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PSA: PlayStation Network goes down (again) from 9AM ET, but it's for maintenance (again)
There's presumably still some kinks left to be resolved, as Sony's PSN is once more scheduled to snooze from 9AM EST through 3AM. Longer than last month's efforts, it'll affect the PlayStation Store, Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services on PlayStation Home. However, you will be able to continue online gaming if you sign in ahead of the downtime. Frustrated gamers can seek the full explanation at the source below.
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.
Sony schedules PSN maintenance today, wants you to know this time it's on purpose
Sony knows you're likely scarred for life after its many security snafus, so it's doing all it can to keep you in the loop in regards to its PSN. The network will be experiencing a temporary outage today to make room for "routine scheduled maintenance" starting at 11AM ET and ending at approximately midnight. As usual in these scenarios, you won't have access to any PlayStation services on your PS3 or PSP, including PlayStation Home and Sony's Music and Video Unlimited offerings. That said, if you were shootin' and slashin' fools before the downtime, you should have no hassle continuing with your current session -- though access to any of the aforementioned services is still out of the question. Desperate to know exactly when the PSN will be back up and running? Keep it locked on the Playstation Twitter feed to find out.
PlayStation Network down for 13 hours of maintenance today, starts at 8AM Pacific
The PlayStation Network will undergo "routine scheduled maintenance" today from 8AM until 9PM Pacific (that's 11AM to Midnight for those on the Atlantic).
First major patch and maintenance delayed for Star Wars: The Old Republic
Cleared your schedule later today to try out the new content in Star Wars: The Old Republic's first major patch? Well, we hate to disappoint you, but it looks like your adventures against hordes of space zombies will be delayed a little longer. According to an official announcement this morning, the scheduled maintenance has been delayed and patch 1.1 along with it, with the most definitive new information simply being some time next week. While the announcement doesn't go into details about the rationale, it notes that there were late-surfacing issues uncovered by players on the test realm that required additional maintenance to correct, forcing the team to bring the patch back and polish it a few more times. A definite time will be posted to the community as soon as it's available. It's disappointing, certainly, but the idea of putting out the game's first major patch before the game had even been out of retail release for a month may have been overly ambitious.
Tuesday Morning Post: Raids with friends edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The big news of this week is probably patch 4.3.2, which is on the PTR. For the most part, it's bringing us minor balance changes and bug fixes, but there are a few big things in there, including a 64-bit client and the advent of raiding with your cross-realm friends. You still can't raid Dragon Soul with your friends from that PvP server you refuse to roll on, but you can at least do Raid Finder runs, as well as any classic raid your heart desires. Now you can sucker even more people into those legendary farming runs! With a new patch on test the servers and the last of the post-holiday doldrums more or less shaken off, you better believe there's plenty of good news and interesting stuff to read from the past week. Downtime this week is a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, which of course gives you time for a nice mid-morning or early afternoon break to catch up on the news. Read on for the usual run-down.
Tuesday Morning Post: Good night, sweet corgi edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. This week has had its share of silence, for sure. I'm not sure if the folks at Blizzard's just enjoying the last bit of the holidays or secretly playing that other game, but either way, they didn't have much to say this week. That's not say there wasn't activity and stuff to discuss, not at all. The Darkmoon Faire's back in town, for one, and we've all been looking back at some of the best and worst stuff to come out of 2011. This is also the week we had to say goodbye to that freaking sweet corgi in the picture above. We can only pray Blizzard gives him back to us a pet some time in the future. If they do not, it shall surely go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest MMO tragedies of all time. Downtime this morning is a series of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. PST, so you should have time to dig in to all the retrospectives and guides we have ready for you. Read on for the usual roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Vacation's over edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! Hopefully everyone has successfully roused themselves from their holiday food comas and dug themselves out of piles of wrapping paper. For most of us, today probably marks a return to the good old-fashioned work grind, but hey. We still have a few more days of Winter Veil, and think of it this way: Now that the holidays are over, we can go back to focusing on the important stuff, like figuring out when Mists of Pandaria's going into beta. Downtime this morning is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, but hey, you should still have time to get caught up on the news from the past few days. Don't let the holiday season fool you -- there was a lot of it. Read on to catch up.
