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Shadowburn BG down for emergency maintenance
We've received a lot of tips in the past few minutes, and now it's official: the Shadowburn battlegroup is down for emergency maintenance. The realms are estimated to return in two hours, around 3:30 EST, but we'll keep you posted if we hear anything new. The affected realms are Agamaggan, Azshara, Baelgun, Dark Iron, Detheroc, Emerald Dream, Greymane, Kalecgos, Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, Malfurion, Moonrunner, Nazjatar, Sargeras, Staghelm, Twisting Nether, Ursin, and Wildhammer. What are you guys going to do in the mean time? I hear there's a good WoW blog around here somewhere that you might enjoy browsing through. Update: The realms are back up.
Free US character transfers
In honor of patch day, Blizzard have opened up some free character transfers on many US realms. These are open now and scheduled to run until Tuesday, April 21 at noon PDT. PvP: From: Blackrock, Tichondrius, Emerald Dream, Lethon, Warsong To: Ursin, Ysondre, Nazjatar, Gul'dan PvE: From: Aggramar, Borean Tundra, Aerie Peak, Azuremyst, Proudmoore, Bronzebeard, Anvilmar, Alexstrasza, Blade's Edge, Silvermoon, Dragonblight, Bladefist, Antonidas, Arygos, Cairne To: Nesingwary, Garrosh, Winterhoof RP: From: Feathermoon, Cenarion Circle, Earthen Ring, Argent Dawn, Moon Guard To: Wyrmrest Accord I worry about their servers slightly, between patch traffic and these character moves, but we'll see if they can take it. This is more server transfers than we usually see at one time. I'm intrigued to see Arygos on there, since it really doesn't feel like a high-population realm to me, at least not on the Horde side. So who's moving?
Maintenance continues to be extended, no time frame given
Today's epic maintenance to apply patch 3.1, which has stretched from 1 AM for some realms and 3 AM for others, has been additionally extended. Originally, the realms were supposed to go live at 11 AM PDT; that time has come and gone, and been pushed back a few times. The latest update, posted to the Breaking News box a few minutes ago, is that they do not currently have an ETA on when the realms will be up, and they'll give us some more information at about 2 PM PDT, which is in 45 minutes or so. Update 5:15 p.m. EDT: The realms continue to be down, with the in-game message now telling us that there will be an announcement at 6:00 p.m. EDT letting us all know more information. Update 6:15 p.m. EDT: Maintenance is continuing on all realms. There is no time frame given as to when the realms will be back up, however there will be an additional announcement at 7:00 p.m. EDT. Stay tuned to WoW Insider for more information. Additionally, the official forums and account management appear to be intermittently down now as well. Patch 3.1 is live and it takes us into Ulduar, delivers us dual specs, and brings significant changes to all the classes! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1 and the official patch notes!
Servers are up
With the exception of a few servers that will require additional maintenance until 4:00 p.m. EDT / 1:00 p.m. PDT, all of the servers are up and ready for action.Last night Sacco talked about how he saw a gigantic dragon skeleton on his screen. I heard from him briefly this morning and he was rather incoherent, mumbling something about "trolls" and "lawlwut." So I have to believe the skeleton actually got him and is slowly devouring his brain.In other news, the realms are up! ...in case you missed that part. Go forth and enjoy Azeroth
The WoW Headhunter helps with guild recruiting
Last week we were kindly invited on the PixelatedGeek podcast (thanks, Erin and Nelson, for having me!) and while there, we heard from Darren of WoW Headhunter, a brand new site that wants to get you or your guild hooked up with some new guildies. The site is pretty barebones: you can look through available guilds or enter your own. But they do add a little something new: whenever you enter a guild into the site, you can create application questions and even run through a survey that charts your guild along four lines: between Reckless and Deliberate, Social and Competitive, Fun and Serious, and Learner and Veteran. So you can choose between the Reckless Competitive Veterans and the Deliberate Social Learners.Kind of a fun idea. Unfortunately, the site isn't too populated yet (I couldn't find recruiting guilds on either of the servers I frequent), but it did just go live today, so it may take some time for recruiting guilds to find their way over there. And unfortunately, while there is an option to put an Armory link in your profile, the site itself doesn't tie in to the Armory directly, so you still have to go searching for metrics when players apply (would be nice to see a list of what achievements have been done by the player, as well as some common stats to compare).But it will be nice to have a list of guilds to browse, along with a little more info about them, all in one place. If you've been looking for a guild for a while with no luck, there's one more option.
