Sure enough, I go to log in to poke around with macros and numbers for tomorrow's Encrypted Text column, and what am I greeted with on the login screen? The dreaded message indicating that the downtime has been extended further.

Per the login screen:

Extended Maintenance

We will be extending our regularly schedule Tuesday maintenance for an estimated two hours in order to resolve an issue with our authentication system. We anticipate the realms will be available at approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT, and will provide an update to the situation in approximately 1 hour.

Thank you,

Blizzard Entertainment

Yep. I'm an addict. I love Roguing it up, and I'll admit I was really looking forward to getting back on and playing around with macros and different settings -- as well as checking out a different damage meter mod I just snagged. Is there anything you're looking forward to when you can get back in? Gotten a particularly tasty piece of loot lately that you didn't get to really take for a spin before the server shut down? One of your auctions going to make you a lot of money when you log back in? Or is the ability to log in just the symbol of the end of a day of work, and the start of relaxation time for you? (Hey, that's more than enough of a reason right there!)

Another weekend, another batch of server issues. This time it's realms in the Cyclone battlegroup, which are having a whole host of technical problems. Seems like a lot of people are having trouble connecting, and the ones that do connect are falling through the world/getting messages saying their characters don't exist/etc. Blizzard says they're working on the issue, although it's been down for several hours.

Realms that may be affected include:

• Darkspear
• Stonemaul
• Feathermoon
• Stormscale
• Dragonblight
• Bronzebeard
• Draenor
• Azjol-Nerub
• Daggerspine
• Boulderfist
• Dunemaul
• Crushridge
• Perenolde
• Bloodscalp
• Uldum
• Suramar

With new patches come new problems. Disappearing items have caused Blizzard to hotfix and restart every realm, with the side effect of lots of realms being offline and some (including my home realm, Magtheridon) having disappeared entirely. I just got back from a weeklong vacation, and with it being patch day, I've been dying to get in-game. But other than staring at the realm list, what can you do when your realm is down?

1. Play with the character generator. Make the most attractive character you can for each race and gender. Then make the ugliest. (Does anyone ever use the human female with the wrinkled face?) Try to make a facsimile of your own appearance!
2. Try out some new realm types. Are PVP server chats really meaner than on RPPVP? How far can a level 1 get into enemy territory if you stick to the roads on a PVP server?
3. Create a reputation for yourself. Roll an Alliance and Horde character on a PVE server. Go into major cities and proceed to talk about how much of a jerk your alt on the other faction is. Feel free to make up outlandish stories of ninjaing, sexual harassment, etc. Then do the same on the other alt. See how many people you can get to whisper you and condemn your "actions."
4. Try to catch people cybering on RP servers. Or, if you're into that sort of thing, create a night elf/blood elf and do a little mailbox dancing, see how much money you get, and then donate it all to some lucky noob.
5. Hang with your guildies on Vent. It's amazing how much you can actually get done when the server's down. It's a good time for an officer meeting, or an all-guild DOTA competition, or finally creating that Screaming Raid Leader Drinking Game you've been working on.

Have you been annoyed by the recent outages? What do you do when WoW is up, but your realm isn't?

One of Blizzard's service providers is performing some maintenance. Blizzard thinks that this should not cause any issues for us players, but gives a list of affected realms just in case. I hope there aren't any complications from this; my realm is on the list, and weekends are certainly peak playing time for many people. 74 of WoW's 265 North American realms are listed. From the in-game Breaking News box:

We've been informed by one of our service providers that they will be performing a maintenance that may impact some of our servers. We've been told that the maintenance should not affect connectivity, and thus there should not be any disconnections or performance issues from it. However, we're informing those of you on the below realms in the event that they should occur.

As a complete surprise to many players, several European realms will be offline for up to 24 hours starting this maintenance. As this is due to the migration of hardware, it's odd that this news was delivered relatively late this week.

The affected realms are: Agamaggan, Aggramar, Ahn'Qiraj, Al'Akir, Arathor, Argent Dawn, Aszune, Azjol-Nerub, Bladefist, Bloodfeather, Bloodhoof, Bloodscalp, Bronzebeard, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Chromaggus, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Darksorrow, Deathwing, Defias Brotherhoo, Dentarg, Doomhammer, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dragonmaw, Drak'thul, Dunemaul, Emerald Dream, Emeriss, Executus, Frostwhisper, Hakkar, Haomarush, Khadgar, Kul Tiras, Lightning's Blade, Mazrigos, Moonglade, Neptulon, Ragnaros, Scarshield Legion, Steamwheedle Cartel, Sunstrider, Sylvanas, Talnivarr, The Maelstrom, The Venture Co., Trollbane, Twilight's Hammer, Twisting Nether, Vashj, Warsong, Xavius, Zenedar.

Kor'gall will be down for up to 36 hours.

In addition, a small update on the paid character transfer service, for Europeans: we've got to wait to see how the rollout in America goes, but it should be available shortly.

I had thought maybe it was just me who has been getting the 'Unable to Connect' message for the last half-hour, but it looks like plenty of other folks have had the same problem this evening, so it seems the login servers are indeed down once again, at least on this side of the Atlantic, as of 9:30 PM CST.

So, if you happen to be reading this while you're in the game, for god's sake...don't hit that logout button! And let us know, dear readers, what kind of luck you're having out there...