Posts with tag scheduled-downtime

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! As you probably know, Diablo III's release date is today. With over 1 million Annual Pass subscribers set to receive free digital copies of the game, chances you or a guildmate is going to playing this game. As someone who's been a huge fan of the Diablo series for over a decade, I can vouch for the series. If you need something else to keep your attention while we wait for Mists of Pandaria to go live, you could easily do worse, that's for sure.

If you're interested in checking out Diablo III, I'd suggest you look at the following articles we've published to get you up to speed.

• Here are six blue posts that you must read.
• We offer some tips on fixing common Diablo III installation issues.
• We have a quick guide to the basics of Diablo gameplay.
• Rossi gets you up to speed on the lore of the Diablo franchise.
• My basic introduction to Diablo is a few months old, but it's a good read.
• Alex explains why we're covering Diablo III on a WoW site.

If you're not into Diablo, don't worry. We still have plenty of the WoW coverage you expect. With new beta patches coming all the time, there's a lot of it, too. Downtime today is just a series of rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PDT, so that's at least enough time to read a quick article or two.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. With a new wave of 400,000 Mists of Pandaria beta invites having gone out this past week, everyone with an Annual Pass should now have their invites. If you have yours, you may want to read up on our guides to being a better beta tester.

I have to admit, when I am not testing my death knight, one of the things I have been doing is creating monks of various races to get a feel for whose combat animations look the coolest. Of course, none of them quite face up to pandaren just because they all have the whole issue of being old models, but you get some cool moves. I'm finding I really like Forsaken monks. They almost hearken back to the old ghouls of WCIII that they came from.

Whether you're in the beta or not, you'll want to keep reading. We have all the latest beta news you'll want to know about, as well as class news, opinions, and the rest. Downtime today is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you should have time to get caught up. Keep reading for more.

Hot news and features

• Patch 4.3.3 is live, and with it, some changes to the customer support UI. We'll show you the ropes.
• Check out the latest patch 4.3 hotfixes for April 17.
• World bosses are coming back with a vengeance in Mists of Pandaria, and Matt has a quick guide to etiquette and expectations for taking them down.
• Chase takes a look at three monk abilities that call back to classic fighting games.
• Rossi offers a beginner's guide to WoW lore.
• Anne offers some advice for dealing with in-game harassment.
• Brian takes a look at what WoW players search for on Google.
• We offer more transmogrification looks based off old Nintendo favorites.
• Rossi wonders if flying mounts caused more harm than good.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. We seem to have settled into a nice, mid-beta groove with Mists of Pandaria. There's nothing earth-shattering going on, maybe, but we're still getting a steady diet of awesome news coming our way and the promise of even more as the beta continues. Overall, it's a pretty exciting time to be a fan of WoW.

Scheduled realm maintenance this morning is from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you should have plenty of time to get caught up the week's news. Keep reading for our usual roundup.

Mists of Pandaria news and features

• Check out these awesome new jewelcrafting mount models. And if that's not enough, there's even a super-expensive version.
• There are also new emote animations for female pandaren.
• Here's a video of some more awesome new mounts coming with Mists of Pandaria.
• Josh takes a look at five super-exciting new monk abilities.
• When's Mists of Pandaria's release date? We took a look at past patch and beta development cycles for clues.

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.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The beta invite floodgates have opened. If you didn't get a beta invite yet (or even if you did), have no worry. Our tireless team is constantly scouring the beta, ready to bring you the latest news and guides to exploring the new areas, using the new features, and taking in the sights of Mists of Pandaria.

You can check after the break for a special Mists of Pandaria section, along with a roundup of the rest of the past week's news. Downtime is currently scheduled for 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you should have plenty of time to read through it all.

Mists of Pandaria news and features

• In the latest Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler explains the new Mists of Pandaria loot systems. He also explained spec-specific quest rewards.
• Have a look at our gallery of screenshots from the pandaren starter zone.
• Check out our overview of Temple of the Jade Serpent, one of the first new dungeons in Mists.
• Pandaren totems have been uncovered.
• We also take a gander at the new Dungeon and Raid Finder UI.
• Check out some of the awesome new archaeology items from the beta.
• We have a gallery of pandaren male customization options. We also have a pandaren male facial hair gallery. Finally, we take a look at male pandaren hairstyles.
• New quest markers should making questing pretty fun and easy. There are even quest markers for the world map.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The Mists of Pandaria beta is now under way, but if you don't have an invitation yet, don't feel too bad. Blizzard hasn't even opened up the continent of Pandaria yet. That said, there's still plenty of stuff to uncover, both from datamining and from exploring changes to the system and to the old world. Even if your beta invitation never comes, though, don't worry. We have you covered.

