Posts with tag extended-maintenance

Tuesday Morning Post: Identity Crisis Edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Nov 3rd 2009 at 7:00AM

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:

Tuesday Morning Post: Cataclysm bombshell edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Sep 29th 2009 at 7:30AM

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:

Server Status: Coming back online

by Adam Holisky Sep 22nd 2009 at 2:20PM

Not that this should surprise any of you, but the servers are not yet up. 11:00 a.m. PDT has come and gone, and many folks are still staring at a blank screen. A large batch of realms will be offline until at least 12:30 p.m. PDT. That list is after the break.

If your realm is offline, I suggest reading up on everything in WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2. At least that way you'll be prepared for Ony when the time comes.

The full list of realms undergoing extended maintenance after the break.

Update 12:20 p.m. PDT: Most realms are now coming back online.

European weekly maintenance: 23rd & 24th September 2009

by Dominic Hobbs Sep 21st 2009 at 1:00PM

Many of our characters may be lying face down in the snow, beer mug still in hand, at 3am on a Wednesday morning -- but that's not going to stop the weekly maintenance. Normal scheduled maintenance for most realms means an outage between 3am and 11am, Paris time (CEST).

As well as this regular maintenance two English Battlegroups (Reckoning and Ruin) will be receiving optimizations to their instance capacity. This will mean an extended outage on Wednesday until 5pm CEST and also a further outage between 3am and 7am on Thursday. I'm sure players on these servers will be glad to finally join those who have already received this optimisation to help resolve the Door Boss issue. Full list of realms impacted after the break.

Maintenance for Tuesday, September 22nd already announced

by Daniel Whitcomb Sep 19th 2009 at 4:00PM

Yeah, believe it or not, unlike last week, when Blizzard didn't confirm the lack of maintenance until somewhere close to midnight pacific time, this week we already have confirmation. There will be extended maintenance from 3 AM to 11 AM pacific this Tuesday.

What does this early announcement mean? To be fair, it could just mean that they already know they're going to need some extra maintenance time to make up for the complete lack of maintenance last Tuesday. Of course, they could also be planning to push out Patch 3.2.2. Don't take my word for it though, I am 100% just going off a gut feeling. We've been a while without a patch, after all.

Just in case, you'll probably want to start reading up on Patch 3.2.2 now, and when maintenance day gets here, you'll have plenty to read right here on WoW.com while you wait for your server to come up, or for news on whether or not we're going to see the patch.

[Updated] Realm Status: All realms to be online by 10:30pm EDT

by Robin Torres Sep 1st 2009 at 5:02PM

Happy Tuesday everybody!

Maintenance has been extended to 2:00 p.m. PDT / 5:00 pm EDT. Check out the Tuesday Morning Maintenance post for some good things to read while you wait. And we'll keep you up to date, should anything change.

With all of the hardware upgrading being done, there are bound to be some DNS issues. If you have trouble logging in when the realms are back up, try the solutions listed here.

Update 5:00 p.m. EDT: The realms after the break will be down until at least 4:00 p.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. EDT. Realms not on the list after the break should be up by 3:00 p.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. EDT.

Update 7:42 pm EDT: People who can log in are having severe issues and the realms after the break are still down. Isradun says they will give us an update in 2 hours.

Update 8:18 pm EDT: All realms should be online within the hour.

Update 8:50 pm EDT: No really. They mean it this time. All realms should be up by 9:30 pm EDT. Warning!: The ones that are up are sloooooow.

Update 10:11 pm EDT: Now they are saying 10:30pm EDT.

With all this extended downtime, Mashable has a list of thing you can do while Gmail is down (Gmail is down today too, if you haven't heard). They apply perfectly well to WoW as well.

Realm Status: Coming online

by Robin Torres Aug 4th 2009 at 5:47PM

In a move that should be a surprise to no one on a major content patch day, Blizzard has announced that all realms will be down until 3PM PDT for database maintenance.

