Based on my experiences, and a slew of other folks posting over at the Blizzard Customer Service Forums, it appears many Tier 6 instances are having issues with stability tonight. Half the raid or more is constantly disconnecting at seemingly random points.

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Will, one of the two bloggers behind this new site, sent us a tip early this morning hoping for a shout-out, and I'm glad to oblige. WoW Investor is a new blog that I've already added to my RSS reader. Their stated purpose is "to keep this blog updated with the latest strategies to increase your wealth using purely financial means," and so far they've been sticking to it.

What do they mean by "purely financial means"? You won't be finding advice on what mobs to grind or which daily quests are the most profitable. Instead, your WoW investment team Will and Jeff bring you ideas on what you can do to earn some gold without leaving the cozy confines of your favorite capitol city. Here are a couple of money-making opporunities they've posted already:

• If you see Netherweave Cloth going for much less than 3g a stack, buy it, make Heavy Netherweave Bandages, and vendor them. One stack of cloth makes 10 bandages, which will get you 3g from the vendor.
• At the moment, low-priced Primal Nethers are flooding the AH, so you can make a tidy profit by crafting various Spellthreads. Even if you're not a tailor yourself, you should be able to find one who will make you the Spellthread for mats plus a tip, without killing your profit margin.


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Hey,

The EU community is currently building up an Arena Community Channel for people to meet each other, for match appointments and anything you'll need during the upcoming Arena Tournaments!

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Wowhead has gone live with a few new updates to brighten up your April Fool's day, and help you get the pink residue of Hello Kitty out of your eyeballs with some of their tasteful black (just don't check their front page).

• The new 3D system I wrote about previously has gone live, featuring improved quality, NPC models, armor models, and the ability to preview items on any race or gender character model.
• Quest tooltips are now supported for sites powered by Wowhead, which includes us. This allows me to mention, for instance, that Sunfury Attack Plans is a good quest to group up for, since the Plans are a group drop.
• Most NPCs now have a tab listing their abilities. A few NPCs are missing them due to a couple of reasons: no data has been collected on them yet (e.g. Techbot), or there are two (or more) mobs with the same name (e.g. Kael'Thas). This latter difficulty has been fixed, and NPCs affected by it should have abilities listed the next time Wowhead parses data.
  


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Apparently HKO Insider hasn't worked out as well as we originally thought it would. After a day full of covering Hello Kitty Online, readers have sent us an overwhelming message: they love WoW Insider, and World of Warcraft is the game we all want to see covered.

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Every Tuesday, Chris Jahosky contributes Build Shop, which takes a look into one of the many talent specs available to players.

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Hello Kitty Online features great opportunities to learn more about yourself and explore your personality through exciting online quizzes.

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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.

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The last time we checked, word on the street was that Blizzard was making plans to incorporate an official threat meter to World of Warcraft's interface. At least, that was what Community Manager Nethaera had stated during an inquiry last February.
 
During a recent inquiry over at the WoW forums, blue-poster Drysc made some clarifications regarding this matter. The long story short - they're only thinking about it.

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Alyse posted on the Hello Kitty Online official Staff Lounge forum that she's having a bad time with another player who's sending mean, nasty emails. Alyse had posted a video application for the Beta Test that other player left a rude comment about. They started exchanging emails and the other player has gotten totally out of line. She's completely missing the super-positive spirit of the game.

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As you are all aware, we are changing direction around here, so it has come time for Addon Spotlight to sail into uncharted waters. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find much of an addon community for Hello Kitty Online, so things may be a bit rough in the coming months, as developers start filling those little User Interface needs. I wanted to point out that this can be seen as an opportunity for new and exciting things. We've got a fresh start, folks, with all the world of Sanrio in front of us.

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I'm really excited that we'll be posting about Hello Kitty Online. I took some time to check out their fantastic Dream Studio. Dream Studio is a great resource for displaying your graphical talent to the Hello Kitty Online readers. There are many really fun videos in the Dream Studio, and everyone is welcome to share their creations. It's free to join the Hello Kitty Online community at Sanriotown.


