What breaks my heart on Tuesdays..

These past few weeks have been hectic on my WoW schedule, with 3.3.5 out three weeks ago, for North American Servers that is, and then Ruby Sanctum’s somewhat controversial opening.

What makes new content even more crazy for the players, like myself, who strive to experience it all? Server maintenance coinciding with the reset of raid lockout periods. One could make the point that server maintenance would be bad for someone‘s schedule no matter what day it is on, but I am here to contend that regular maintenance should not be conducted on the same day that raid lockouts reset.

Why is this? Well, I’m sure that I’m not the only one who races through a ton of content on Tuesdays, while the getting is still good for finding fresh members to group up with. This results in a hectic raiding schedule for Tuesdays: Log on, find out what’s the weekly. See if Alliance has Wintergrasp. Create a 25 man VoA group. Finish 25m, and create a 10m unique class/role group. Create and complete weekly. THEN, if my guild has it set, a 10-man ICC run.

Sure, I could space out these runs, but then the potential for finding good, fresh groups becomes a lot worse. And still attempting to fit all this in on days when server maintenance runs late (2 hour delay, another hour delay, then 2 more hours, etc.), such as it did last week, is pretty much impossible. My (and others’) raid schedule gets screwed.

And then there’s days of extended maintenance, such as back on the 30th, when 74 of the N.A. servers were down for an entire 24-hour period. Raiders who wanted to get in their content early-on in the raid lockout period were instead forced to shift their schedules back a day.

So why can’t Blizzard move maintenance to a day such as Sunday or Monday, when most people are saved to those raids we’re trying to get into on Tuesdays?

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In a somewhat controversial move, Blizzard opted to activate the new Ruby Sanctum raid yesterday afternoon for North American realms. Not only was this before EU realms received patch 3.3.5, it was also during a 24-hour maintenance period for 74 North American realms. This act was somewhat contrary to an earlier announcement that seemed to express the desire by Blizzard for more parity when it comes to world and region availability of new end-game encounters. It also allowed guilds on roughly one-third of worldwide servers to have a head start on defeating Halion, both normal and heroic, before the other two-thirds of the servers were even accessible.

Premonition of Sen’jin-US, the guild that happened to be featured at the Live Raid event during 2009’s BlizzCon, managed to get the first kill of heroic Halion in both the 10- and 25-man versions last night. Since then, according to wowprogress.com, there have still only been a few guilds that have downed either version of the heroic mode.

While it’s easy to claim that this kill is not a major deal due to the short instance length and relatively low difficulty when compared to Heroic Lich King, Cataclysm’s trend towards shorter and more accessible raids, along with the combining of 10- and 25-man lockouts, may end up stopping EU realms from garnering as many world-first boss kills as they have in the past. In addition, there are some players who are extremely upset with Blizzard for releasing the new raid during the 24-hour maintenance period, effectively blocking that large handful of realms from even attempting the instance.

I heard from a few players who were on the realms that were down during last night’s Ruby Sanctum Heroic 10-man stream, but I want to hear from more of you. Are you upset about how Blizzard handled Ruby Sanctum? Do you pay attention to world firsts? Do you think it’s all just a bunch of QQ? I really believe all of this will blow over pretty quickly, but I also hope dropping short instances for North American realms to get world firsts doesn’t become a habit for Blizzard.

Yesterday’s prediction has fortuitously come true and Patch 3.3.5 is definitely going live today. Though the servers themselves are still undergoing maintenance as of this writing, you can go ahead and load up your World of Warcraft Launcher to download and install the files ahead of time. It bears repeating that despite the update being deployed, the Ruby Sanctum raid dungeon will not be open for business just yet. This is due to the new social features being integrated into the game with 3.3.5, which is delaying its release in other regions around the world.

And you know if American players were given carte blanche to down Halion ahead of everyone else, there would be riots in the hardcore raiding community. Them’s the breaks, and speaking of breaks, hit the one below for the rest of the official patch notes:

Assault on the Ruby Sanctum

For ages the red dragonflight and its noble matriarch, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, have dedicated themselves to preserving all life on Azeroth. Recently, the very heart of this virtuous dragonflight has come under threat.

An eerie silence has settled over the Ruby Sanctum, the red dragonflight’s sacred lair within the Chamber of the Aspects. This troubling development has led to fears that the sanctum, home to Azeroth’s largest clutch of red dragon eggs, has been breached by an unknown, sinister force. If these claims are true and immediate action is not taken, the benevolent red dragonflight might be crippled forever.

Real ID: A New Way to Connect With Your Friends on Battle.net

One of our goals for the new Battle.net is to create the framework for an online gaming experience that is even more accessible, more engaging, and more entertaining than the previous Battle.net. The newly released Real ID feature, available to World of Warcraft players as part of patch 3.3.5, is an integral part of this effort, providing you with advanced ways for forming and maintaining meaningful relationships with your friends on the service.

Real ID is a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you’ll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways. Go here for more details. Continue Reading

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Join Juggynaut, pixiestixy, and Amatera for this week’s quick podcast. Topics for this episode include:

• North America Gets new battle.net and 3.3.5 a week before other regions (EU/KR/TW) but not Ruby Sanctum.
• Cataclysm Dances Leaked
  • Male Goblin: Soulja Boy
  • Female Goblin: Single Ladies
  • Male Worgen: Puttin on the Ritz/Justin Timberlake ?
  • Female Worgen: ???
• BlizzCon Tickets first wave SOLD OUT. Less than 4500 “households” get tickets.
  • Tickets on eBay for $300-$500/each

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