Sleeper Cartel hosts Spring Break 2009 in Sholazar Basin on Saturday
Our good friends in Sleeper Cartel over on Perenolde are having yet another server party -- Spring Break 2009 is taking place not in Cabo, but Sholazar Basin! As with all of these player-run events, it certainly sounds like fun: they're planning to have free food and drinks, tournaments, and games and contests of all kinds (last time around, they had trivia contests and scavenger hunts). They're even setting up a "Gnomes Gone Wild" event -- level 1 gnomes are going to be trying to sneak into the party, and it'll be partygoers' responsibility to keep them out.The party starts this Saturday, March 21st, at 7pm server at the River's Heart in Sholazar Basin (you could probably make it there with a DK, or they'll have people summoning as necessary, as long as you send them an ingame mail first). As they say, Kel'Thuzad and Malygos will be there next week -- this Saturday, head over to Perenolde and celebrate Spring Break with the Sleepers.
Realm maintenance for Tuesday February 24th
"I'm not looking forward to this," Fargor grumbles as he rests his heavy two-handed Paladin mace on the side of his legs. "I know that when I awake tomorrow things will not have improved." He shuffles his chest plate around, getting more comfortable for the forced sleep ahead of him."And damned if I do even wake up!"Fargor slams his hairy Dwarven fist down on the wooden table, angry at the ruling Wizards of Dalaran for their impositions on him and everyone else.All Osull and Marcella can do is look back and nod in acknowledgement, as they too feel more and more angst at the Wizards for their mysterious ways. "At least it will only be part of a day," Osull offers up in comfort of the Dwarf. Marcella lays a supportive hand on the Osull's shoulder and nods her head in agreement, "Indeed kind Dwarf, it's only for eight hours."The platitudes seem to do nothing for Fargor, as he shakes his head and says "Eight hours or eight years, it doesn't matter lass. No one should have a right to tell a Dwarf what to do!"And as he says that the Wizards can suddenly be heard throughout the city, "The realms will be down from three to eleven in the morning, as the mighty pacific clock tells time. Sleep well now citizens of Azeroth, for when tomorrow you awake things will be fresh and new..."The voice trails off into nothingness and across the realms everyone stops what they're doing and falls asleep as they are.The Wizard's maintenance has begun.One week ago...
YouPlayorWePay goes free with a new plan
As promised, YouPlayorWePay has returned, and they've got a whole new plan in place. Originally, as we reported earlier, they wanted to create a site where players would pay a fee for the opportunity to get reimbursed for lost playtime in World of Warcraft, but after outcries from the community, they have outlined a whole slew of changes on the site.And the biggest of these is that the service is now free. Instead of charging users, they plan to support a limited number of registrants (for March, when they begin, they're opening up 150 spots), and when downtime or queues occur for those registrants, they'll be given "YPOWP credits," which apparently will be used either towards compensation or towards "contest prizes," which will update every month. They've got some new stats on the front page, too, including the realms with the most calculated downtime, and how many compensation and contest prizes they've given out every month.Very interesting. From the beginning, the founders have made it clear that they didn't want to scam anyone (they told us as much in our interview), and they now say that not one person has been charged a cent for compensation. This new model, however, seems much more fair -- there's no cost up front for people who register, even if the "compensation" might not be worth as much as the cash they originally promised. What do you think of the new plan?
Rolling restarts on all realms
Bornakk broke the news earlier today that all realms will be going down, saying that Blizzard needs to perform urgent rolling restarts today, Thursday. He notes that all realms will be down for approximately 15 minutes and that the procedure, slated to start at 10:30am PST, will last approximately one hour.However, reports indicate that restarts have taken on a different form than expected, as many realms went down several times for a short period several hours earlier. These rolling restarts, lasting no more than a few minutes per realm, occurred much earlier than Bornakk's announcement. Blizzard did not indicate what problems they will be fixing with these emergency restarts. We'll keep you posted as we learn more.