Tuesday Morning Post: On the first day of Winter Veil edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everybody, and a very merry Winter Veil. Hopefully you've been celebrating, either by entering our 12 Days of Winter Veil contests or by going for in-game achievements. Then again, maybe you just don't care for that stuff and want to keep doing what you normally do -- and hey, that's cool too. No matter how you celebrate, you'll have to take a short break this morning as Blizzard applies rolling restarts to the servers starting at 10 a.m. PST. Don't worry though, we got lots of stuff for you to read while you wait. Read on after the break for our usual roundup of the last week's content, including some awesome Warcraft gift ideas for you last-minute shoppers.
BioWare announces SWTOR grace period, scheduled maintenance windows
Put down your torches and pitchforks, Star Wars: The Old Republic early access players. Greg Zeschuk stopped by the official SWTOR forums today in order to announce that the team has listened to the cries for a grace period from those who may not have access to their boxed copies of the game come launch day. In response, BioWare has granted players a two-day grace period from launch. What this means is that players have from the beginning of launch on December 20th until 12:01 a.m. EST on December 22nd to enter their game registration codes. It's also worth noting that the team has announced three scheduled maintenance windows spanning from tomorrow until December 22nd. The first maintenance period will take place on Friday, December 16th, beginning at 3:00 a.m. EST, and it is "expected to take no more than two hours." The second window will begin at 7:00 p.m. EST on December 19th and will mark the end of early access. The final scheduled maintenance window will take place on December 22nd at 3:00 a.m. EST. So keep that in mind, TOR players, as you plan your play times. For the full details, head on over to the SWTOR official site.
PSN maintenance today from 8AM to 12PM Pacific
The PlayStation Network will undergo maintenance today from 8AM to 12PM Pacific (that's 11AM to 3PM for those on the Atlantic).
Battle.net undergoing emergency maintenance
Moments ago, Daxxari announced that Battle.net is coming down for immediate urgent maintenance. Players logged in to Battle.net should be able to play as normal, but the system may prevent people from logging on. Maintenance is expected to last from 2:30 p.m. PST to 4:30 p.m. PST. Daxxari announces urgent Battle.net maintenance We will be performing an urgent maintenance on Battle.net which may prevent players from logging into the system. Players who are currently logged in should be able to continue to play normally. We expect this downtime to begin at 2:30 p.m. PST and end at approximately 4:30 p.m. PST. Thank you for your patience while we improve the Battle.net system. source Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Tuesday Morning Post: Kiss From a Rose edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. I would just like to make it known that I agree with Sacco. In fact, just to show solidarity, above please find the most awesome karaoke rendition of the song yet distributed via mass media. As far as WoW news goes, the post-patch 4.3 world has been, as expected, a bit tumultuous. Paragon was sorry they cheated by exploiting the Raid Finder, but Blizzard handed down some hefty bans anyway. Still, don't let all that drama that dampen your spirits. Patch 4.3 is pretty awesome, and Blizzard's even offering some sweet deals if you want to buy it for a friend or get yourself a second (or even first) account. It's a great Christmas gift idea, right? Maintenance this morning is short, from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. PST, but there's plenty of stuff to catch up on, from hotfixes to raid boss guides. Read on after the break for a full roundup.
PSA: PSN undergoing maintenance in Europe this Thursday
SCEE sent out some advance notice of a PSN outage in Europe via the PlayStation forum. Maintenance is scheduled on the network Thursday, December 15 from 4pm GMT (11am EST) to 2am GMT (9pm EST). No such announcement has been made for North America, but we can safely assume that the EU outage will coincide with network interruption here. Besides, the only "preparation" you have to do for such an event is not make ironclad plans to play online games or buy things from the PlayStation Store right then. If it turns out that the network doesn't go offline, just sign in and play extemporaneously. It's not going to adversely affect your life too much if this outage turns out to be EU-only, is what we're saying.
