The New York Times has brought its journalistic bear to the story earlier this week about China deciding not to approve WoW's release over there under new service provider Netease, and it seems what we thought was confusion between two agencies has turned into a war. On one side, you have the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), who earlier this week said that Netease (WoW's local provider of Blizzard's game in China) could not legally be collecting subscriptions on a game that GAPP hadn't yet approved. But on the other side is the Ministry of Culture, who did approve WoW's content when it was run by The9, and are now saying that GAPP "overstepped its authority" by thinking it could "penalize online gaming" at all.

Which means that the silly game of World of Warcraft has fallen smack dab in between two government agencies lobbying for power. In the past, says the NYT, GAPP has approved games pre-release, and the Ministry of Culture has overseen games once they've started running online. But WoW is a weird exception (it has been online for a few years already, and only went offline when Blizzard switched providers), and it looks like both agencies are grabbing for power and the sizable fees that come along with regulation. If they continue to clash, it'll be up to the State Council, China's cabinet, to determine who's in charge. And the NYT says if that happens, the Ministry of Culture has the edge, with lots of friends in the cabinet already.

Meanwhile, Netease hasn't taken the game offline yet, apparently -- they still haven't been given official notice to do so. There's no word on how long this will take to shake out, but even China's players are tired of the fighting; they just want to get back into Azeroth and play.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Blizzard poster Rishgur has announced emergency maintenance for select realms, starting at 3:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 a.m. EST Friday morning and lasting approximately four hours until 7:00 a.m. PST / 10:00 a.m. EST.

There is no indication as to what this maintenance corrects, and there hasn't been any widespread reports of realm or connectivity issues (at least that we've heard). So who knows why the realms are getting fixed tomorrow morning, but they are.

The realms will remain active and playable during this maintenance, but some stability issues may occur!

The maintenance appears to involve multiple battlegroups. The specific realms include the ones listed below and after the break.

Blizzard has announced that they are conducting urgent maintenance on several realms. Though the official Warcraft twitter account announced it would only go on until noon PST (the tweet was about account maintenance), the in-game and forum messages state that they do not know how long the maintenance will take. They expect to have more information by 12:30 p.m. PST / 3:30 p.m. EST.

The list of affected realms is after the break (which includes Zangarmarsh, the It came from the Blog server).

We will keep you informed as the status changes.

3:25 p.m. PST: All realms are (supposedly) online and playable.
Update 3 p.m. PST: More info at 3:30 PST.
Update: More info at 1:30 p.m. PST.

So race changes are finally live, and with that, you can change your characters in just about every way possible short of class. Different faction? Go for it. Different gender? Change your face? Change your name? It's all good. Heck, you can do it every three days now. It's suddenly like we're all these crazy mutable nameless faceless blobs changing at will and at random, until we're practically a sea of shapeless shapeshifters. Or not. After all, there's still the whole money charge and stuff.

Of course, that's not the only big news this week. Chill of the Throne, Icecrown's version of Sunwell Radiance, has been evoking a lot of discussion and a lot of unrest. Did Blizzard make the right choice in adding this much maligned dungeon-specific nerf back into the game? There's plenty of other issues as well, and as we have a nice 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific downtime, you'll have plenty of time to catch up with it all. You can start with some of the links below:

All realms will be undergoing maintenance Tuesday November 3rd from 3:00 a.m. PDT until at least 11:00 a.m. PDT. This is more or less the standard maintenance that we've all come to know and love so much. So hopefully this won't come as a surprise for folks.

We need to be diligent here and note that there is absolutely no indication patch 3.3 will drop tomorrow. That event is still at least a few weeks off from all indications coming into WoW.com HQ.

Enjoy the downtime if you're not working -- go get some sun, eat a cheeseburger, do something off the game. It'll be leveling up in real life! Fun!

We've talked about private servers on the site here before, but in case you haven't heard the term: they're unofficial servers, very much against WoW's Terms of Use, that are run by companies other than Blizzard. They're shady as get out -- some make you pay (and these are not people you'd ever want to give any credit card information to), some will delete or change characters on a regular basis, and many times they're created just so whoever's running them can mess around with GM powers, and cheat with any items they want.

So you can see why Blizzard would want them shut down, and that's exactly what they're trying to do with this lawsuit filed in the California Central District Court against a company called "Scapegaming" that runs at least one private WoW server (and they've apparently been running microtransactions in-game -- selling in-game items for "donations" of money). The law firm working for Blizzard, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, also worked on the "Bnetd" case, which was another piece of unofficial server software that allowed players to play off of Blizzard's Battle.net setup.

The complaint lists copyright infringement as the cause, which means they're probably using the same argument targeted at other private servers in the past. We'll keep an eye on this, but it's very likely Blizzard will win this one unopposed, and Scapegaming (or at least just their WoW server) will get shut down for good.

Thanks, Phenom!

I have to say, this is sort of interesting. Downtime today is only 7 AM to 9 AM pacific. 2 hours is slightly worse than plain old rolling restarts, to be sure, but it's better than normal maintenance, if a bit unusual. Of course, those of you who are still after those dumb toothpicks will have a few more hours to curse at Innkeepers for turning you into a ninja instead of giving you a dang sliver of wood so you can get a big purple dragon, so that's always a plus.

