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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.
Tuesday Morning Post: Flip a Coin for 3.0.8
So last week at this time, a bunch of us were pretty sure we'd see 3.0.8 this week, but then we got a new build on the PTR with a whole bunch of changes that will probably need at least another week or two to simmer and gain feedback, which has pretty much caused us to throw our hands up. At this point, you might as well flip a coin every Monday evening. You'll get about as accurate a forecast to whether or not 3.0.8's finally going live as anything we can tell you.Okay, to be fair, there is extended downtime this morning, from 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific, but as of this writing, there's no other indication we're getting the patch, and a general feeling that the PTR was patched too recently for this to be a patch day. As usual, we might as well just forget the patch day divinations and focus on the downtime. 8 hours of downtime equals plenty of time to read WoW Insider. So, here's a list of some of the best content from the past week:
Server issues abounds this evening
Servers seem to be having all sorts of problems actually staying up tonight. A fair portion of the population is experiencing chronic server crashes, including my home server. A few of my guildmates canceled their 10-man raids as a result of players' inability to stay online. Even when the server isn't down, it's a real pain staying connected.We don't really have any information as far as clear upcoming fixes or how long the issue will last, but we here at WoW Insider most definitely know how you feel. Consider this a show of solidarity. It's lame, and hopefully it will go away soon. If you're just sitting down now to dig into your playtime for the night, expect some interruptions.What we do have is a little bit of information about possible upcoming realm transfers that will be opening up in the near future. Free transfers, of course. You can find Zarhym's list behind the cut below.
Tuesday Morning Post: It's still not patch day, is it?
So we have a 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific downtime today. But honestly, I'm sort of hoping it's not for patch day, because I have a Death Knight column going live later this morning that assumes testing's going to go on for another few weeks. Besides, they just added a few new tweaks to the PTR, so they probably want more time to test them. But just in case today is patch day, here's a pre-emptive mea culpa on that column. But regardless of whether today is patch day or not, we're still talking at least 8 hours of downtime here, and as usual, I choose to take the optimistic view on it. That's right, it's a perfect time to catch up on your World of Warcraft news. As usual, you'll find a list of some of the best content from the past 7 days or so here on WoW Insider after the break. Don't be afraid to dive in and start browsing categories or clicking buttons on the sidebars or the menus above, too. You won't break anything. I think.
The Tuesday Morning Post: Don't forget your Consortium g... oh wait
So It's December 2nd. Normally, that means that your plans should probably include a quick trip out to Nagrand for a sack of gems. But a little something happened this past month that's sort of changed that up a little bit. Still, maybe it's a good idea to visit good old Gehze one more time, for old time's sake, eh?Actually, I'm a bit disappointed in the Consortium. I really expected them to leverage their vast profits in Outlands to spearhead a movement into Azeroth. They could be making a killing off of Nerubian carapaces and Frostwyrm bone ivory right now... and handing us a bag of Northrend gems every month. Come on, get with it guys.But seriously. The point is, it's Tuesday morning. And that means downtime. It's an extra long downtime today, 3 AM to 11 AM PST. That means you have plenty of time to browse WoW Insider. Allow me, as is my wont, to suggest some choice articles, guides, and features from the past week for your enjoyment, after the break.
Weigh in on the downtime debacle
It is no secret that servers have been seeing an awful lot of maintenance lately, and today has been the worst. While the blues have been encouraging and supportive, the frustration has been mounting, and many players are threatening to call it quits. Of course, players threaten this on a daily basis, so it comes as no shock. The responses on the forums, when they are available, on our own site, and in our team mail have made the WoW Insider team somewhat curious. How are you feeling about Blizzard today?Jump through the break to take our super-scientific poll!
