Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The patch 5.0.4 PTR is live now, complete with patch notes. While it's not Mists itself, it's another milestone on the road and another sign that a release date might just be coming our way soon. The big news for me this week though is the possibility of a Digital Deluxe version of the expansion. As someone who makes almost all of his media purchases in digital form these days, including his computer games, I love that I may finally have that choice in Mists. On the other hand, I've been buying those big old Collector's Edition boxes for years now. Do I really want to break that tradition?

While I sit here and agonize over my answer, why don't you check out our usual roundup of the past seven days' news? Downtime this week is just another set of rolling restarts -- but hey, why not give the servers a few more minutes to calm down?

Hot news and features

• The Mists of Pandaria opening cinematic will debut at 8:00 a.m. EDT on Aug. 16. In the meantime, you can watch the pandaren introduction video instead.
• Do you like daily quests? There will be 48 per day available in Mists of Pandaria. Olivia's not too sure she'll be doing them.
• Still, you may want to get used to doing dailies if you want reputation. Mists faction tabards won't grant reputation in dungeons.
• In order to promote pet hunting, wild battle pets will not be tradable.

• Mists of Pandaria features a lot of interesting rare mobs with some tempting drops.
• Matticus takes a shot at the new pet battle system. We also have a roundup of other pet battle guides and impressions.
• Wowhead offers a roundup of Mists dungeon journals and loot tables.
• Rossi gets personal with Warcraft and laments the shrinking dungeon.
• We offer some pet battle-themed transmogrifications.

Class news and guides

• Do you play a hunter? You're going to want this macro when Mists of Pandaria drops.
• Druids get a sweet new travel form in Mists.
• Ghostcrawler had a lot to say about warriors and rage in Mists this week. Rossi, of course, had a response of his own.
• Shifting Perspectives offers a Mists of Pandaria gear guide for guardian druids. We also tell you why you should play a druid.
• Lichborne discusses some of the latest beta changes to Soul Reaper and Blood Tap.
• Totem Talk talks preparing your restoration shaman for Mists.
• The Light And How To Swing It fixes Inquisition and looks at the latest protection paladin changes.
• Scattered Shot takes a look at the latest hunter changes over on the beta.
• Encrypted Text looks at the evolution of rogue PvP.
• Arcane Brilliance still loves mages.
• Blood Pact looks ahead to patch 5.0.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Blood Sport provides you with a PvP glossary.
• Addon Spotlight highlights four more essential addons.
• The Overachiever has a guide to the Bloody Rare achievement.
• WoW Archivist looks back at the Onyxia attunement quest for the Horde.

Odds and ends

• Know Your Lore investigates the mystery of Morgan's Militia and showcases Lor'themar Theron.
• 15 Minutes of Fame showcases a guild built for people with social anxiety.
• Would one, single realm work for WoW?

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Tags: downtime, last-week-in-wow, maintenance, realm-downtime, realm-maintenance, rolling-restart, rolling-restarts, roundup, roundups, scheduled-downtime, scheduled-maintenance, server-downtime, server-maintenance, server-status, tuesday, tuesday-downtime, tuesday-maintenance, tuesday-morning, tuesday-morning-post

Filed under: Realm Status, News items