Quite a few raiders, including some of our own here at WoW Insider, noticed one more big change to a raid boss that that came in with patch 2.4.3: Anetheron, the second boss of Mount Hyjal, was not dropping Towering Infernals on random players as usual. This made the battle pretty trivial for most raids by making it more or less a run of the mill tank and spank.

Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how challenging you like your raids -- this was not an actual intended change. Vaneras and Bornakk are both reporting that Anetheron has been hotfixed and should start dropping infernals again. Sorry guys, no more free loot. Well, no more freer loot, at least.

Forte Gaming, one of the top guilds in World of Warcraft and the world's first to kill Anetheron, disbanded over the weekend. Their web page cites recruitment woes, long delays between content releases, and continually postponed raid times as reasons for the fall. "For many it has felt like a slowly sinking ship for some time and now it's over," says the guild's last post.

Forte was consistently ranked in the top two or three guilds in worldwide rankings and stayed in a tight race with Nihilum for game firsts, snagging no less than nine legendary Warglaives from Illidan in the Black Temple. In their three-year reign, they changed realms three times. Although the raiding arm of the guild (EU Boulderfist-A) will no longer exist, they will still maintain a more casual form of the guild on their previous server (A-Kazzak-EU).

Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.

Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for.

From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:

Raid videos can be monotonous. Most are one long shot of the same spell effects hitting the boss mobs for 20 minutes straight. Then there are videos like this one. Let's list all the things that sets this video apart:

• A 2 minute story-based intro with (are you sitting down?) excellent voice acting
• Dynamic editing synched to the soundtrack that keeps the fights interesting
• Many different types of music to give each encounter its own flavor

For 98% of the WoW population that will never see the Mount Hyjal raid instance, this is video is a gift from the gods.

Previously on Moviewatch...

The world first kills continue. First, Nihilum brought their PTR skillz out to the live servers, and rocked four bosses in one night. Then, they dropped three more just for fun. And now, other guilds are getting in on the action.

Curse reports that Forte from EU Kazzak took out Anetheron in Mount Hyjal on Saturday evening, winning them the world first on that one. Then, on Sunday, Nilhilum (on EU Magtheridon) and Curse (on EU Vek-nilash) both headed into Hyjal, and downed Anetheron and Kaz'rogal-- and this time, Curse picked up the world first on Kaz.

MMO Champion has more, including deets on all the kills (and the fact that Curse also picked up Supremus and High Warlord Naj'entus in the Black Temple-- with only 22 players in the raid!), and screenshots for every kill. So grats to Curse, Forte and especially Nihilum on all their achievements this weekend.

What does all this mean for us casual players? While usually a world first kill means not much more than a tip of the hat, so many kills like this in one weekend might be a sign that Blizzard is getting serious about making the endgame more friendly to casual players. If these hardcore guilds can burn through this content so quickly, it's probably not long before we see more casual guilds moving up the ladder behind them, right?

Several realms (Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Dalaran, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Scilla, Steamwheedle Cartel, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed) were brought down tonight for urgent maintenance around 5:15 PST with a note that expected downtime was to be minimal.  The servers seemed to pop up online again not so long after but the uptime doesn't seem to have last - around 6:30 PST most (all?) are offline again.  Oddly, all of these servers appear to be those running on new hardware...

So reports CM Drysc.  Only sixteen servers (of the original thirty-two) remain offline, and these still could remain offline for the full 24 hours.  However, the progress with so many realms is promising news.  The remaining offline realms are as follows:

Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Dalaran, Dentarg, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Scilla, Steamwheedle Cartel, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed

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.

Community manager Tseric has posted stating that four new realms were scheduled to come up at 12:00 PM PST today.  From the word on the forums, they're up and running.  Anyone looking for a fresh start, here's your chance. 

Duskwood - PvE
Zuluhed - PvP
Anetheron - PvP
Steamwheedle Cartel – RP PvE