1. Breaking "our" addons and mods.
2. Incorporating features from popular addons into the default User Interface, and thus breaking addons and mods. There's also a sentiment that Blizzard is "stealing" these ideas rather than being innovators.
   
3. Fixing "their" bugs which in turn breaks "our" addons and mods. The suggestion is that they don't care, or could take steps to prevent this.
   

Gallery: Patch drama

Here's a quick heads up: It looks like tomorrow's maintenance will be lasting from 3am PDT to 11am PDT, for a total downtime of 8 hours. Anyone who usually plays during that time, it looks like you'll have to find something else to do (such as read WoW Insider).

An 8 hour downtime sometimes heralds a new patch, and we do have patch 2.4.3, which features land mounts at level 30 and a Cheat Death nerf, on the PTR at the moment. Then again, there was a new version of the patch applied just a few days ago, which could mean they'll want some more testing time, so we can't say for sure if it's coming.

Right now, I'd say that there's an even chance that we'll see 2.4.3 going live tomorrow, but either way, stayed tuned to WoW Insider. We'll let you know as soon as we know for sure.

As we mentioned the other day, The Hallow's End event is now live for testing on the 2.4.3 PTR. As seems to be the general case, Kisirani's world event team hasn't been resting on their laurels, but has been relatively steadily upgrading and fleshing out holidays as they come up. Hallow's End looks to be the latest holiday to get a change or two in the form of some new Headless Horseman loot, discovered by MMO-Champion.

The Brewfest is currently live for testing on the PTR, and one of the biggest changes is the addition of yet another holiday specific boss, Coren Direbrew. Coren himself isn't completely new. He was also present in the Grim Guzzler last year, when he would give you a quest to deliver brew to the Brewfest and get an offhand tankard in return. This year, however, it appears he's a bit more surly. Instead of simply completing a quest, this time you need to fight him.

Luckily, the loot he drops is more than worth the hassle. Most of it is clones of the trinkets available for badges from G'eras, but there's also a couple other drops that look like a lot of fun. Overall, the loot should draw a lot of people out to Blackrock Depths to beat him up.

A list of his loot is coming up after the break.

You may remember that we announced that a Brewfest Kodo was hidden in the WoTLK Alpha files some time ago. With patch 2.4.3, the Kodo did in fact get into this year's Brewfest. The Brewfest is currently open for testing on the PTR, and you can see the Kodos for yourselves - but only on the Horde side.

That's right. Blizzard has added the Kodo mount, but not in the way many of us had hoped. The Ram mount is now available for purchase only on the Alliance side, and the Kodo mount only on the Horde side. Kisirani has confirmed that this is intended. She says that they came to this decision only after much deliberation, but it's likely staying, although she'll listen to constructive criticism. As you can imagine, this has not been well received.

In case you were wondering, there will be premade characters for the 2.4.3 PTR before all is said and done, according to Hortus. There's no word for sure on why they're needed, what gear they'll have, or when they'll come along, but they'll be here. You'll need an account that had Burning Crusade activated before these PTRs went live, and when the time comes, you'll be able to sandbox it up with a fresh new premade while you help test the patch.

This phase, says Hortus, is also not intended for testing Season 4 gear, since it was already tested on a previous PTR. Besides, with 4 days left until Season 4 goes live, the 2.4.3 patch won't be on live servers until Season 4 is well underway. That said, it looks like most (but not all) of the Season 4 gear is still on the PTR right now, so if you want to go check it out, you can fly up to Area 52 on the PTR and check out Big Zokk Torquewrench's wares. Of course, you can also expect us to give you all the Season 4 news you need in the next few days here at WoW Insider as well, including gear guides.

Also, Mages and Warlocks are reporting that their self-buff armor spells are now no longer dispellable on the PTR servers. That's a nice chunk of mana you won't have to waste recasting after a stray Purge in PvP. We'll be watching the PTRs for more undocumented changes, oddities, and happenings, so be sure to keep it here for the rest of the testing cycle for all the news and analysis you'll need when the patch goes live.

• Mounts at level 30
• Changes to non-combat pets
• Curse of Shadow and Curse of Elements have been combined
• Hunter pet changes
• Magisters' Terrace nerf
• Changes to Rogue's Cheat Death ability
  

Daniel told you last night that the official PTR boards were up and character copy was live...but no actual PTR servers were active. We've known a 2.4.3 was going to exist for a little while, since Iriel mentioned it in the UI forums. But, the mystery of when seems to be over at least. Hortus announced on the PTR forum that the 2.4.3 PTR is on its way, and the forums just happen to be up a little early. It's coming fairly soon, too -- he's already telling us to delete our old WoWtest folder in preparation.

2.4.3 seems likely to be built of minor bug-fixes. We've not seen any of the doom and gloom that tends to surround class balance. It's definitely feeling to me like Blizzard's taking the time and effort to shore up their services as they prepare for Wrath of the Lich King. Still, let's see what 2.4.3 has for us.

One of the biggest surprises Hunters found when they logged on after this morning's patch was that all was not as it was supposed to be. Although the tool tip for Scare Beast reads as instant cast, the old 1.5 second cast time is still intact. Netheara confirmed that the reversion of the cast time was, in fact, intentional. It was considered too strong and reverted, although the 30 yard range buff is still intact. The instant cast designation in the tool tip is an error that will be fixed.

We don't know for sure yet if patch 2.4.2 is hitting the live servers tomorrow, but there's a few clues that may suggest we're going to see it soon. First is that maintenance tomorrow morning will be extended, from 3am-11am PST. Extended maintenance doesn't always mean a patch, sometimes it's for hardware upgrades or other reasons. However, if there's patch, there is generally extended maintenance.

But there is one other sign that could be a harbinger of 2.4.2. Tipster Phillip pointed out to us that the PTR servers are currently down. There's hasn't been an official notice posted on the US PTR Forums as of this writing, but there is an official notice of the end of testing on the European forums. Certainly, Blizzard's already had one false stop on the 2.4.2 PTR, but it could be that the second time is a charm.

If you need to jog your memory on 2.4.2's content, check out the initial patch notes here and the undocumented changes (most of which have since been folded into the official test server patch notes) here.

You can also read about the Hunter changes and their fallout here, with articles on Growl, Scare Beast, and some of the controversy and math problems surrounding the Growl change.