Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Ghostcrawler was busy this week. He gave a few interviews to Asian sites this past week. Including this interview from Korea and this from website Chinajoy. The Chinajoy interview really blew up because it seemed to hint a new support class and playable naga, as well as new areas we might visit in the next expansion. Of course, naga weren't really confirmed, but it's still the tidbit that most intrigued me. Playing a snake person might be fun, but I admit, naga are 3rd for me being high elves and ethereals. Yes, I know high elves would just be blue-eyed blood elves. I don't care. Just give the horde Eredar and make them red-skinned draenei, and we're even.

Downtime today is slated to start at 3 a.m. PDT and last 8 hours. Luckily, with patch 5.4 still on the PTR, we have plenty of news to keep you busy while you wait. Read on for the usual roundup.

Hot news and features

• World of Warcraft is down to 7.7 million subscribers. At the same time, Activision-Blizzard has bought itself from its former parent company, Vivendi.
• Check out some of the highlights of the latest patch 5.4 PTR build.
• Read up on some of the new rare events and items available from the Timeless Isle in patch 5.4.
• The Patch 5.4 legendary cloak quest is in, and we have a video preview.
• We have a preview of the upcoming raid boss Thok the Bloodthirsty.
• There's new mounts coming from the Siege of Orgrimmar.

• Glyph of the Weaponmaster in patch 5.4 will let warriors take those old legendary weapons out of storage.
• The new Celestial Tournament for battle pets is in testing on the PTR, and there's some fun stuff coming out of it, including interesting opponents and lots of new pets.
• Check out this video of new transmogs from Timeless Isle and new cosmetic class glyphs.
• Patch 5.4 includes an item that nearly kills you, but then lets you kill other players for special currency.
• Check out the latest patch 5.3 hotfixes for July 19, July 23, and July 26.
• New client strings in the PTR files could point to Battle Coins as new in-game currency for the Blizzard store.
• The SDCC 2013 Blizzard Licensing Panel is now online.

Class news and guides

• The Light And How To Swing It looks at protection paladin glyphs in patch 5.4.
• Blood Pact rounds up the latest warlock changes for patch 5.4.
• Lichborne offers some advice for completing Wrathion's epic cloak challenge.
• Encrypted Text discusses the controversy and possible removal of Preparation.
• The Care And Feeding of Warriors has some words about Single-Minded Fury.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Blizzard is introduing a new series of new player guides on the official website.
• We have a guide to dealing with a hacked WoW account.
• Is First Aid overdue for a revamp?

Odds and ends

• The long-anticipated Blood of the Highborne novella may finally be on its way.
• Blizzard's announced their playable games at Gamescom 2013.
• Blizzard has trademarked the phrase Cute But Deadly. Could this be the tagline for the upcoming children's book?
• Know Your Lore discusses some of the lost and obscure worlds that we haven't visited yet. We also review the nature of magic in the Warcraft universe.
• 15 Minutes of Fame interviews someone who was inspired to become a real life leatherworker because of WoW.

---

Tags: downtime, extended-downtime, extended-maintenance, last-week-in-wow, maintenance, realm-downtime, realm-maintenance, 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