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We're a good part of the way through our first day here at HKO Insider, so we figured now might be a good time to get some feedback from the community about what you think of the new focus of our site. Do you miss the green forests of Ashenvale or are you sold on Sanriotown? Is class QQing sounding pretty good to you right about now or are you krazy for Keroppi?

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Hey! Don't tell my bosses, but I'm slipping in one more piece of WoW news here. You know that whole thing with Kazzak and the new dailies? It's gotten a few people more than a bit down. Unfortunately for them, Bornakk's saying that Kazzak will continue to keep court at the Throne of Kil'jaedan.

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Whether you like or hate the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, there's no denying that you can get some of the best loot from it. The Servants of the Betrayers expansion for the game offers three new loot cards that fans of Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMORPG will undoubtedly go crazy about.

First up is Papa Hummel's Old-fashioned Pet Biscuit Loot card which can be redeemed for 50 pet biscuits from Landro Longshot. These pet buffs dramatically increase the size of your companion. Check out the video to see its effects:

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I am very fond of collecting vanity pets in WoW. The Sprite Darter Hatchling is possible my favorite, though Mr. Wiggles is pretty cool too. While some of the pets do have some interesting animations, like the Mini Diablo and his flame breath, the only vanity pet that would actually do anything was the Battle Bot Clockwork Rocket Bot. And that got nerfed.

Vanity pets in HKO will be a bit more useful. It seems that not only will they follow you around, but some will also be extra bag space. I can't tell you how much I wish my WoW pets would carry stuff for me. Sanrio hints that they will have other uses as well.

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Okay, I have no idea who Hello Kitty is. I barely know what Sanrio is because I have nieces. Anyway, for those of us who intent to keep playing World of Warcraft (seriously, Hello Kitty Online? I have to start reading the memos Mike sends out) most of the realms are still down and maintenance is being extended to 12:00 pm Pacific. Like many, I've been haunting the realm status forums since 11 Pacific waiting for news, and I hope Malfurion or Norgannon come up soon.

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Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. As you can see above, Kevin is just about done with the second floor of his farm house!

I realize a number of you are most likely new to the Hello Kitty Online (HKO) world. While the package may seem sickly sweet to those transferring over from playing Undead, the belf in me seems to be able to accept that everyone must wear a bow. I raid in pink and purple, after all. I've also come to appreciate the impact this game is going to have on the raiding community at large. And that's what I want to share with you today.

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While we're still HKO Insider, we do have some nostalgia left for our former game, and since we saw this thing that more or less looks like some legitimate WoW news, maybe, we figured we might as well post it for old time's sake. (Ed: No more of this! HKO news only!)

While it's true that the 2.4 combat log has had a few glitches, it seemed like at least a good portion of them were fixed in today's patch, and we could expect the log to be used at it's full potential soon enough. However, apparently... No dice. Blizzard poster Slouken announced today that patch 2.5 would feature a complete rollback of the 2.4 combat log changes. Hope all you programming-type dudes kept old copies of your 2.3 addon code.

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Every Tuesday, Pleasing Pet Perspectives explores issues affecting Best Pet Friends in Hello Kitty Online and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, opens the new column with a look at the already announced Best Pet Friend class character options, and then discusses some of the benefits to both playing with and grouping with one.

You've seen them before. Wherever Hello Kitty goes, you can be sure not too far away is her pet, Charmmy, carrying the silver key that will open her jewelry box.

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New Arena maps have been announced for Hello Kitty Online Island Adventure's Arena system, which was created to cater particularly to the cutesy-anime-loving PvP players. In a statement released to the public, Sanrio corporation said that it was "taking its lead from a more popular MMORPG which has started to design its game around Arenas." Sanrio notes that the increasing popularity of Arenas indicate that this is the direction that MMOs will be taking for the future, and they believe that building an Arena system for Hello Kitty Online will make the game future-proof.

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Today is Badtz-Maru's birthday! The ringleader of the XO clan was born on Oahu Island in Hawaii. Though he remains in the first grade, his dream is to be the boss of everything.

