I saw this thread on the WoW.com general forum. Apparently, there is a hunter on the Earthen Ring realm who has been Grand Marshal for at least NINE MONTHS. Assuming this to be some sort of gross exaggeration, I followed a link to a thread in the Earthen Ring realm forum, and sure enough...Longarms has been Grand Marshal for a very, very long time. Whether it has been 9 months or not is up for debate, but suffice to say he has been a Grand Marshal as long as people can remember.

This takes an incredible amount of time and dedication. I don't think I know anyone who has reached Rank 14 in PvP who has bothered to defend their rank. Some people in the realm thread accuse him of having multiple people playing his account, others claim they have chatted with him and he is the nicest fellow in the world, some question his PvP skill set and a vocal group is annoyed that he has been clogging up the PvP ladder. The general consensus in the thread is that he is a retired guy who just really, really, really...I MEAN REALLY likes PvP.

I don't know the guy, and he wasn't online when I tried to seek him out this evening, but this is one of the more interesting things I have come across in WoW in a good while. Sure, it would be easy to hurl the insults his way, but I am much more interested in his rationale. It is one thing to be a total, 18 hour-a-day WoW addict. Those are a dime a dozen. It is something entirely different to do something that is so unusual it spawns massive threads.

I am shocked this is the first I have heard of this guy. I guess I just don't troll the forums nearly enough. What do you guys think? Anyone know this guy? Is there anyone else in WoW who can claim such a long Grand Marshal run?

Blizzard is rolling out new hardware for several US realms this Thursday, and the process of transferring the realms means - you guessed it, extensive downtime.  The migration will begin on Thursday at 12:01 AM PST and may last as long as 24 hours.  Those of you on effected realms will receive an extra day's credit to your account, which is, I suppose, better than nothing.  Following the migration, Blizzard plans to open character transfers from existing realms to new realms (yet to be opened) to further help with performance and overcrowding issues.

Realms transferring to new hardware are Archimonde, Dalaran, Khadgar, and Mal'Ganis.

Other affected realms include Aggramar, Andorhal, Anetheron, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Dentarg, Duskwood, Earthen Ring, Eonar, Eredar, Executus, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Haomarush, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Malygos, Scilla, Shadow Moon, Steamwheedle Cartel, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.  While these realms are not receiving a hardware upgrade, Tseric explains that current equipment configuration requires this.

Update: The schedule has been pushed back to Thursday.