window of 5 AM to 11 AM Pacific time. The extended downtime, says Blizzard, is to prepare the servers for the Cataclysm expansion. While this should not be taken as a sign that the expansion is imminent, it's at least nice to see that preparations are continuing apace. In addition, it's probably fair to assume that even if your server isn't in this current list, it'll eventually get a day of downtime of its own as Blizzard gets all of their servers in shape. Check the full list after the break to see if your server is in this batch:
EVE database issue causes thousands of items to go missing
When the EVE Online server booted up today from its scheduled daily hour of downtime, GMs began receiving reports of missing items and disappearing market orders. After some investigation, CCP decided to shut the server down for an extended downtime to get to the bottom of the issue. The problem was eventually traced back to a database script responsible for recycling old itemIDs from trashed items and assigning them to new items. It was found that some new items being created in the database weren't getting IDs and so were becoming lost in the system. Up to 114,000 items may have gone missing during the 75 minutes that the server was up.
Tuesday Morning Post: Vampire morning edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. As of this writing, the big news of the week is probably the latest Twitter developer chat. If you missed it, we have the transcript. Topics included the fate of Crystalsong Forest, pet scaling buffs, new warlock pets, personal guild banks and other storage issues, and more. Be sure to check it out, it's good reading whether you're focused on Patch 3.3 or on Cataclysm. Coming up, we have the opening of the Crimson Halls, the next wing of Icecrown Citadel. That means lots of vampires. They're blood elf vampires, sure, but blood elves are awesome, so it's all good. And hey, if you dislike blood elves, at least take comfort in the fact that these vampires don't sparkle. Finally, it looks like advance notice for downtime may be the name of the game after all, as we've know about today's downtime for a few days now. It's 3 AM to 11 AM pacific time, if you haven't heard, which means you should have plenty of time to catch up on WoW news. Check out a list of some of our content from the last 7 days below the cut.
Compensation for last week's extended downtime
In what will surely please anyone who follows or was affected by extended realm downtimes, Blizzard has quietly announced compensation for the realms affected by it last week. We covered the downtime last week as it occurred. Even after having worked at Blizzard, I'm unsure as to how the decision is made to or not to offer compensation for downtime, but I'm glad that it does get offered periodically. It's no fun to have a day off or a light workday and then discover that the realm that houses your main is down, again. Regardless, if you were on any of the realms listed after the cut, you should see that a 24-hour credit has been added to your subscription on your Account Management page. Take this, your blue badge of courage, and hold it high to the heavens, your karmic reward for not pitching a fit. "We cool, Blizz. We cool."
Tuesday Morning Post: Fear and Loathing edition
It was a fleeting dream, but a marvelous one, wasn't it? Attend BlizzCon all day, gamble all night, sleep never. The thought of a Las Vegas BlizzCon pretty much sent us here at the WoW.com into immediate spasms of joy. Unfortunately, they were quickly supplanted by howls of pain and anguish as we discovered that it just the Las Vegas Convention Center jumping the gun, and that we'll probably still be headed to Anaheim for the next BlizzCon. Don't me wrong, Anaheim's pretty cool and all, but it isn't Las Vegas, that's for sure. So unfortunately, I've had to cancel my plans to get a gonzo lawyer and rent an Impala, but what you gonna do? At least we still have the TCG. Maybe one of these years Blizzard will see the light. In the meantime, we'll just continue toiling away in the WoW.com salt mines here as we dream of the big city. This week, there's plenty of news to work through, and with a 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific downtime, you'll have time. Check out the latest gems we've unearthed for you after the break.