Realms are being brought back online [Updated at 11:50 pm EST]
The opening announcement just told us all that realms are coming back online now. All the realms will be completely back up by 10:45pm EST / 7:45pm PST. Realms have been down today for an overly-extended maintenance period.There will be an in-game mail sent to all players concerning the mail issues today. For those that are unaware, all mail that was in the mailbox prior to the downtime today was gone when the servers came up for a brief time today. We have covered everything we currently know about this. The mail will be reimbursed.Let's all say a silent prayer that this is not how the next couple of days look. I don't know about all of you, but I actually want to play Wrath of the Lich King when it's released.Update 11:50pm EST - All the realms are coming back up. We'll have more on fallout of this tonight and tomorrow.Update 11:30pm EST - We've sent word to our contact at Blizzard asking for more information about today's issues. We'll let you know the response we get.All previous updates are being kept after the break, check there to see a log of what's been going on.Are you ready for the challenges that await you in Northrend? WoW Insider has you covered with our 8-day guide to Preparing for Wrath. Also, check out our feature on AddOns new, old and outdated and Essential AddOns for Wrath written especially with the expansion in mind.
Server restarts for Friday October 24th
While the connectivity and general lag seems to have gotten better in the last day or so, there are still some lingering issues here and there. All servers will be undergoing rolling restarts on the morning of the 24th from 5:00 a.m. PDT to 6:00 a.m. PDT. Each realm is expected to be down only 15 minutes.Ideally this will solve all the issues we've had since patch 3.0.2 hit last week, but more likely we'll just see things be better for a short time.If this temporary down time turns into anything extended, we'll update this post.Of course, this restart might have something to do with Zombies hungry for brains.
Servers starting to come back online
After an epic twelve-hour maintenance today to apply patch 3.0.2, the WoW servers are starting to come back online. As of last count, only a few dozen were up, scattered across the US and Oceanic realms, but the rest of them can't be too far behind (none of mine are up yet). The ETA for maintenance finishing is 2 PM PST/5 PM EST - looks like they beat their maintenance estimates for once, assuming the realms are all back before too long. I'm excited for so many reasons; this is one of the biggest days in WoW history, and there's fun new stuff to try out for every class. The realms coming up will also give us a chance to sort out the saga of the patch notes, and figure out what exactly is being included in this patch in the way of class changes. Is your realm up yet? What are you going to do first when it is? Update: Blizzard is now saying it might take until 3 PM PST/6 PM EST 4:30 PM PST/7:30 PM EST 6 PM PST/9 PM EST for all the realms to be up. Patch 3.0.2 "Echoes of Doom" has landed and WoW Insider has you covered. From patch notes to talent guides for every class to fixing your addons to 5 easy achievements you can snag right now. Make sure to check out the latest news.
WarcraftStat for the iPhone checks realm status for you
Not to be outdone by yesterday's Characters app for the iPhone, Michael Gaines has posted his own WoW app to the iTunes App Store, this one tracking server status easily and quickly in iPhone format. WarcraftStat is as simple as they come -- you get a list of all the servers, their PvP/PvE designation, their population label, and the little arrows found on the usual realm status page showing whether you're good to go for ganking noobs in Westfall, or the realm is still down.Unfortunately, all of the realms are a little much -- I'd kind of rather choose a couple of pertinent realms to me and only see those on the page. And notification of when a realm goes up or down might be nice, too, not to mention that the app is currently US realms only. But as an app that tells you whether realms are up or down, WarcraftStat does its job. It's on the App Store right now, and available for a free download.[ Thanks, Brad! ]
Extended downtime for some servers this Tuesday morning
Tuesday morning maintenance has been announced, and most of us can breathe easy -- we're only getting a one hour downtime, from 5am PST to 6am PST. However, there are 72 servers that will be getting a larger amount of downtime, from 5am PST to 11am PST, though there's no word on why. Check after the break to see if your server's going down for a bit. The list of the servers scheduled for a longer maintenance are as follows:
36 US realms down
Starting at least half an hour ago, and continuing through to now, 36 US realms, comprising the battlegroups Rampage and Shadowburn, are down. Blizzard notes that they are "currently unavailable and are being worked on," and that they don't have an ETA right now, but will give us an update around 8:50 AM PDT/11:50 AM EDT. So we should hear more about this in 15 minutes or so, at which point I'll update the post with any new information.The affected realms are: Agamaggan, Alexstrasza, Alleria, Azshara, Baelgun, Balnazzar, Blackhand, Cho'gall, Dark Iron, Destromath, Dethecus, Detheroc, Emerald Dream, Garona, Gorgonnash, Greymane, Gul'dan, Hellscream, Illidan, Kael'thas, Kalecgos, Kirin Tor, Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, Malfurion, Moonrunner, Nazjatar, Ravencrest, Sargeras, Spinebreaker, Staghelm, Stormreaver, Twisting Nether, Ursin, Whisperwind, and Wildhammer.[Thanks, Laz]Update (12 PM): Blizzard provided an update to let us know that they will provide another update at 10 AM PDT, which is in an hour. They're working on it and appreciate our patience.Update (1 PM): Now they think they've figured out what's wrong, and they're saying the realms should be up by 10:30 PDT/1:30 EDT.
