Posts with tag rolling-restarts

Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone. As the week gets in full gear, we here at WoW insider are mostly still basking in the post-PAX afterglow. Alas, I was not among the attendees, but my coworkers who did make the trip to Boston had a blast, and the panel went well. If you missed it, why not use this week's downtime as an excuse to listen to the panel? We even have footage of the first 10 minutes.

If you can't make time to listen right now, don't worry. We still have plenty of news for you to catch up on. In addition to all the juicy stuff from the Mists of Pandaria beta, we have some pretty big site news. Yes, that is a new comment system you're seeing. Luckily, the world hasn't ended, as some were predicting, so you should still be able to use it. Downtime today is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PDT, but with all this good stuff to read or listen to, you may want to stick around anyway. Read on for more.

Mists of Pandaria news and features

• We have a spoiler-free overview of the Mists of Pandaria beta.
• We take a first look at monk leveling in the beta.
• Raid Rx has a basic guide to the mistweaver healing monk.

I'm sure by now, everyone's heard the biggest news of the week. With the NDA expired on the press tour, we've been hit with a glut of information the new Mists of Pandaria expansion. I'm not sure what my favorite part is. Is it the identity of Mists of Pandaria's final boss? Is it the fact that I'll get to play some Team Fortress? It's hard to choose, really.

But don't let me decide for you. After the break, we'll have our usual roundup, including a section devoted to all the new expansion news you can handle. You'll only have to deal with rolling restarts this morning at 5:00 a.m. PDT, but expansion news is worth a few extra minutes, right? Keep on reading for the full rundown.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. This week, we were treated to an update about an update about an update, as Zarhym first tweeted about the announcement of an upcoming press event for Mists of Pandaria and Nethaera posted about it the next day. The gist of it all, though, is that we have to wait a whole month for any major amount of expansion news. However, once that goes down, the floodgates should open. Still, because of this, I am officially declaring February the new cruelest month.

Don't worry about the meantime, though -- we here at WoW Insider will continue to keep you informed and entertained as we wait for the next big thing. Right now, we've got all the news about the recently released patch 4.3.2, as well as end of Cataclysm retrospectives, guides to avoiding the most common mistakes your class makes, and much more. In addition, there are three world events going on right now, and we have guides to them all. Downtime today is a quick series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, so while you wait for server to stabilize, why not see what we have to offer?

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The big news of this week is probably patch 4.3.2, which is on the PTR. For the most part, it's bringing us minor balance changes and bug fixes, but there are a few big things in there, including a 64-bit client and the advent of raiding with your cross-realm friends. You still can't raid Dragon Soul with your friends from that PvP server you refuse to roll on, but you can at least do Raid Finder runs, as well as any classic raid your heart desires. Now you can sucker even more people into those legendary farming runs!

With a new patch on test the servers and the last of the post-holiday doldrums more or less shaken off, you better believe there's plenty of good news and interesting stuff to read from the past week. Downtime this week is a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, which of course gives you time for a nice mid-morning or early afternoon break to catch up on the news. Read on for the usual run-down.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. This week has had its share of silence, for sure. I'm not sure if the folks at Blizzard's just enjoying the last bit of the holidays or secretly playing that other game, but either way, they didn't have much to say this week. That's not say there wasn't activity and stuff to discuss, not at all. The Darkmoon Faire's back in town, for one, and we've all been looking back at some of the best and worst stuff to come out of 2011. This is also the week we had to say goodbye to that freaking sweet corgi in the picture above. We can only pray Blizzard gives him back to us a pet some time in the future. If they do not, it shall surely go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest MMO tragedies of all time.

Downtime this morning is a series of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. PST, so you should have time to dig in to all the retrospectives and guides we have ready for you. Read on for the usual roundup.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! Hopefully everyone has successfully roused themselves from their holiday food comas and dug themselves out of piles of wrapping paper. For most of us, today probably marks a return to the good old-fashioned work grind, but hey. We still have a few more days of Winter Veil, and think of it this way: Now that the holidays are over, we can go back to focusing on the important stuff, like figuring out when Mists of Pandaria's going into beta.

