You may remember a week or two ago when Blizzard's US web sites and related services went down for some scheduled maintenance. The same's happening tonight for the EU web sites starting at midnight Paris time. All related accesses (Account Creation, Subscription Renewal, WoW-Europe forums, the Armory) will also be down. The good news is that they'll be back up by 10am Paris time on June 19th. I doubt we'll see any of the oddities we saw the last time there was web maintenance, but we'll keep our eyes out. This could be the last step before converting Blizzard's online presence to something more thematically geared to the Wrath of the Lich King.

If you're affected by this outage, you can use the time to see what Rob Parkins hasn't been up to, or get some overview of what has been happening in your World...of Warcraft.

The tips that pop up as WoW is loading usually cover the most basic mechanics of the game. I have to admit that I was once surprised by "You can eat and drink at the same time." The idea was completely novel to me and I actually learned something. We've probably seen them all before, and pay them little attention. Some of the ones I've seen lately are:

• Your items do not suffer durability damage when you are killed by another player.
• The auction house in each of your factions' major cities are linked.
• Nearby quest givers that are awaiting your return are shown as a yellow question mark on your mini-map.

Well, we've all made the effort to ignore them. Canika of EU-Spreggar felt that these tips needed an update. He inaugurated the thread, inviting others to share their splash-screen tips with "Common sense; the path toward most epics." Several others chimed in:

• Thalanor of EU-Al'Akir " When interacting with other players - a little kindness may cause them to latch onto you like a leech."
• Jidiro of EU-Sporeggar "It is not which class has more survivibility, it is which class the rogue goes after first"
• Raith of EU-The Maelstrom "Friends come and go epics are soulbound."
• Stronza of Ghostlands "Bring your friends to Azeroth, but don't forget to take them to Outland as well."
• Nagaraz of EU- Earthen Ring "No, you are not the most awesome player on your server."

The thread is filled with similar delightful little gems. I have a few additions of my own.

• Beware of Warlocks bearing gifts.
• Look before you leap, especially if you don't have Slow Fall.
• If at first you don't succeed, it must be the Hunter's fault.
• Every time you dance on a mail box, Blizzard kills a Nightsaber.

What would you add to the character loading screen?

Character customization is on its way into Azeroth-- when Wrath of the Lich King comes around (whenever that is), we'll be able to change the way our characters look more than ever. But Blizzard still isn't interested in letting us change the most major functions of our characters-- Vaneras over on the EU forums makes it pretty clear that gender changes are never going to happen.

Gender changes are still a subject that inspires a little taboo in real-life, but actually, in World of Warcraft, it's something that a lot of players might want. Plus, while it's obvious that Blizzard wouldn't want people changing race or class (since there are actual abilities that go with both of those choices), there is no difference in the game between male and female, save for the cosmetic look. Sure, the story behind it would be a hard workaround (I'll let you imagine how that might play out, or, more likely, not), but allowing gender changes wouldn't upset the game, and would let those who feel they've made the wrong choice, err, "fix" things.

The fact is, however, that just like race and class, the gender you chose when you rolled a character have probably determined that character's existence. While changing the character's gender is just a cosmetic thing in terms of code, it's not in terms of identity, and that's what Blizzard has a problem with. The idea of a role playing game like WoW is that you choose a role to play. And if you have the option to change that role at a moment's notice, what's the point of asking you to choose in the first place?