You may have noticed that we've got a lot of patch 3.2 coverage today to keep you busy. Or you could take a peek over at the WoWathon to watch some dramatic readings and support charity.

We'll keep you posted on any other changes to the downtime.

Update 2:50 p.m. PDT: Realms are beginning to come back online.

WoW's Patch 3.2 ushers in the Crusaders' Coliseum, the Isle of Conquest, flying mounts at 60, and much more. WoW.com has all the patch information your Worgen obsessed mind can handle in WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2!

Tuesday Morning Post: Down to the Wire edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Aug 4th 2009 at 5:00AM

So this is it. A lot of people are saying it, and while there's no word one way or another, it seems like this morning is sort of the deadline. If they don't release Patch 3.2 today, pretty much everyone agrees we'll be lucky to see it before BlizzCon, since they're gonna need to get into gear to get all those special BlizzCon surprises ready for us.

Now mind you, by the time you read this, you'll probably know for sure if it's going down. But me, here, on a warm Monday evening, I'm just finishing up some writing before I meet some friends for $2.50 beer night at the local microbrewery. So consider this, if you will, a message from the past, a past where the future was uncertain, but hope reigned supreme; Where we all looked forward to a pleasant evening and a bright tomorrow.

Wait? What's that? It is coming out? Oh sweet. Okay guys. Be sure to check out our guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest new and guides on the new patch content.

Also on the list of what is confirmed is that we have extended downtime. All servers will be down from at least 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific time, and a couple battle groups will be down even longer. Considering that, you will probably have some time to catch up recent WoW news, so let me lay it on you:

Extended server maintenance for Tuesday August 4th

by Adam Holisky Aug 3rd 2009 at 8:35PM

There's a detailed server maintenance announcement for tomorrow, Tuesday August 4th. And off the bat: we still don't know for sure if Patch 3.2 is dropping tomorrow. You can bet that we'll be burning the midnight oil waiting to find out, though. (Note, that would be inadvisable. If you attempt to ignite a petroleum product on this ship at zero hundred hours you will activate the fire suppression system, which would seal off this entire compartment.)

All realms will be down from at least 3:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 a.m. EDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT tomorrow. However a large group of special realms will be down from 12:00 a.m. PDT / 3:00 a.m. EDT until 12:00 p.m. PDT / 3:00 p.m. EDT.

Those special realms are those in the battlegroups Emberstorm, and Whirlwind.

Check after the break if you need to see a listing of which realms belong on those battlegroups, and stay tuned to WoW.com tonight and tomorrow for all the patch 3.2 goodness.

Minor update: The service alert, which is obviously suffering from a typo, now reads in part: "..we expect all realms to be playable by approximately 11:59PM PDT on Tuesday, August 4." Emphasis added. Hey, at least they're honest, right?

Update: Blizzard changed their announcement to indicate that only Emberstorm and Whirlwind would be going offline for an extended period.

Blizzard responds to extended maintenance and instance problems

by Adam Holisky Jul 27th 2009 at 3:33PM

Blizzard EU has released a long and detailed statement concerning the recent waves of extended maintenance and how it's connected to the problems associated with launching instances. For several months players have been plagued with the message "Additional instances cannot be launched." The message was being caused by overloaded instance servers, and for a long time there was seemingly nothing Blizzard could do about it.

Blizzard's statement today clearly informs us that all the extended maintenance we've been seeing is directly due Blizzard implementing fixes for the problems server-side. While the statement comes from an EU source, once can assume rather easily that it applies to the US as well.

While no timeframe is given as to exactly when this will be done for all realms, it is very good to know that stuff is getting done behind the scenes. And this look at exactly what Blizzard is doing to their servers represents a rare glimpse into their inner workings. Usually Blizzard is pretty tight lipped about what exactly is happening with their hardware.

The full statement after the break.

