UPDATE#3:
Nov 12 – All servers are down AGAIN, this time for a last minute ‘scheduled maintenance’. Servers went down at approximately 7:00 AM Eastern time, with the only estimate being that servers should start going up again in 3 hours.
UPDATE#2:
Apparently mail wasn’t the only problem after this patch – many servers reported PVP gear pricing being out of whack, which some PVP gear being severely discounted or absolutely free. Blizzard has requested that WoW players refrain from exploiting this bug.
UPDATE #1:
Blizzard has just announced that realms *should* be back up by 9:00 PM Eastern Time and WoW players will receive in-game mail about the mail issue…
In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, World of Warcraft (WoW) has been completely disabled with all servers down since 8AM Eastern Time. The fact that all WoW servers/realms are down on a Tuesday morning isn’t unexpected – every WoW player knows that Tuesday is traditionally patch/maintenance day – but according to a blue post on the official Blizzard World of Warcraft website posted by the official Blizzard Poster Edralor, today’s patch threw everyone for a real loop. Apparently all mail in WoW player’s mailboxes pre-patch disappeared post-patch on every server. Every.Server.
Yikes! While Blizzard appears to be working diligently to repair this all-realm error, there is still no time estimate available as to when any servers will be up. This is affecting all WoW realms, both United States and Oceanic.
Many WoW players were anticipating an update of the pre-WotLK world events on the servers today, which started with a Zombie Plague and then moved in to a Scourge Invasion. Orgimmar (a major Horde faction city) was apparently under attack by frost wyrmlings and other monsters, and the Stormwind (a major Alliance faction city) had the King down at the Harbor as of late yesterday. So today’s all-server down time delay is a real frustration for those of us eager to find out what the WoW world event had to bring next, especially with the WotLK release date of November 13 just around the corner.
With millions of players scrambling to complete their Burning Crusade quests, add to their Achievements list, and amass as much WoW goldz as possible pre-release, this server down time snafu couldn’t have come at a worse time. New players should take heed that massive lag, server queues, and extended down time should be expected once WotLK is released – don’t assume you’ll zip right through leveling and hit 80 on your WoW main character by the weekend.
Take advantage of the server down time to research Northrend quests or find tips on leveling your professions – or have a back up game to take the edge off while you wait for your server to be available again. I’ll be working on more articles including how I earned over 20,000 gold in 6 weeks in preparation for the WotLK release, so be sure to subscribe to my articles or add my profile to your favorites for that and other articles to maximize your WoW experience.
And cross your fingers that servers will be up in time for you to meet your pre-release goals!