Keep on reading for a roundup of all the juicy beta info we've uncovered over the past week, and stay with us in the weeks to come as we keep you abreast of all the panda news that's fit to print. Downtime today is scheduled for 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you should have plenty of time to get caught up.

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. If you're reading this, congratulations. You're one of the lucky few to survive the reaper onslaught. Alas, you cannot take comfort in WoW, as it's going to be down for an extra-long maintenance from 1 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST. That's fine, though -- I'm sure quite a few of us are going to be too busy taking back Earth anyway. I know I am. I owe Emily Wong that much.

WoW news is still a little sparse as we wait for the Mists of Pandaria press event, but don't think we're in a drought here. Ghostcrawler gave us some inside info on new stat changes coming to the game, Dave "Fargo" Kosak talked about Cataclysm quest design, and as always, we had lots of analysis and information of our own to do. Read on for a roundup of the good stuff.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. As we inch closer and closer to the Mists of Pandaria press event, the Mists news still continues to come out in a small trickle. This week, hot on the heels of Mat's mount speculation, Blizzard announced that we'll be getting yak mounts in the upcoming expansion. Whether those will be the pandaren racial mount or come from some other source hasn't been clarified -- but hey, yaks are cool.

We should also repeat the warning here that patch 4.3.3 may be dropping this morning, and when it does, it will break the 64-bit client, so beware if you've been trying that out. Luckily, a new version is expected soon. Other than that, it may be a slow news week, but that doesn't mean that we've slowed down. Stay with us for our usual roundup of news, features, and opinions, including more analysis of the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator changes from last week. Maintenance this week is from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you'll have plenty of time to catch up.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Well, things may seem deceptively lull-like, signs seem to point to the idea that the Pandaria train is building up steam. This week bought us an update to the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator. You can check the class news section below to see if we've dissected the updates for your favorite class yet. If we haven't, it's coming soon (maybe even today!).

Scheduled maintenance this morning is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you should have time to catch up on all the latest WoW news while your realm's down. Read on for a list of some of our best articles from the past seven days.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. As expected, we marked yet another week without any significant Mists of Pandaria news, but it's all good. We did get some gaming news about another pretty huge upcoming release, including a glimpse at the girl I'm spending Valentine's Day with. So I'm fine. Pandaria can wait.

That said, there was still some prime WoW news in the pipeline over the last week. We had the Activision Blizzard investor conference call, where we learned that WoW lost only 100,000 subscribers since last count, mostly on the strength of the WoW annual pass. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street held a discussion on class roles. We also got a new Blizzard representative on the story forums, Nyorloth, who's already starting things off we a bang with a shipping thread. Heck, we even heard that a Warcraft Monopoly game is in the works. There's a downtime filler for you.

Downtime this is week is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so in lieu of Warcraft Monopoly, we have plenty of stuff for you to read, both in the paragraph above and in our usual roundup below.

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?

For the past few weeks, Blizzard's toyed with us just a bit. Monday night bought a posted announcement of extended downtime, only for the morning to feature naught but rolling restarts. As of this writing, we're once again starting with a 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST downtime announcement. Will it stick this time? I suppose by the time you read this, we'll know.

Still, it's a win-win situation. If I'm right, I'm right. If Blizzard changes back to rolling restarts, we get to play the game again sooner. In the meantime, there's still stuff to read while the game's down. The biggest news we've gotten out of Blizzard thus far has been one of negatives: BlizzCon is gone, at least for this year. This means we'll have to party even harder in 2013, but what do we do in the meantime? For now, I suggest we catch up on reading. We've kept busy even with the dearth of news, offering guides and opinions you'll want to read. While you wait for the servers to come back up, why not read on? Our usual roundup of the best stuff from the past seven days awaits.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The steady trickle of blue posts hinting at the possibility of maybe kind of sort of somewhat having some new news about Mists of Pandaria keep coming, but they also speak of a long time before we get something like an alpha test or any meaty updates. And so we are in something of a drought, and it looks like we'll be journeying toward Pandaria for some time yet.

Of course, that's not say we've had no news at all. The Dragon Soul nerf news came down the pipe this week, for example, and as you might expect caused a whole lot of uproar. In addition, the Lunar Festival has started up for the year, and we have our usual achievement guide ready to guide you. We even have an interview with a guy who made 1 million gold and gave it all away. Realm maintenance this morning is a nice, extended 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you'll have plenty of time to get caught up on everything. Read on for our usual roundup.

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.