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With the pending release of Hello Kitty Online, we are all going to need to become proficient in leet speak. This is the language of nerds and basement gamers everywhere (Ed: Because no one in WoW ever talks like this, right?). So in hopes that we'll be able to better understand all those cute little muffins of joy, let's immerse ourselves in some leet speak for the rest of the post.

It is also rumored that Rosetta Stone will be releasing a Leet Speak module soon. Stay tuned to HKO Insider for a review of that in the near future.

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Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

To celebrate the kick-off of HKO-Insider, Insider Trader will be doing a bonus column this week! As the closed beta has only just been put in the works, there are understandably few details floating around.

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Nobody appreciates a good April Fool's joke more than Blizzard and what better way to celebrate this humorous "holiday" than with a couple of amusing posts for some of the supposedly upcoming content for World of Warcraft.

WoW fans who've been waiting all these years for a console version of the popular MMO title will finally get their wish as Blizzard has recently announced the upcoming release of World of Warcraft: The Molten Core. This console spinoff will feature a 40-man raid dungeon in lush 2D graphics and rendered across a glorious 192i resolution.

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The latest episode of our weekly podcast is now up and available for your listening pleasure over at WoW Radio (and it seems like Duncor's been messing with the show titles over there). WoW Insider's Eliah Hecht, John Petricelli sat down with me and "the inimitable" Turpster last Saturday and chatted, as usual, about the biggest news in the past week of Hello Kitty Online. On the agenda:

• Lots of talk about everything to be found in the new Sanrio Magic Terrace instance, including Eliah's great writeup about all of the monsters and pet cards you can find in there.
• What we think of all the new daily quests on the Sunny Well Isle, including that one where you have to make a bombing run to pass out cupcakes to unicorns.
• All the unofficial changes in the latest patch as well, from the sound effect of Hello Kitty's gardening power to Badtz-Maru's new emote animation.


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15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft Hello Kitty Online players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous.

Since all the hardcore HKOers are locked up in Hello Kitty Online's closed beta NDA agreement, this week's 15 Minutes of Fame chats with a young MMO player who is anxiously awaiting her turn in the Flower Kingdom. Six-year-old Amillia, a level 23 warrior on Argent Dawn and CakeMania 2 fan, enjoys the occasional hour online under the watchful eye of her mother and big brother -- but longs for the day when she can accept new quests from Hello Kitty herself.

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Listen, our corporate overlords have forced us to write about Hello Kitty Online starting today, but there's something you should know about another game that rhymes with "Mold of Forcraft," so we're going to try to sneak this news under the radar.

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When I was told about the new change to the site, I wasn't sure what to think. However, after some research, I discovered that HKO machinimators are so much more talented than their WoW counterparts, save for Shepiwot, of course.

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Earlier this week, Abby, a Sanrio Community Manager, took the opportunity to remind us all that we should be careful about sending our personal information out via e-mail. Furthermore, any e-mails sent to addresses you never gave to the Sanrio community should be considered dangerous.

If the e-mail is from "onlinegame(at)hellokitty.com" then you can consider it safe, and if necessary, divulge certain personal information. As always, be wise; it's not just your account information, but your identity, that is at stake when it comes to scams.

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I usally don't say much about this addon, but because of our format change, I feel like I can finally share this gem. Many of you will surely call me many bad things for profiling this addon, but I must share it now that we've officially become HKO Insider. I really love this addon and will endorse it as a game-changing mod that gives you a serious advantage when rolling for loot. I wouldn't dare do this before, but I want to share the power of advanced algorithms and computer science with all of you who have been missing out on loot rolls. I'm telling you, HighRoller is your friend!

Cairenn over at WoWInterface.com originally tipped me off to this a few days ago, which is why I've shown so much love to their site. Think of me what you will, but wouldn't you want to help those who gave you the keys to the castle? The folks over at MMO-Champion are going nuts over this one. Read on, my friends, and take a ride on the phat lootz train!

