tuesday-maintenance
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WoW Crossword: January 20th, 2009
It's a new week, and that means a new crossword. If you don't remember from last Tuesday, this little project is an experiment of ours. Some time ago, Amanda Dean started this Crossword activity which was posted on Sunday mornings. It's been awhile since we've done them, so we're going to give them a whirl on Tuesdays instead, with Tuesday being the WoW player's lazy Sunday. Considering today is patch day, you probably have plenty of time to do this thing.Last week I asked for feedback on the crossword, and you all supplied a lot of helpful advice that we attempted to put into play. We'll see how it turned out. The details on that are below the cut, along with the clues for this week's puzzle.%Gallery-27429%
Extended maintenance for Tuesday
As expected, tomorrow will have extended maintenance on all North American realms between 3:00 a.m. PST / 6:00 a.m. EST and 11:00 a.m. PST / 2:00 p.m. EST. I'm told that hope springs eternal, so hopefully the realms will actually be up on time tomorrow.And it looks like there's a good chance that 3.0.8 will be live when the realms come up. But I'll not make any guarantees here. Well, who am I kidding. I gave it an 80% chance that the patch will go live. But I digress...If the extended maintenance turns into extended-extended maintenance, we'll let you know. And while we're planning some great content for you all during the down time tomorrow, there is something on TV you'll probably want to watch around noon EST anyways. So perhaps downtime isn't all that bad after all.
Realms coming online early
Today's extended maintenance has turned out to be not-so-extended, with many realms already online, and more coming up every moment. I suspect that this will become the norm from here on out, with Blizzard's maintenance window larger on average than it used to be, which is pretty good for us. Let's be honest, we'd much rather have them overestimate how much time they need than underestimate it, right? It kind of sucks to see an extra two hours tacked on late every week, but it's nice when you know it ahead of time.For those of you that were still hoping and praying that patch 3.0.8 was today, nope. Didn't happen, didn't think it would happen. Will it happen next week? Ask someone else, because we give up on the guesswork.Edit: Almost forgot! Thanks to everyone who sent in tips about it. I was busy headshotting zombies. Shh, don't tell anybody.
WoW Crossword: January 13th, 2009
Some of you may remember that some months ago, we tried out these WoW Crosswords on Sunday mornings to go along with Sunday Morning Funnies, to give your lazy-day a slight newspaper feel. Open up the blog, read your comics, fill out the crossword, and then read the stories. Really, though, what WoW player does that on a Sunday? If you're at home, you're probably killing boars or whatever and not trying to fill in some blanks. Tuesday is more likely the WoW player's Sunday, isn't it? Kind of a slow day, you catch up on the news, you don't have to worry about tending to the crops, so you find other entertainment, right? So let's try this crossword thing again, but with feeling.Here's how this works: Below the cut will be your hints/questions. There is only one correct answer for each blank. Some answers are two words, and if that's the case, leave the space out of your answer. Pretend the space between them does not exist. Most of those ones are obvious, and usually marked.All of the questions are related to WoW, WoW Insider, or the greater community around the MMO, such as machinima, fan content, or simply related nerdity. For example, one day you may run into a question in which the answer is Kevin Werbach. He plays WoW and has been mentioned on our site, so he is fair game. You will not, however, get a question like "What is Batman's true identity" because as far as I know, that has nothing to do with what we do, unless Bruce Wayne is the next Lich King. If that becomes the case, we're just screwed then, aren't we?
Extended maintenance for January 13th
The login screen is announcing an extended maintenance tomorrow morning, from 3 AM PST until 11 AM PST. Will we be seeing patch 3.0.8 tomorrow morning? Well, I say no, probably not. My gut says the last PTR build was too recent for it to hit live realms, but Blizzard is fairly unpredictable when it comes to patch releases. I'm bad at predicting patch dates anyway, so listening to me is probably not the wisest thing ever either way.If we hear anything to the contrary, we'll be sure to let you know as soon as we see it. As always, patch or not, WoW Insider will be here for you all morning tomorrow if you're looking for your fix.
Rolling restarts for Tuesday, December 30th
You can all rejoice, because we have no maintenance to worry about this morning. According to the login screen, the only thing we need to worry about is rolling restarts. It's a very nice change from the last couple of weeks of extended maintenance, so take advantage of it!Of course, that doesn't mean a whole lot for us here at WoW Insider. We'll still be here all morning, giving you guys (and gals) at work or school plenty of distractions to occupy your day. Here's hoping that everything goes smoothly and the servers actually restart, rather than just roll. Like, on the ground. You know, broken. Get it? ...No? Crap.
Realms starting to come back online
Servers seem to be coming up a little earlier than the most recent estimates, though there aren't a whole lot of them up yet. As I write this, there are only a dozen or so servers active and ready to go with more coming up every moment. Update: Looks like most servers are now up at this point, if not all of them. Huzzah!For those of you who are on vacation and are eager to play, go on! Have fun! Hopefully there will be no more issues today and your holidays in Azeroth will be uninterrupted. For those of you who are sitting at work or school right now, I am sorry. Come over to my place, I'll share my cookies with you.And no, I don't play on Argent Dawn. Sorry! Lowbie alts for the win.
Yet another extended maintenance extension
The login screen is now announcing another extension to today's maintenance, with servers expected to be down until 1 PM this afternoon. Is that really a surprise? It shouldn't be! When they say maintenance ends at 11 am, they really mean 1 pm. Period. End of story.You'll probably be doing the same thing we are for those additional two hours: Wasting time at WoW Insider. We'll be sure to keep you updated, whether realms come up early or maintenance gets another extension. Keep an eye on the site, and we'll keep an eye out for you, and thanks to everyone who did the same for us and wrote into our tipline!
Patch 3.0.3 as good as confirmed for November 4th
About that whole hat eating... thing. Hahaha, we're all going to forget about that, right? It was just a joke. Haha! See? Laughter! Oh gosh, please don't make me eat my hat. Hats are so... hatty.In all seriousness, Patch 3.0.3 has been as good as confirmed for tomorrow. As was pointed out to me, while the breaking news announcement about tomorrow's maintenance doesn't explicitly say it's an extended maintenance, the timeframe for it is definitely longer than the norm. Moreover, Boubouille over at MMO-Champion says it's tomorrow, and that's as close to confirmed as it gets without... you know, a confirmation. When he opens his mouth, blue crayons fall out.As always, WoW Insider will be here in the morning to help you through the patching process, from the hours of boredom to the stretch of discovering just what the heck is different. And as I mentioned before, if you're a US citizen, you have other things to do as well.
The Tuesday Morning Post: I love the Zombies
Good Tuesday mrning everyone. It's a 5 AM to 11 AM PDT downtime today, which means you probably have time to do some reading right now, right? How about reading up on all the latest news from the last busy week of WoW? So Here's the big story of the moment: Nearly as suddenly as it began, the great Zombie apocalypse is ended, and not with a bang but with a whimper. One blue post later, it quietly exited the servers at about noon PST yesterday. For some, this was a welcome relief. For others, such as myself, it was a bit of a downer. I was looking forward to one last hurrah of pushing the Zombie menace out of the cathedral district. Maybe it's the World War Z addict in me, but I was sort of having fun watching the world (of Warcraft) burn. Still, don't get too bummed, event enthusiasts. There's still plenty of Scourge-Invasion related events leftover to see. Check out those, as well as some of the highlights of the Zombie Invasion and a roundup of other odds and ends. The Plague: What Remains
