Warcraft Experience

Blizzard wanted to get this word out…

There will be an extended maintenance, Tuesday, August 1st. We are extending the maintenance for a required ISP maintenance by 2 hours and 15 minutes. This will place us at a maintenance starting time of 2:45 AM PDT, lasting until approximately 11:00 AM PDT.

Thanks

Eyonix had an update that 59,000 accounts were banned in June along with 22 million gold relieved from the economy across all relams.

As part of our efforts to eliminate cheating from World of Warcraft, we recently banned approximately 59,000 World of Warcraft accounts in the month of June, and with that removed well over 22 million gold from the total economy across all realms. While we regret having to take such extreme action, these accounts were participating in activities that directly violated World of Warcraft’s Terms of Use, including the use of third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such behavior not only negatively impacts the economy of a realm, it diminishes the achievements of those who play legitimately. We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and our players from the harmful effects of cheating.We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the community for their assistance in reporting suspicious behavior. Numerous account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in-game or emailed to hacks@blizzard.com.

Moving forward, if you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction using one of the methods listed above. All reports will be investigated, and the appropriate action will be taken when warranted

We appreciate your support and wish you the best with your continued adventures in Azeroth!

You can read the full post in the World of Warcraft forums here.

Right from the source, Tseric lets us in on the current goings on with the transfer service and how some hardware failures affect the scheduling behind it. Here’s a tidbit:

Due to the current hardware failures the Paid Character Transfer system is being affected. No further Character Transfers or the Account Administration page will be available until this issue has been corrected.

For more information and updates to the status of the hardware failure please be sure to keep an eye on the following thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=9033231

Also due to the current issues, all realms that were slated for release as a part of the Paid Character Transfer have been moved to Thursday July, 13th instead. As a result the realms that were due for release on the 13th will now be slated for release on Friday, July 14th instead.

We apologize for the delay.

Read more… »

Two New US Realms Available

We are pleased to announce the opening of two new realms: The Venture Co, which is a RP-PvP realm, and Sentinels, which is a new RP realm. These new realms will provide a great place for new and old players alike to begin fresh adventures within the world of Azeroth. Enjoy!

Thirty more realms are eligible for the Paid Character Transfer! For a full list of eligible realms, please click here. To find out when your realm will become eligible to transfer off of, please click here.

Latest word from Drysc of Blizzard about migration…

To compensate players for any inconvenience caused by this week’s realm migration and subsequent downtime, we will be issuing a 24-hour time extension to all players with an active account and characters on the affected realms (listed below).

Cenarius
Cenarion Circle
Hyjal
Lightbringer
Uther

Thanks

Couple new Oceanic realms from Blizzard…

We’re happy to announce the opening of two new Oceanic realms: Aman’Thul a PvE realm, and Barthilas, a PvP realm. These realms will go live tonight at 11:59 PM PDT, June 8th, placing these realms live at approximately 4:59 PM GMT+10, June 9th. This will allow our Oceanic players to begin creating characters at a time comfortable for them. These two new realms will offer our Oceanic players, new and old alike, fresh beginnings in Azeroth!

Thanks

We’re happy to announce the opening of two new realms: Demon Soul and Jaedenar, two PvP realms. These realms are located on our latest World of Warcraft site, which feature all new hardware. This will provide an opportunity, to new and old players alike, to begin fresh adventures in Azeroth!