Guildwatch: "A premier raiding guild"
Edhristwo just got /gkicked in the shot above -- he and a friend got caught playing around in the Arena on a raiding night, and the guild's GM didn't take kindly to it. Which is fine -- if you join a guild, they can ask you to be around for raids, and /gkick you when you do something else. But the "premier raiding guild" is the funny part -- they're up to one drake Sartharion, and they've appeared in our drama section before. Hey, if Ed wants to do Arena, we'd say take the Tier 7 and run.That drama and more (including downed and recruiting notices from around the realms) in this week's GW, which starts right after the break.
WAR's new Zone Domination system in development
Without a doubt one of the liveliest people we know of in the MMO industry, Paul Barnett, put out a YouTube video this week in celebration of his birthday, and brought Warhammer Online devs Jeff Hickman and Colin Shannon in for some updates on the game. Perhaps the most interesting thing revealed is WAR's new Zone Domination system which is currently in the works. It's intended to supplement Warhammer Online's realm-vs.-realm system by providing more compelling ways to capture zones. Hickman says, "If you can capture everything in a zone and hold it, claiming the Keeps and dominate that zone, then you have a very good chance of capturing the zone." Or, as Barnett summarizes, Zone Domination will give players more reasons for defending and holding objectives.Colin Shannon also provides an update on the reduction of crashes in WAR, and there's (perhaps) a ray of hope mentioned at the end for having multiple items in the mail system. Check out the video embed below the cut for more on the state of the game, and what new features WAR players should be getting in a forthcoming patch.
US PvP free character transfers
North American and Oceanic players, don't feel left out just because the last round of transfers were European-only. Here's some for us, and even with a little bit of that faction-specific flavor. Source A: Arthas, Bleeding Hollow, Bonechewer, Boulderfist, Burning Blade, Dragonmaw, Frostmane, Illidan, Kel'Thuzad, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Magtheridon, Mal'Ganis (Horde Only), Mannoroth, Sargeras, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Tichondrius, Warsong Destination A: Drak'Thul, Hakkar Source B: Barthilas, Frostmourne, Thaurissan (Horde Only), Jubei'Thos Destination B: Gundrak (Oceanic) There's also a note at the end of the post to the effect that although these are all for PvP realms, PvE transfers will be announced shortly, so stay tuned, carebears (don't get me wrong, I'm one of you). Players on these realms, will you be transfering? Remember that if you want to, you should do it as soon as possible. These transfers are scheduled to stay open until Wednesday, January 21, at 6 PM PST, but they do close early if the transfer goals are met.
Free character moves for Europe
A new round of free character migrations just opened up for some European realms. Unlike most, these migrations include some faction-specific ones to try and correct faction imbalance. Horde-only: Source: Magtheridon Destination: Haomarush, Trollbane, Zenedar Alliance-only: Source: Aszune, Emerald Dream, Runetotem, Shadowsong, Silvermoon Destination: Magtheridon So, I guess Magtheridon has too much Horde. WarcraftRealms is showing a shocking 1:67 Alliance:Horde ratio. Yikes! There are also several non-faction-specific moves available:
Breakfast Topic: Would you join an "Anything Goes" realm?
Some of the commenters in yesterday's Breakfast Topic talked about how we were all adults and shouldn't be bothered by adult content. But we aren't all adults. Kids play this game -- and often it's teenagers who are the ones with the adult oriented chatter.We've discussed the concept of age restricted servers before and many have expressed that they would join them in an effort to escape what is perceived as underage offensive behavior. But what I'm proposing here is not an adult only realm to avoid adult content, but one that is age restricted because of the adult content.
