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The extended maintenance cycle begins! [Updated]
Tseric greets us on this pleasant Tuesday afternoon with the news that today's maintenance cycle has been extended until 1PM PDT for select realms. There is, however, no news as to why the maintenance has been extended -- patch problems, perhaps? Though as far as "select realms" are concerned, I suspect the list of "non-select realms" would be shorter. So if you play on any of the following realms, the wait for uptime just got a little longer: Agamaggan, Aggramar, Alexstrasza, Alleria, Arathor, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor, Azjol-Nerub, Azshara, Baelgun, Balnazzar, Blackhand, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Bloodscalp, Bonechewer, Boulderfist, Bronzebeard, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Cho'gall, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Dark Iron, Darkspear, Destromath, Dethecus, Detheroc, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dragonmaw, Dunemaul, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Eldre'Thalas, Elune, Emerald Dream, Eonar, Eredar, Feathermoon, Firetree, Frostmane, Garona, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Gorgonnash, Greymane, Gul'dan, Gurubashi, Hellscream, Illidan, Kalecgos, Kael'Thas, Kargath, Kirin Tor, Laughing Skull, Lightninghoof, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Lothar, Madoran, Maelstrom, Magtheridon, Malfurion, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Moonrunner, Nathrezim, Nazjatar, Perenolde, Ravencrest, Sargeras, Scarlet Crusade, Shadow Council, Shadow Moon, Shadowsong, Shattered Hand, Silvermoon, Skullcrusher, Skywall, Smolderthorn, Spinebreaker, Spirestone, Staghelm, Stonemaul, Stormrage, Stormreaver, Stormscale, Suramar, Terenas, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Trollbane, Twisting Nether, Uldum, Ursin, Warsong, Whisperwind, Wildhammer, Windrunner, and Zul'jin. (Wow, that was a mouthful.)Update: Tseric informs us that all realms should be back online in a matter of moments. Huzzah!
Multiple US realms offline
Early Sunday morning (at least in my time-zone!) Blizzard is reporting thirteen realms offline, including the following: Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Exodar, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh. However, Blizzard's network engineers are awake and working on the problem. While they don't know the exact cause of the outage, they're currently expecting to have the realms back online by 2:25 AM PST. For the most updated news on the situation, keep checking this thread by Drysc.
PackRat 0.94 introduces Backpack reminder editing
Rod Schmidt has released an update to PackRat, quite possibly the only offline Backpack client, that brings a major new and much-requested feature: the ability to add, edit and delete reminders. Now I've mentioned PackRat once or twice before here at TUAW, and this rockin' new feature almost completely rounds out what I think is the killer offline and syncing app for working with Backpack. About the only thing missing now is calendar editing, and in a blog post announcing this latest version (0.94 to be exact), Rod and gang offer a glimpse of PackRat's future, with a promise to take your Backpack data into a realm of Mac OS X integration that 37Signals could never accomplish (due to their service being 100% web-based). Coming down the pipeline are features like Spotlight and AppleScript support, Address Book and iCal integration, iPod syncing, and "whatever else makes sense." Sounds like this handy little app is in for quite a ride.PackRat has a fully-functioning, non-expiring demo that allows you to edit up 4 pages of your Backpack info (the free default Backpack account offers 5 pages), while a license costs a mere $24.95 which unlocks full editing of all pages in any of the paid accounts that offer more pages.
Breakfast Topic: Dealing with downtime
We've all had to do it time and time again -- the servers are down for regular or emergency or just plain unscheduled maintenance, and your evening plans are suddenly ruined. So what do you do about it? Spend the evening trying repeatedly to log on to your realm? Troll the forums? Switch to a different realm? Roll a new alt? Fire up a different game? Go out for dinner? Go outside and try to remember what the sun looks like? Or something else entirely?
Downtime for select US realms today
Sixteen US realms are being taken offline for urgent maintenance early this morning -- that is to say, Thursday, November 30th at 5:00AM PST. The maintenance period is expected to last approximately one hour and, no -- there is not the faintest clue as to the reason for the maintenance, other than the indication that it is "urgent." So if 5:00 AM PST falls into your usual playtime, and you play on any of the following realms, you're going to be forced to take a nice breakfast break: Azjol-Nerub, Bloodscalp, Boulderfist, Bronzebeard, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Darkspear, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dunemaul, Feathermoon, Perenolde, Stonemaul, Stormscale, Suramar, and Uldum.