And of course, for that 2 hour period, you'll need some reading material, which is where we come in. Here's a list of some of the latest and greatest WoW.com news from the Patch 3.3 PTR and beyond:

A little while ago, 2 am Paris time, servers went down in the EU for emergency maintenance. More specifically, "emergency database maintenance." They're estimated to be down until 4 am Paris time, which by my estimate is another hour or so. Should that maintenance be extended any further, we'll be sure to let you know right here on WoW.com.

Many thanks to our followers on Twitter for alerting us of this downtime, because our European staff members are apparently off doing silly things like sleeping. Thanks a lot, guys. Because of that, I'm now inflicting cultural stereotypes on you all in the form of the picture at the top of this post. Don't take your rage out on me, take it out on the warlock.

So. Big news guys: The Three Worgen Moon Shirt is here. Seriously. The Shirt that will change your life, I kid you not. I ordered mine, and I have already sensed the presence of beautiful women gravitating toward the aura of self-assurance and wildness created around me by the very decision made to purchase the shirt.

Nah, but seriously. There's been stuff going on this weekend. Mostly, Patch 3.3's been going on, and we've had crack teams poring over the data files and running through the dungeons getting all the latest for you. For example, here's some video footage of some of the team running The Pit of Saron. Also, you're going to need to convert your account to Battle.net pretty soon now.

There's much more to peruse of course, so let's get to it. Here's a list of some of our best news and features from the past few days.

What a week for WoW news, eh? Not only did we get a very intriguing sneak preview of the Icecrown Citadel 5-mans, but we also got a fresh new PTR Patch. From there, the patch notes and game files revealed a lot of pretty juicy stuff. Newbies get it ever easier. There's craftable nature resist gear (resist boss fight, anyone?). There looks to be a pretty epic 5-man quest line for the Quel'Delar (Here's a picture of the blade, for the record. Yeah, it's sweet). There's new racial shaman totem graphics. It looks like a Valentine's Day holiday event boss may be in the works. In what may be my favorite development, there's new weekly raiding quests coming. Even the names of datamined NPCs offer their own intrigue.

Yeah, anyway, there's a lot of stuff to digest, and with this 5 AM - 11 AM pacific downtime, hopefully you have time to do so. Follow the break for even more news:

Kris over on the WoW LJ has an interesting question: what's the most popular server in the game? Blizzard never has (and likely never will) singled out one server as the most popular in the game, as the QQ that would ensue might bring the forums down (not to mention that it must change pretty often, as people transfer and reroll on other realms. It seems that everyone on a high population server thinks they must be top dog when they see queues during prime time, but the most widespread concrete numbers we have are probably from the unofficial Warcraft Realms census: they claim that, with over 35,000 characters on it, Whisperwind is number one.

Of course, even that can't be trusted -- those numbers are picked up from the site's addon, all within the last 30 days, and it could just be that WR has more info about more people on that server. But at the same time, I'd guess that Warcraft Realms' numbers are in the ballpark, as long as you're talking about Yankee Stadium. Whisperwind, Cenarion Circle, Stormrage, Moon Guard, and Proudmoore are all big servers, I can promise you anecdotally, while Laughing Skull, Blood Furnace, and Malorne are definitely at the other end of the spectrum. As for a most popular realm, there probably isn't one specifically (it changes periodically, if not even at different times of the day). But if your realm is near the top of Warcraft Realms' list, it's probably busier than the others.

So the biggest news from the past week was probably the Cataclysm preview article published in PC Gamer UK, in which more spoilertastic information was revealed about the new races and other storyline minutiae. I have to say, I was surprised. I expected there would be a lot more discussion about the newly revealed level 1-5 stories. Instead, everyone's focused in on one line about... well, some of you probably don't want to be spoiled, so I'll leave it alone. But suffice it to say, if you don't mind being spoiled and you haven't heard the hullabaloo yet, you might want to check out our article and see if you can figure out what has everyone talking.

If spoilers aren't your bag, or you already know, don't fear, there's plenty more to keep you occupied as we wait out the 5 AM - 11 AM Pacific maintenance window. For example, you could read up on the week-old Patch 3.2.2 on our guide page. Here's a few more ideas for your browsing pleasure:

While we were given ample notice regarding last week's server maintenance, this week we weren't so lucky. We were only informed earlier today of tomorrow's maintenance, which will start at 5:00 am PDT and last until 11:00 am PDT. If you're not sure what time that is in your particular time zone, that's what the World Clock is for, you ninnies.

As usual, WoW.com will be here all morning and afternoon to keep you busy while you slack off at work during your WoW-less lunch break. Or, if Valve is a benevolent sort and lets us get our grubby, pallid hands on it early, you could just play Left 4 Dead's new map while the servers are down. That's what I'll be doing the whole time.

Of course, even if Patch 3.2.2 doesn't drop, there's plenty of other things going on. For example, Brewfest is in full swing. If you still haven't gotten in the spirit, check out our Achievement guide and Coren Direbrew loot list for inspiration. Plus, as always, we have even more news and views to get you through the downtime after the break: