Blizzard has released tonight the patch notes for patch 2.4.2, which means the PTR will probably be up and running sometime soon. Patch 2.4 will likely be the last major patch before Wrath of the Lich King, and we expect to see a couple more of these minor patches before WotLK comes out.

Highlights of 2.4.2 include:

• Changes to the way arena points are calculated - essentially what Drysc talked about earlier.
  
• Void Shatter no longer has a cooldown, and other cooldowns have been reduced.
• Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid wipes during his death speech.
• If you are sheeped / polymorphed by a mob, you will no longer gain back health (ie: the mass sheep in Aran, which regens your health before he fire blasts the raid). This is a potentially large change.
• Many main hand weapons are now one hand weapons.
• A good list of bug fixes, including several problems associated with sounds.
  

Full patch notes for your convenience after the break!

In this installment of Addon Spotlight, I wanted to give you all a chance to alleviate the irritation that came with Patch 2.4 and the changes to the chat log. Notorious addon developer Tekkub has put together a quick fix to force the chat frame to apply filters at login. This will also apply to ChatFrame2, your combat log. Blizzard tried unsuccessfully to fix the problems with the chat log in Patch 2.4.1, so until they work out the problems, this addon can be your solution.

Here is Tekkub's write-up:

'Patch 2.4 introduced a bug where ChatFrame1 does not apply channel filters on login. This addon forces them to be applied. It will check your game version and build and not run after patch 2.4.1 build 8125. If the bug is not fixed in the next patch, a new version will be released."

A man of few words, but an active member of the WoW addon community nonetheless. He has his own site, as well as a collection on WoWInterface.com. I'm new to Tekkub's addons which are either aptly named or named with a unique, and borderline naughty, convention. However, this dev has been very proactive about his addons and responds quickly to changes in the game. Check out this addon if you've been struggling with the chat log and combat log changes since Patch 2.4. While you're at it, test drive some of Tekkub's other gadgets and let me know how they're treating you, as I'm in the process myself and would love to hear your opinion as well. Dismissed!

2.4.1's had a chance to settle in, and as usual, people have been finding a few extra changes that didn't get in the patch notes.

There's nothing too earth shattering, though any Shamans out there who have been trying a dual-wield elemental hybrid build might be feeling a bit set back, since quite a few +spell damage one handers have been changed to main hand only, namely Sedai's Blade, Terokk's Gavel, Archmage's Guile, Seeker's Gavel, K'iru's Presage, and the Battle-mace of the High Priestess. Those of you jewelcrafters who have been feeling guilty about killing your poor Nightseye Panther will be happy to know that it now only fades away instead of dying when its buff ends.

In addition, Normal and Heroic Magisters' Terrace mobs have had thier reputation gain adjusted, and you should now be getting about 2k Shattered Sun Offensive rep per a normal clear. For raiders, they'll find that Brutallus' Meteor Slash is now an unlimited range frontal cone attack, apparently to fix a problem with paladin taunting, accord to World of Raids. In case you missed our previous report on it, the Distraction at the Dead Scar bombing run is also a bit easier to finish.

Finally, one documented non-change: The chat filtering problems that the notes claim were fixed are still present on live servers. Hortus confirmed that the fix had some bad side effects and was pulled at the last minute, but will hopefully reappear in a future patch.

We'll keep watching for any other changes to pop up, so keep it tuned here to WoW Insider.

Yesterday, after the realms finally came back from the small 2.4.1 patch, I logged on for my usual round of dailies. The first thing I did was to group up with another player for Distraction at the Dead Scar, hoping to get it done in one try. And we succeded -- in fact, we got it done by about halfway through the first run! I've never finished that quest that soon, even in a full group of five. So I grew suspicious that perhaps the difficulty of this daily was reduced in the patch.

And indeed, MMO-Champion is reporting that the following changes were made to the quest:

• Eredar Sorcerers now die in one hit instead of two
• Pit Overlords now die in two hits instead of three

Welcome modifications indeed. The number of times I finished the run one Sorcerer short was starting to get annoying, and the flight time to and from the Dead Scar is irritatingly high if you have to go for repeat runs. This should be much more easily soloable now. Has it been made too easy? Maybe a bit, but bombing is fun regardless, and most of the dailies are of a similar level of difficulty.

In yet another sure sign that we're all ready for the refreshing changes that Sanrio will bring to the online gaming world, Extended Maintenance continues. Right now, Bornakk's telling us that we'll have to wait until 2pm PDT for the realms to be bought back online. The Realm Status page reveals that a few realms have come back up, but it remains to be seen if they're stable. We'll keep an eye out for you and tell you what WoW's up to. Hopefully we'll be back on the flipside in 15 minutes or so.

Of course, we all know that WoW is just filling that empty void in our souls that will only be truly healed when Hello Kitty Online is finally released, or at least put in Open Beta.

Update: While a few more servers are up, almost none of them are anything close to stable, and many servers remain down. Bornakk is currently promising another update at 3:00 PDT.

Update 2: It looks like at 4:40 PDT, all realms are up and ready for play again.

Extended Maintenance has begun, and it looks like a small patch has come with it. Patch 2.4.1 is less than 5 megabytes, and looks to mostly fix a few bugs with the combat log (including that annoying one where no settings were saved), sound, and shading, as well as a bug with Tranquilizing Shot. There might be more undocumented changes, of course, but we'll have to wait until the servers come up to see that.

Patch notes after the break!