Maintenance for Tuesday February 17th
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 17th 2009 at 12:50AM
A cool breeze moves across Osull's skin as he looks out upon the Azerothian skyline. The picturesque towering citadels of Dalaran float a mile high in the air before him. The breeze causes him to shiver briefly in his heavy plate armor, something is wrong.The shiver has an almost mystical quality to it.
"Greetings," comes a wispy voice from everywhere but nowhere.
"We are performing our weekly scheduled maintenance this morning." Osull gets the feeling that something terrible is about to be said. Bracing himself and looking stoically out towards the bustling city in front of him, he is steadfast in the knowledge that no matter what the challenge before him, Humanity's spirit will always prevail.
"No realms will be... available," the voice says with a nearly sadistic tone to it. He gulps as he realizes that his very existence will be naught during these times, "between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. PST."
The wispy voice fades off with a cackle, leaving him short of breath for a moment. Is this the end? Or will the realms be absent from reality for only a short time? The writings on the wall at W. Insider might be of consequence in the coming day.
Shaking off whatever feelings of mystical terror he has from the encounter with the strange voice, he is reassured that things will eventually return to normal. After all, similar Tuesdays have came and went without much hassle. Except for that one time, when the blasted wizards of the floating city misplaced all the mail in the known worlds. But that was just a single incident, and surely couldn't be repeated again.
At least, that's what he keeps telling himself.
Continue on to read Part II...
Filed under: Fan stuff, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Theyas Feb 17th 2009 12:54AM
INSIGHTFUL!
I enjoyed this :D
Midnarwen Feb 17th 2009 12:54AM
You sir, are full of win.
I get goosebumps thinking about that mail...
Theyas Feb 17th 2009 12:56AM
And by this, I didn't mean the "first" post. I Meant the short little story here.
Risqtish Feb 17th 2009 12:56AM
Those blasted wizards!!
Ellemental Feb 17th 2009 1:01AM
Adam,
If you jinxed the servers..... I will cry.... like a little girl.... and I'm a 26 year old, 6'2" tall 240lb. man.
But I must say, I love the narrative. For a brief moment I thought you were a GM like the one who told me I killed the Abominations just before Baron too quickly and I broke UD Stratholme (true story)
*Crosses fingers*
*mumbles: Please let the stay stable*
repeats ad nauseum
Teeka Feb 17th 2009 12:39PM
Wow. That must have been some fancy-fast abomination-killin'. XD
And yes, I will cry too. And then keep playing, because I am a true addict. :3
*wiggly-finger-spell of server stability!* Begone, demons of crashing! Giant bugs and lag-monsters, you are not welcome on this hallowed realm!
Cadros Feb 17th 2009 6:07PM
Same thing happened to me in Stratholme yesterday... What the devil is going on there?
MightyMuffin Feb 17th 2009 1:03AM
Oh man...I completely forgot about the mail incident. That...was horrible. I think I lost more than I got back...Too much alt bank junk that I just hadn't sold. *shivers* I pray blizz never makes a mistake like that. I'd really hate to log on and realize all characters in game were reset to lvl one and all they're stuff is gone. Or all the NPCs in Dalaran disappear (wait...that might be a good thing for lag...). Or even...MECHA-HOGGER destroys SW and attacks all players no matter where they are in the world...no LOS...no range...nothing.
Ok, I'm gonna have nightmares...I'm gonna stop now before I jinx something.
Ellemental Feb 17th 2009 1:09AM
"Or even...MECHA-HOGGER destroys SW and attacks all players no matter where they are"... Not exactly MECHA-HOGGER, but who remembers when DLK was kited into SW?
need a reminder?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-982380251124231965
Gotta love the server crashing goodness =P
Malkia Feb 17th 2009 1:20AM
Yay! this is an 8 am maintenance! Dalaran cooking daily before work here I come! Sometimes it's not so bad being on the east coast.
Stefanovick Feb 17th 2009 1:41AM
Am I the only one confused here? I mean, maybe President's Day got everyone all confused, but MONDAY is the 16th, and TUESDAY is the 17th....
What's going on here people??
Kaphik Feb 17th 2009 1:44AM
Great...I'm betting it will be extended for some reason, just because I'm not going in to work tomorrow.
Bossy Feb 17th 2009 2:13AM
See Adam, that was the reason you were hired to write he for us Wow addicts.
Beautiful piece and no whining.
Grtz.
Kenzie Feb 17th 2009 2:18AM
As a creative writing major, I absolutely loved this piece. If only the people in my fiction class could write as eloquently as this.
JDRG Feb 17th 2009 1:57PM
Yikes, give Bliz some credit! They run the most stable and productive MMORPG ever. This isnt a bunch of sony slackers at the helm, its the "when its ready" team. I know they have had a few problems but if you cant live without the game for a few extra hours you should seriously restructure your personal priorities. Give Bliz a chance to release the patch, as of now you are preemptively stomping their faces into the dirt. I believe the patch will roll out smoothly, when they are ready to release it. If there is a bump, god forbid, I could go outside?
forsakenwolf777 Feb 17th 2009 2:25AM
normally I don't see the point of announcing something im sure most of us read, but this narrative is excellent. I loved it and felt truly happy reading it.
Itanius Feb 17th 2009 2:58AM
Good stuff, Adam!
Psy Feb 17th 2009 3:19AM
Is WoW Insider going to inform us every week when there is a maintenance due? It's not like we don't know, it does happen on a weekly basis and Blizzard even tell us about it.
Personally, the only information I'd want to hear regarding maintenance is bugs caused by it and any subsequent patches (like that mail incident for example), as well as general patch info.
I don't honestly believe you need to post a "Maintenance for Tuesday " every week unless something has changed drastically. It seems like a waste of time. At least to me anyway.
Wookievomit Feb 17th 2009 3:26AM
Sometimes its a rolling restart and other times its an extended maintenance. So its nice to know what were facing without having to login to wow. I don't know about you but I always check wow related websites before I login to wow.
Mastique Feb 17th 2009 8:55AM
It is nice to be entertained.
Do you realize that posting a wall of text about how much of a waste of time that was, is just as wasteful? It tickles me that people go out of their way to complain about every little thing.
That said, I thought it was brilliant. I almost felt as if I had floated out of my office and was in Dalaran.. but just for a split second.
Its not always about Specs, Recount, and "How much pew pew do you do?" With WoWI, anything goes, and that's the way I like it!
:) Cheers