Maintenance extended until 2:00 p.m. PST
Realm maintenance has been extended until 2:00 p.m. PST 1:00 p.m. PST today (4 p.m. EST, 3 p.m. CST). It's the week after a major content patch, so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone. We recommend catching an episode of Community on Hulu while waiting for the realms to come back up. Actually, we don't -- I do. Hopefully, this makes up for the terrible faux pas I made in The Queue today. We'll update this post with any additional information we come across. Otherwise, just hang tight! Update: 1:00 p.m. PST -- Maintenance extended until 2 p.m. PST. Extended Regularly Scheduled Maintenance 10:10 a.m. PST - We will be extending the regularly scheduled maintenance time in order to perform additional database checks. We anticipate all realms will be available at approximately 1:00 p.m. PST. source
Tuesday Morning Post: Darkmoon's back edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's Darkmoon Faire week this week, and since this is also the first week of patch 4.3, that means it's a brand new faire. There are new games, new quests, and new mount and pet rewards to get excited over. If you haven't visited yet, I strongly suggest you do. I don't think you'll regret it, unless you hate fun or something. If you're still trying to get a grip on the wide, wide world of patch 4.3, be sure to check out our patch 4.3 guide. I've also put a pretty awesome fan-modified version of the patch 4.3 trailer above for your amusement. If you're in the midst of pugging those new dungeons, you'll also definitely want to check out our 5-second guides to each of the new bosses. They're perfect for pasting into chat just to make sure the other newbs in your group know what's up. We also have a 5-second guide for the bosses of Dragon Soul's Raid Finder version. Scheduled maintenance today is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you should have time to read up. Check out our usual roundup after the break.
Tuesday Morning Post: On the edge of patch 4.3 edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. CM Bashiok has already confirmed that patch 4.3 will going live today, after the traditional 3 a.m.-to-11 a.m. Pacific downtime. The patch may even be downloadable by the time you read this. With that in mind, it may be a good idea to spend this downtime getting ready and reading up on some of the week's news. To start, I'd strongly suggest you check our guides to the three new 5-man dungeons: End Time Well of Eternity Hour of Twilight You'll probably be queuing up soon to get your first valor points, so make sure you're in the know. Beyond that, we'll have more patch 4.3 FAQs and guides for you as the day goes on, and you'll want to check our guide to patch 4.3 as well. Our usual roundup of the past week's news awaits you after the break.
Tuesday Morning Post: News delivery smorgasbord edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The biggest news we're likely to see in a while, is, of course, not coming this week. Patch 4.3 will remain on the test servers for at least one more week, as Nov. 29 marks the projected end of the latest PvP season. That said, there's plenty of new to be had this week, from Black Friday sales to more ways to earn conquest points. We have the usual roundup after the break -- but hey, if reading bulleted lists isn't your thing (or even if it is), why not try it in video form? Right up there, our own Mat McCurley delivers the big headlines of the past week, and he looks and sounds prettier than I do while doing it. You can catch him every Friday right here on the site. With that, we pretty much have a way to deliver the news to whichever sense you like. Want to watch it? We have video. Want to hear it? We have a podcast. Want to read it? That goes without saying. We're still working on tasting it, but give us a few years. Whatever way you take your news, downtime today is a quick set of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. Pacific, so you'll have at least a little time to get caught up.
Tuesday Morning Post: Guy On A Buffalo edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. While we received notice this past week that PvP season 10 could end as early as today, a later tweet from Bashiok confirmed the actual end date will be Nov. 29. Alas, this means we can't expect patch 4.3 until at least that date, meaning this will end up being the longest half a month ever, and I won't be able to spend my Thanksgiving vacation running End Time until my eyes bleed. In an effort to keep myself entertained in the meantime, I've turned to one man: the Guy on a Buffalo. This man is the paragon, nay, the pinnacle of what humanity can be. Let his power and majesty inspire you, with dreams of his ruggedness filling the nights and days until patch 4.3 drops. ... Also, the song is pretty catchy. Buffalo riding aside, there is a lot of cool stuff going on in WoW news, right from the class balance Q&A to WoW Insider's first children's book and first weekly WoW news vidcast. Downtime today is a quick series of rolling restarts starting at 5 a.m. Pacific, so why not take some time and get caught up? Our usual roundup awaits after the break.