YouPlayorWePay claims to offer downtime insurance
I think this is a wild idea (even if it is something I wouldn't actually put my money in). We got tipped about a new site called "You Play or We Pay" and from the looks of it, these guys are offering none other than downtime insurance. That is: you pay a fee to them regularly, and then they "compensate" you for any downtime that your server has. They call it "third-party compensation," but that sounds like insurance to me.At any rate, we wouldn't quite recommend jumping in headfirst yet -- they haven't, as far as we can see, revealed any prices, and while you can register your characters, you can't actually get any sort of payout quite yet, as they say they're still working on the system. For all we know the site could be an elaborate scam at this point. But it is an intriguing idea, and if they're really ready to put their money where their FAQ is, these guys may have an actual business plan that depends on Blizzard keeping the servers up. Just like all insurance companies, they must have figured out that the servers stay up more often than not, and that there was money to be made there.It's quite an interesting plan, and we'll keep an eye on it to see if they ever announce a fee or explain themselves better. The math doesn't quite seem right here, but if somehow their fees are low enough and the payouts are high enough, it's possible that you really could be compensated for downtime by a completely separate company other than Blizzard. Very interesting.Update: The company has contacted WoW Insider, and we've requested an interview. Stay tuned.
Email realm status alerts
This morning, when we started receiving tips that the realms were coming back up early, I eagerly checked to see if my own realm was among those that had been brought up. I have some serious DK leveling to do (75 and my De-raged Waraxe has made the class even more fun). Of course, poor little Shadow Council was not up yet. I didn't want to keep reloading the realm status page, but I did want to know as soon as the server was up. What's a person to do? Enter wowrealmstatus.net. It's a simple service: it sends you one email when your realm is brought up. (It can also be set to send you an email when your realm is brought down, or when its load is low, medium, or high, but I have yet to find a use for this functionality.) Enter your email, pick your realm from the menu, click the "Alert Me" button, and you're done. It only ever sends the one email; if you want another alert in the future, just set it up again then. Simple, effective, not annoying: a great web tool. And if you didn't know already, your mobile phone almost certainly has an email address which translates to text messages (AT&T phones, for instance, are [phone number]@mobile.att.net, like 123456789@mobile.att.net), so you can get alerts that way too, though your carrier will bill you for it if you don't have a text plan.
Guildwatch: Now recruiting... everyone
Now's a great time to join a guild -- everyone and their cousin Roman is recruiting. Usually, our recruiting section is tiny, but this week, it almost outweighs the Downed section -- there's not a lot of endgame, and a whole lot of people who want some extra help in conquering it. If you've never joined a guild before, and you're nearing level 80, you're in luck. But don't worry, there's still downed (Naxx is getting beat up), and drama news to read through, too. Click the link below to see it, and if you've got tips about drama, downed, or recruiting news in your guild or realm, let us know at wowguildwatch@gmail.com, anonymity assured.
Realms up after extended maintenance
Realms are back up after a bit of extended maintenance this afternoon. There has been no communication from the blues or other Blizzard sources as to why the downtime was extended.But with that said, all the realms are working and things appear to be going smoothly. And by smooth I mean I still have the mail in my in-box from when the servers went down this morning.So that's a good thing, right?
Downtime extended to 1 O'Clock PST
Bornakk just posted that the downtime has been extended until 1:00 p.m. PST / 4:00 p.m. EST. This is never a good thing when maintenance gets extended, but at least Blizzard is hard at work on the servers.We haven't received any information that there are any new hotfixes being applied. So we'll probably have to wait to log in to see if any of the bugged quests are fixed or not.WoW Insider will update you when the realms are up... a few hours from now.
Guildwatch: The calm before the Storm Peaks
We've come upon the time we most dreaded here at GW: when guilds are done with the old endgame, and not quite yet into the new endgame. The drought will be over in a week or two (and actually, we've still got lots of news after the break anyway), but in the meantime, if you're one of the few guilds breaking into the new endgame (or especially know about some good post-BC drama), please do drop us an email at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. We have a feeling that thanks to the expansion and the holidays, it's going to get slow, so the more news you've got for us, the better.Meanwhile, find this week's downed, drama, and recruiting (lots of recruiting news this week) news from around the realms all over the break. And have a great Turkey day from all of us at GW!