Holy 36-hour downtime, Batman! [Updated]
Yes, I admit, when I ran across the thread titled "Extended Maintenance 11/7/06," my eyes sort of glazed over and I moved on to the next topic. (Hopefully one of some interest...) Another Tuesday, another maintenance cycle. Ho-hum. However, this particular maintenance extention not only effects my own realm -- which I had thought was safe, having come up on the supposed new hardware platform not all that long ago -- but is also planned to last a full 24 36 hours. Oddly enough, Blizzard is also performing this maintenance on the most recently opened realms -- Echo Isles, Blackwater Raiders, Vashj, and Darrowmere, brought online on October 5th. Why? Hardware upgrades! Blizzard will be transfering data onto a new storage solution in preperation for the coming expansion. Hardware upgrades are all well and good, but the necessity of them on such newly opened realms puzzles me a bit. The process is expected to start on November 7th at 12:00 AM PST and end on November 8th at 12:00 AM PM PST -- and if you're on any of the following realms, it's time to make alternate Tuesday plans. Andorhal, Anetheron, Anub'arak, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Blackwater Raiders, Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Dalaran, Dalvengyr, Darrowmere, Dentarg, Duskwood, Echo Isles, Executus, Haomarush, Hyjal, Khadgar, Lightbringer, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamwheedle Cartel, The Forgotten Coast, Thrall, Turalyon, Uther, Vashj, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.Update: Maintenance times revised from 12AM through 12AM to 12AM through 12PM the next day -- that adds up to a full 36 hour maintenance window. I swear the first time I looked at Tseric's post it said 12AM to 12AM, but it's possible I was mistaken, too.
A bit of Saturday downtime...
Well, at least everyone hopes it's only a bit. Saturday morning at 4:00 AM PDT, 18 US realms are going offline for database maintenance. I always wonder what exactly they mean when they say things like "database maintenance" without further specifics, but Tseric never acquiesces to my requests for additional info, so it looks like we'll have to get by with the limited news we're given. Maintenance should only last an hour, meaning these realms should be back up by 5:00 AM PDT... so if we have any early birds in the audience who were planning to play at that hour, perhaps you should take the time to get that extra cup of coffee. Realms affected include the following: Aerie Peak, Altar of Storms, Anvilmar, Blackwing Lair, Deathwing, Demon Soul, Doomhammer, Gnomeregan, Icecrown, Jaedenar, Kel'Thuzad, Lethon, Onyxia, Sentinels, Tanaris, The Venture Co., Uldaman, and Undermine.
Greatly extended weekly maintenance for some realms
Do you play on one of the following realms? Azjol-Nerub, Bloodscalp, Bonechewer, Boulderfist, Bronzebeard, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Darkspear, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dragonmaw, Dunemaul, Eldre'Thalas, Feathermoon, Firetree, Frostmane, Gurubashi, Nathrezim, Perenolde, Scarlet Crusade, Shadow Council, Shadowsong, Silvermoon, Skywall, Smolderthorn, Spirestone, Stonemaul, Stormscale, Suramar, Terenas, Uldum, or Windrunner. Well, if so, I feel sorry for you, because your so-called Tuesday maintenance will be stretched out until 12:01 AM PDT Wednesday morning. They're down for hardware upgrades to -- hopefully -- improve server stability, but such extended downtime isn't exactly fun for those looking forward to logging on and playing Tuesday afternoon. As an additional downer, friend and ignore lists will be lost for those on effected realms, and paid character transfers will be offline for the duration of the maintenance period.