Downtime this morning is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, but hey, you should still have time to get caught up on the news from the past few days. Don't let the holiday season fool you -- there was a lot of it. Read on to catch up.

Happy Tuesday morning, everybody, and a very merry Winter Veil. Hopefully you've been celebrating, either by entering our 12 Days of Winter Veil contests or by going for in-game achievements. Then again, maybe you just don't care for that stuff and want to keep doing what you normally do -- and hey, that's cool too.

No matter how you celebrate, you'll have to take a short break this morning as Blizzard applies rolling restarts to the servers starting at 10 a.m. PST. Don't worry though, we got lots of stuff for you to read while you wait. Read on after the break for our usual roundup of the last week's content, including some awesome Warcraft gift ideas for you last-minute shoppers.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The biggest news we're likely to see in a while, is, of course, not coming this week. Patch 4.3 will remain on the test servers for at least one more week, as Nov. 29 marks the projected end of the latest PvP season.

That said, there's plenty of new to be had this week, from Black Friday sales to more ways to earn conquest points. We have the usual roundup after the break -- but hey, if reading bulleted lists isn't your thing (or even if it is), why not try it in video form? Right up there, our own Mat McCurley delivers the big headlines of the past week, and he looks and sounds prettier than I do while doing it. You can catch him every Friday right here on the site.

With that, we pretty much have a way to deliver the news to whichever sense you like. Want to watch it? We have video. Want to hear it? We have a podcast. Want to read it? That goes without saying. We're still working on tasting it, but give us a few years. Whatever way you take your news, downtime today is a quick set of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. Pacific, so you'll have at least a little time to get caught up.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. While we received notice this past week that PvP season 10 could end as early as today, a later tweet from Bashiok confirmed the actual end date will be Nov. 29. Alas, this means we can't expect patch 4.3 until at least that date, meaning this will end up being the longest half a month ever, and I won't be able to spend my Thanksgiving vacation running End Time until my eyes bleed.

In an effort to keep myself entertained in the meantime, I've turned to one man: the Guy on a Buffalo. This man is the paragon, nay, the pinnacle of what humanity can be. Let his power and majesty inspire you, with dreams of his ruggedness filling the nights and days until patch 4.3 drops. ... Also, the song is pretty catchy.

Buffalo riding aside, there is a lot of cool stuff going on in WoW news, right from the class balance Q&A to WoW Insider's first children's book and first weekly WoW news vidcast. Downtime today is a quick series of rolling restarts starting at 5 a.m. Pacific, so why not take some time and get caught up? Our usual roundup awaits after the break.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. I hope no one overindulged too much in candy or alcoholic beverages last night -- or if you did, I hope you're not too bad off. Myself, I'm finding that while I avoided getting the con crud, I seem to have picked up the Halloween party pestilence instead.

Downtime this morning consists of a series of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. PDT. So whether you're fighting off a fall cold, a hangover, or a tummy ache -- or if you're feeling fine, you lucky bum -- you should have some time to read up on the week's news with us. There's a good mix of patch 4.3 and BlizzCon 2011 stuff to review, so you'll probably want to read on.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. While we're all waiting with bated breath for the PTR to drop, there's at least a trickle of patch 4.3 info coming our way. We learned that rogues get to look like Batman, and that the tier 13 set bonuses are sort of weird. It was a pretty slow Monday, however, and as of this writing, we've heard nothing new about when the PTR will open.Hope springs eternal. I'm just hoping the new dungeons are up ASAP, because I can't wait to take out that lady up there, even if it's just as an echo from the future.

Downtime this morning is just a quick series of rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PDT, but whether you're waiting out that quick server restart or waiting for news of the PTR, keep it here with us. We'll have all the news as soon as it breaks. In the meantime, you can catch our usual roundup of the past seven days' news, after the break.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! I've been playing the original KOTOR lately, after having it sit in my Steam games library for way too long, and it's strangely awesome. I haven't played an old RPG that's held up this well in a long time. Of course, it's also made me really want to try SWTOR, so there's the downside.