Tuesday Morning Post: Breakfast of Champions edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Jul 14th 2009 at 7:00AM

It's Tuesday morning, and you know what that means: downtime. On the plus side, we here on the US Servers don't have any more complicated type of down times with various groups of servers getting extra downtime seemingly at random and so on. Then again, that just means we all get to suffer through extended downtime together, from 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific.

Luckily, there's tons to read about while you wait out the downtime. In probably the biggest PTR news this week, Coliseum testing is now well underway (despite some hiccups at the start), and we were in the middle of it. We have galleries of some of the 5-man loot we discovered and first hand impressions of the place. Check out more news after the break:

Realm maintenance for July 14th

by Alex Ziebart Jul 14th 2009 at 12:30AM

The Breaking News box has recently cropped up in-game, announcing tomorrow's maintenance for North American realms. As you can see in the image to the right, servers will be down from 3:00 AM PDT until roughly 11:00 AM PDT, assuming all goes well. If you're not sure what time this is in your timezone, use this timezone conversion tool.

You know the drill, guys. WoW.com will, as always, be here all throughout the maintenance to cure your boredom. For you European readers, remember that some of you will be hit with an extended maintenance later on, which we've posted about already.

Ancilorn reveals extended EU maintenance next week

by Lesley Smith Jul 9th 2009 at 3:00PM

European CM Ancilorn has revealed that, for next week's EU maintenance, some of the realms will be offline for a whopping fourteen hours. The Blue was keen to ensure players were given enough warning of 15th July's maintenance to make sure that players who have toons on the affected realms had an "opportunity to plan accordingly".

The affected realms are: Balnazzar, Bloodfeather, Darksorrow, Defias Brotherhood, Earthen Ring, Frostwhisper, Genjuros, Haomarush, Hellscream, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Magtheridon, Neptulon, Nordrassil, Quel'Thalas, Ragnaros, Ravencrest, Runetotem, Shadowmoon, Shadowsong, Shattered Hand, Silvermoon, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker, Stormrage, Stormreaver, Stormscale, Sylvanas, Terenas, The Maelstrom, The Venture Co, Thunderhorn, Turalyon, Twisting Nether and Vashj.

While the problem seems to be specific to these realms, Ancilorn didn't elaborate on the precise reasons for the extensive maintenance. He only informed readers that these realms will be offline from 3:00am CEST until around 5:00pm CEST. I suggest this might be a very good time to explore the opposite faction on another server, roll a twink or level that long-neglected alt. We'll certainly keep you updated next week and hopefully the maintenance should run smoothly.

Tuesday Morning Post: Cataclysmic Edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Jul 7th 2009 at 7:00AM

It's time once again for weekly maintenance, and not only do we have the standard 5 AM - 11 AM Pacific downtime for most US servers, there's also a handful that are down from midnight to noon today. With all that extra time on your hands, you'll have time once again to read up on WoW news.

The big news, of course, is the Cataclysm. Blizzard went on a trademark registering spree around this word, which has everyone abuzz with speculation. Are we seeing the name of the new, maelstrom-related expansion? Or is this another secret project, perhaps even that new top secret MMO? Only time will tell, but it's fun to guess anyway. Once you're done being all atwitter over that little bit of gossip, here's some more stuff to read until your server comes up:

Tuesday Morning Post: Racial Roulette edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Jun 30th 2009 at 5:30AM

So we're swimming in news again this week, what with the patch 3.2 PTR well underway (you can check out the latest patch notes right here) and all, but the biggest piece of news for me, remains the faction changes. If nothing else, this should pave the way for me to be able to switch every single one of my characters to the High Elf race once they're finally implemented. Of course, that's not the only race-related news bouncing around this week. It also looks like the Tauren may be looking to make some waves in lore.

But anyhow, we have some nice long maintenance today, so you should have plenty of time to read the above stories and all the awesome news coming out of the PTR while you're at it. Check out a list of some of the highlights of the past 7 days below, and be sure to stick around throughout the day. There's bound to be more patch 3.2 news trickling in.

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