Blizzard Will Compensate Bored Players from Offline Realms
Just like you probably are, I'm currently sitting around not playing the game. My realm (T-horn represent!) is in the list of servers Blizzard pulled offline last night and won't put back up until late tonight.And the complaints on this, as you can imagine, are many and varied. My guild was especially distraught, as we were all excited to run AQ20 this evening. Nimrodel of Earthen Ring isn't really happy that the advance notice Blizz gave was easy to miss. A few of the servers, including Laughing Skull, already had an upgrade-- why are they going through this again? And I can't think of another "upgrade" that caused all of us to lose our friends list. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it is a little inconvenient at least. And we don't even have the new hunter talents to console us-- although Neth seems very happy to sell books to bored players. Maybe this is all a grand scheme...There is a silver lining to all this. Drysc has acknowledged that Blizzard will be "providing compensation" for those realms currently undergoing the 36 hour upgrades, although he won't say how much until the maintenance is over (presumably because it may go on even longer than planned). That's nice, but I won't lie-- I'd rather be in AQ. Meanwhile, feel free to come join me in a few spirited rounds of iSketch! Look, I drew a Tauren!
Wednesday Maintenance on US Realms
Numerous US realms were pulled down starting this morning because of unspecified problems which may be related to the cross-realms battleground system. Tseric only provided us with the information that the realms were remaining offline because they were undergoing battlegrounds testing, but this may have something to do with the problem of missing characters as well (as the final realms offline for maintenance seem to match the realms with missing characters). However, all realms should be back online and running as of 3:10 PM PDT. If you're still having problems, however, you may wish to page a GM or post about it in the customer service forums.
EU Maintenance Extended
Proving that the US isn't the only one with extended weekly maintenance periods, CM Thundgot tells us that EU realms will be down until 16:00 CEST today. Here's to hoping Blizzard figured out something from the many problems with the US patch roll-out and the deployment over the European realms will go more smoothly.
Downtime Compensation for Select US Realms
Blizzard will be providing a 24-hour credit to the realms that were having so much difficulty over this past weekend, which I suppose is better than nothing. However, I must say that their list of affected realms doesn't match mine, or include mine, which was offline or unplayable for a good portion of the weekend. In fact, the list includes the realm Tanaris, which is the realm I rolled a new alt to play on while my usual realm was offline.The realms 24-hour credits are being applied to include the following 31 realms: Aerie Peak, Altar of Storms, Andorhal, Anetheron, Anvilmar, Black Dragonflight, Blackwing Lair, Dalaran, Dalvengyr, Deathwing, Demon Soul, Dentarg, Doomhammer, Executus, Gnomeregan, Haomarush, Icecrown, Jaedenar, Kel'Thuzad, Khadgar, Lethon, Onyxia, Scilla, Sentinels, Tanaris, The Venture Co, Thrall, Turalyon, Uldaman, Ysera, and Ysondre.However, the 20 realms that were experiencing downtime throughout the weekend were these: Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Dalaran, Daivengyr, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamweedle Cartel, Thrall, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed. It looks like they've missed 6 of the original problem realms and added numerous realms that weren't listed as having problems over the weekend. Is anyone else confused?Update: The list of realms has been modified to one that appears to be accurate. The official post on the subject can be found here.
Extra Extended Maintenance for US Realms
It looks like today's maintenance is being drawn out because of "concerns that have arisen with Cross-Realm Battlegrounds" (at least according to the current login message). So instead of coming back up at 11:00 AM PDT, we're looking at a 1:00 PM PDT uptime for all US realms. However, as of the time of this writing, several US realms have already come back online, so if you're wanting to play, it doesn't hurt to check. Online by the usual 11:00 AM are: The Forgotten Coast, Anub'arak, Cenarius, Lightbringer, Uther, Cenarion Circle, and Hyjal. The rest of us are just going to have to wait!Update: While numerous realms have come back online, officially, maintenance has been extended until 4:00 PM PDT.
Extended US Maintenance
After much waiting, the time has finally arrived. Patch 1.12 will be deployed on US realms during Tuesday's maintenance (and presumably on EU realms during Wednesday's maintenance). The maintenance has been extended by two hours to give time to apply the patch, so it should start at 3:00 AM PDT and end at the usual 11:00 AM PDT. However, in addition to the extended maintenance required for patch 1.12, a number of realms will be coming down tonight at 11:00 PM PDT for hardware upgrades - to come back online with the rest of the servers when maintenance ends on Tuesday. Servers coming down early for upgrades include the following: Aggramar, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Elune, Eonar, Eredar, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Lothar, Magtheridon, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Shadow Moon, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Stormrage, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Warsong, and Zul'jin.Update: Further proof that this is, in fact, a roll out of patch 1.12 is the fact that the public test realms have been closed.
Additional Downtime for Select US Realms
For some players, this weekend's adventures has had a distinctive theme - downtime. The same twenty realms that have been having problems since Friday are offline again tonight. Some maintenance was done on Saturday morning and afternoon to fix errors with the in-game mail system - but as to what's caused this most recent maintenance, there's no word. On the player side, symptoms were similar to Friday night's trouble, with an inability to rez, zone in, or use skills, peppered with occasional instances of falling through the world. While there's no official announcement, affected realms seem to include the original twenty problematic realms: Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Dalaran, Daivengyr, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamweedle Cartel, Thrall, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.Update: While the servers seem to be online Sunday morning, players are plagued by difficulty/inability to log on, as well as severe in-game lag (several minutes at times), inability to zone in/out of instances, empty mailboxes, random disconnects, etc. (Did I miss anything?) There are no updates on the fourms, and the message on the login screen is still from yesterday afternoon.Update 2: Blizzard informs us that these are latancy issues that they are working to resolve.
Up Again, Down Again
The same 20 realms that were pulled offline last night for maintenance have gone offline again this afternoon (at 1:20 PM PDT to be precise) due to issues with the in-game mail system. Blizzard's technicians are currently working to correct the problem, but there's no ETA on restored service at this point. So If you usually play on the following realms, well, now's just not a good time: Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Dalaran, Daivengyr, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamweedle Cartel, Thrall, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.
20 US Realms Down Friday Night
Just after 9:00 PM PDT, twenty different US realms received a 5-minute reboot warning. It was for the best, really, as everyone in my guild seemed to be able to chat, but very little else. Even the "quit" option didn't seem to do anything - the realm was an unplayable mess. However, after going down, neither my realm nor any of the realms that went offline with it, have come back. A message on the login screen vaguely states that Blizzard's technicians are working with a vendor in order to resolve the matter, but there is currently no ETA on the realms coming back online. So if you play on any of the following realms, my apologies - but playtime tonight has been interrupted: Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Dalaran, Daivengyr, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamweedle Cartel, Thrall, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.
Extended Maintenance for Many US Realms
Well, the maintenance window for numerous realms has been pushed back to 1:00 PM PDT. Some of the realms on this list were the ones undergoing hardware maintenance today, but not all of those are of those are still offline. Further, some realms that weren't having any sort of special maintenance today have extended downtime - so it's difficult to say what's causing the delay. Affected realms include Argent Dawn, Aggramar, Arthas, Azgalor, Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Elune, Eonar, Eredar, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Lothar, Magtheridon, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh, Muradin, Shadow Moon, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Stormrage, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Warsong, and Zul'jin.
Emergency Database Maintenance Tonight
Seventeen US realms were taken offline tonight for urgent database maintenance - including the brand-new realm Tanaris. No real news as to what the root of the problem, but the realms appear to be back online for the time being. The service interruption seems to have been brief, but I can't find a specific time when these realms went down. Affected realms included: Aerie Peak, Altar of Storms, Anvilmar, Blackwing Lair, Deathwing, Demon Soul, Doomhammer, Gnomeregan, Icecrown, Jaedenar, Kel'Thuzad, Lethon, Onyxia, Sentinels, Tanaris, The Venture Co, and Uldaman.
Update on Offline Realms
Apparently the realms currently offline - Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Hyjal, Lightbringer, and Uther - are suffering from hardware problems and will require replacement parts. They're expecting the parts to arrive at 5:00 PM PDT, but are working on a temporary fix to bring these realms back up by 3:00 PM PDT (though this time-frame is just an estimate, and sometimes Blizzard is good about meeting these estimates and sometimes not). However, a temporary fix just suggests that there will need to be additional downtime later...Update: Blizzard is giving a free day to the afflicted servers.