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In an exclusive interview with HKO lead developer Hey'wod ya' Saiev'mie, it was revealed that because of the extreme ease and uselessness Paladins provide in World of Warcraft, they have been removed from WoW and transfered to HK Online. Those players that have Paladin will no doubt be happy since they'll finally be able to play a useful role in an online game. All accounts with Paladin mains will receive a free copy of HKO, and 3 days of play time.

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When word came from upstairs that we were switching over to HKO Insider, I was afraid that was the end of Know Your Lore. It turns out, HKO's lore is far superior to Warcraft's lore. For one thing, Hello Kitty is consistent. For two, it is adorable. For three, it has hit the perfect mix of humor and drama, something that WoW could never, ever do.

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Today's screenshot -- the first in our new HKO series -- features one of the most intimidating monsters of Flower Kingdom. This shot was taken immediately before the beast ripped out the photographer's throat in revenge. If you have seen this beast, please do not attempt to remove the hat! Removal of hat may result in loss of limbs and/or eyeballs. Thanks to Jean of kittyhell for this cute as a button shot!

Do you have any unusual HKO images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Flower Kingdom! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com (still haven't upgraded the name) with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

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Rumor has it that some of your favorite characters will be featured in the upcoming MMO as country leaders! In the spirit of Amanda Dean's Azerothian General Elections, I thought it would be fitting to find out who are the fan favorites for leaders of Sanrio.

Let's take a look at the personalities and platforms of the candidates, shall we?

A. Hello Kitty (London, England): Hello Kitty believes that friendship is the key to peace and economic stability. If elected, she promises to hold free friendship seminars and events, including trust falls, group therapy, communal gardening and a buddy system. Other key issues in her platform include the "Cookies for Love" campaign, fair market prices, and staying in school. If elected, she will be bringing Charmmy Kitty on as her advisor.

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The marketing and merchandising machine can be quite a thing to behold, especially when it comes to Hello Kitty. The possibilities for themed merchandise seem to be endless. Here is a list of some of my favorites:

The Hello Kitty scooter.

Hello Kitty credit card, checking account, and free (exclusive) Hello Kitty business card holder upon qualifying.

Some Hello Kitty baked goods.

A Barbie doll. Not just any, either; this one comes decked from head to toe in Hello Kitty merchandise.

Booze. Yes folks, even Hello Kitty supports booze, this time in the form of wine.

What's the coolest, or most unique Hello Kitty item that you own? Do you make your own items, buy them from official shops, or try to score limited edition merchandise?

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Here's a big update for the guys keeping an eye on patch 2.4's changes to World of Warcraft's PvP scene. Blizzard has added a couple of new items for the game's PvP rewards section, all of which appears to be spell haste necklaces and rings. Here's what's been found so far (via mmo-champion).

• Vindicator's Pendant of Reprieve
• Vindicator's Pendant of Subjugation
• Vindicator's Band of Subjugation
  

Aside from the new PvP rewards, three new tabards have also been found for the game: The Keepers of Time Tabard, Tabard of Summer Skies, and the Tabard of Summer Flames.

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Would you date a black dragon? Probably not, but that's what Tiddleworth, player of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, did one day. The gnome fire mage explained that it was simply a consequence of having gone out on a blind date with "a hot and spicy" lady.

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Sanrio Digital, showing a dedication to content creation and fan service that other game companies could definitely learn from, has already started in with some exciting news for Hello Kitty fans everywhere. Despite not being out of Closed Beta yet, It's been confirmed that Hello Kitty Online will have an expansion in 2009: Hello Kitty Island Adventures!

The expansion will open with Hello Kitty and her friends (Including you, the player) crash landing on a desert island while on Hello Kitty Air flight 337 to the 5th World Cuteness Symposium in Perth, Australia. That's right, in a gutsy move that should rightly earn them the applause of MMO designers everywhere, Sanrio Digital is shaking things up and actually shrinking the game world to one desert island, giving Hello Kitty faithful a whole new area to explore and giving them a break from the humdrum environs of places like Mari Land and Nightengale Lane. Join us after the break for a rundown of some of the other features you can expect!