Rolling Restarts for Friday, March 28th
Hold onto the your wigs and keys, everyone, we're not quite done Ironing out the kinks from 2.4 yet. Bornakk's announced yet another run of rolling restarts, this time starting at 5 am PDT on Friday, March 28th. Each realm will be down for 15 minutes, and the entire process should take about an hour. The last round of restarts, as you recall, became a bit more complicated, but we'll see how they do this time. Either way, expect a bit of bumpiness if early morning on the US pacific coast is your usual play time. Bornakk doesn't mention if any hotfixes will be applied during the downtime, but we'll be checking to see if anything's different on the other side.
Patch 2.4 on the EU and US servers [Updated]
Many thanks to reader fLUx for sending me over to the European WoW site, which as usual, has better info than its U.S. counterpart. The service announcement reads "Weekly Maintenance - 26/03. This Wednesday there will be an extended maintenance to apply patch 2.4.0. Please note that all European realms will be offline from 03:00 until 11:00, Paris time (CET)." March 26th over in Europe is March 25th here in the States.All we're waiting for is the U.S. version of this announcement, which will soon come. After that the final patch notes will drop, which we'll have mirrored here for you as fast as we can get them up. As the posts below this one indicate, down time started about 30 minutes ago and is expect to last until at least 11 a.m. PDT.Happy patch 2.4 day! WoW Insider will be updating frequently, stay tuned.Updated 7:06 a.m. EDT: Belfaire has responded again on one of those "is 2.4 today?" threads: "Enjoy the new patch, folks!" This serves as confirmation for the U.S. realms. And you have a tag this time Belfaire. ;-)
Drat! Extended maintenance!
Sure enough, I go to log in to poke around with macros and numbers for tomorrow's Encrypted Text column, and what am I greeted with on the login screen? The dreaded message indicating that the downtime has been extended further. Per the login screen:Extended MaintenanceWe will be extending our regularly schedule Tuesday maintenance for an estimated two hours in order to resolve an issue with our authentication system. We anticipate the realms will be available at approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT, and will provide an update to the situation in approximately 1 hour. Thank you,Blizzard EntertainmentYep. I'm an addict. I love Roguing it up, and I'll admit I was really looking forward to getting back on and playing around with macros and different settings -- as well as checking out a different damage meter mod I just snagged. Is there anything you're looking forward to when you can get back in? Gotten a particularly tasty piece of loot lately that you didn't get to really take for a spin before the server shut down? One of your auctions going to make you a lot of money when you log back in? Or is the ability to log in just the symbol of the end of a day of work, and the start of relaxation time for you? (Hey, that's more than enough of a reason right there!)
One of Blizz's ISPs performing maintenance
One of Blizzard's service providers is performing some maintenance. Blizzard thinks that this should not cause any issues for us players, but gives a list of affected realms just in case. I hope there aren't any complications from this; my realm is on the list, and weekends are certainly peak playing time for many people. 74 of WoW's 265 North American realms are listed. From the in-game Breaking News box:We've been informed by one of our service providers that they will be performing a maintenance that may impact some of our servers. We've been told that the maintenance should not affect connectivity, and thus there should not be any disconnections or performance issues from it. However, we're informing those of you on the below realms in the event that they should occur.