Anyway, I have Star Wars on my mind, so when those upcoming Firelands nerfs came up, it got me thinking. Could we call Blizzard developers nerfherders now? And if so, does that mean they are all awesome, roguish smugglers who totally shot first? Because I think I am OK with this.

Downtime today is just a quick set of rolling restarts, starting at 5 a.m. PDT. While you wait for those to finish up, there's plenty of juicy news to catch up beyond the break, from new patch 4.3 sneak peaks to patch 4.2 hotfix hijinks. Read on to check it all out.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Probably one of the most intriguing pieces of news this week was a little quote from Tom Chilton, who was heard to say that the whole "Mists of Pandaria" thing was totally overhyped. Honestly, as much as I used to say that Mists of Pandaria probably wasn't an actual expansion, this answer sort of changes my mind. If Chilton wanted to deny the existence of the Mists as an actual product, this would have been a perfect time to do it. Instead, he gave a perfect, classic little Blizzard non-answer -- sure, he said Mists of Pandaria was overhyped, but he didn't say it wasn't the next expansion. I don't know. Now I'm thinking we are headed to a misty little island somewhere to grind to level 90.

Whether you think we're headed to Pandaria for the next expansion or not, there's plenty of new for you to peruse in this week's roundup. While this morning's downtime consists primarily of rolling restarts, a small handful of servers will have some extra downtime from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you'll have at least some time to get caught up. Stay tuned as well for more patch 4.3 news. When it breaks, we'll have it here.

So despite the continued lack of a patch 4.3 PTR, the patch 4.3 news came in with a vengeance this week. Not only did threat become trivial, but we're going to see active mitigation for tanks and extra bank storage for your stray item sets and fashion pieces. We found out that cross-realm raiding is in the works. We also learned that Deathwing will be the final boss of patch 4.3. But all that pales in comparison to the #1 news: We're getting cosmetic armor slots.

Sure, there are restrictions (some of them more arbitrary than others), but we're finally getting them. I figure it's all about baby steps. Sure, my death knight can't wear an eyepatch for now. My rogue won't be able to wear a Corsair's Overshirt and be a swashbuckler. And I'll have to defer my dreams of my warrior becoming a leather-clad berserker. But sooner or later, maybe Blizzard will realize that it's not a bad thing to offer your players even more choices and that in a game with a distinguished history of poop quests and featuring such NPCs as Mylune, Goblin Hitler, and Linken, maybe a rogue dual wielding fish isn't really all that immersion-breaking after all.

All that said, it looks like we're no closer to the patch 4.3 PTR this week, as all we get is a quick set of rolling restarts for downtime, starting at 5 a.m. PDT. While you're waiting for your server to come back up, you'll definitely want to catch up on all the patch 4.3 buzz here. Our usual roundup awaits you after the break.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's been a sort of weird week in WoW. Patch 4.2.2 is on the PTR but doesn't seem to provide any major changes other than correcting a few tooltips. It does, however, make us all sort of antsier than ever for patch 4.3, and Community Manager Nethaera only stoked those flames with the release of the above screenshot. She neglected, however, to reveal what it signified.

This, of course, has set off a firestorm of comments and theories. Could it mean playable ethereals in the next expansion? Could it be a red herring to distract us from the Pandaren? Could it just be a non sequitur thrown up by a bored CM? Myself, I'm going for the theory that we'll see some new features in patch 4.3 introduced lorewise by Consortium vendors in capital cities. That said, only time will tell for sure. For now, the folks at Blizzard aren't saying any more, and so we wait.

On the plus side, you won't have to wait too long for the servers to come back up this morning. We're dealing with some rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PDT, after which we should be free and clear. While you're waiting out the short downtime, be sure to catch up all things WoW with our usual roundup, after the break.