There's planning in progress for all aspects of the game now. PvE will be focused both around the gathering of resources and crafting of shelter and tools for the survivors (including the introduction of the new Dessert making tradeskill and fire building as shown in the above screenshot) and the conflict with the original inhabitants of the item, a race of squat, foul-mouthed, inferiorily animated characters who will attempt to drive you and your friends off the island by any means possible. PvP will focus on the internal power struggle between Hello Kitty and Badtz-Maru for control of the survivors. Will you side with the powers of Cuteness, or will you agree with Badtz-Maru and aim for the survival of the fittest?

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There's just so much to love about Hello Kitty Online, the new game that we're now covering (thanks to a decision by the higher ups at AOL) 24/7. Maybe you love the character customization -- you can change your hair (why wait until some frozen expansion to do that, right?), clothes, accessories, shoes, or even your facial features. Or maybe it's farming, mining, cooking, tailoring, or one of the many other professions in the game (no Inscription but that sucked anyway, if you ask us). Or maybe it's just doing a little interior decorating -- unlike another game that we used to cover, HKO is going to have player housing from the start.

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We've got an exciting new direction to announce here today on WoW Insider. Because patch 2.4 has just released, and information about Wrath of the Lich King, the next expansion, is pretty much nonexistent (we haven't even been told a release date by Blizzard yet), AOL, the company that owns the Weblogs, Inc. network of blogs, of which WoW Insider is a part, has determined that instead of covering World of Warcraft every day, we will now be covering a new, surely more exciting and surely soon to be more popular massively multiplayer online game.

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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!

Hunter

- Tranquilizing Shot no longer incorrectly restricts use of other Hunter
abilities in specific situations.

User Interface

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The last time we checked, word on the street was that Blizzard was making plans to an official threat meter to World of Warcraft's interface. At least, that was what Community Manager Nethaera had stated during an inquiry last February.
 
During a recent inquiry over at the WoW forums, blue-poster Drysc made some clarifications regarding this matter. The long story short - they're only thinking about it.

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New Patch 2.4.1 today: Patch Notes

A new bug fix patch is being applied to US realms today (tomorrow for Europe).

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If you're among World of Warcraft's gamers who frequent the Karazhan raid instance, you may want to watch out for a detected issue with its chess event.

This particular bug was reported over at the WoW forums by Zlayer, who states that it kicked in when the players attempted to change their chess pieces. As Zlayer elaborated:

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We've got a lot of blue posts today, hope you've got some time to read everything. Don't forget that we're April 1st and we all know what it means ... You can get free gems from the Consortium !!!!

/Random algorythm hacked - High roll addon released
A few days ago, someone managed to decode the algorythm behind /random calculations, it didn't take long to exploit it and release an addon to get very high /random 100 everytime : Highroller. This AddOn uses an advanced algorithm to time your roll requests to the server in order to increase your average roll value.

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Yes, it's only midnight, and already the wackiness has started. These people just couldn't wait to do something a little silly on the first day of April.

• Reader Tim let us know that Baron Soosdon has quit his job at Machinima.com and stopped making machinima in general. He's said goodbye with (what else?) a Linkin Park video.
• WoWWiki has apparently switched places with the Guild Wars wiki, and vice versa. Make sure to check out their news section, where they mix up Guild Wars news with WoW news. Have you heard about the CM leaving, or the upcoming sequel?
• Wowhead's site, as you can see above, looks strangely familiar (thanks to everyone who sent this in).


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There will be extended maintenance today, April 1st, on all the realms from 3:00 a.m. PDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT. Hopefully this will fix many of the issues appearing over the past week – and just give the servers some breathing room. There have been many bugs reported, some of which you can read about in the various hotfixes that have been pushed onto the servers in the past week.

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Those trying to complete the Blueleaf Tubers quest in Blizzard's World of Warcraft may have encountered an annoying error that kept them from completing the quest. According to reports of several who attempted the Blueleaf Tubers quest recently, an error message keeps popping up whenever they try to collect the tubers needed for the quest, barring them from getting the needed items.

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