After a nice long WoW maintenance today — the servers are UP for patch 11.0.7 launch

WoW patch 11.0.7 launches today, and even though it’s a minor patch we’re due for some major maintenance: The War Within servers were slated to be offline from 7am – 3pm pacific, but now they’re back up!

And with a new, celebratory launch trailer:

Original post text: The WoW servers are currently offline, with a solid eight hours of maintenance planned for today. While there’s always a chance the servers could come back online early, they’re unlikely to come back online very early: expect The War Within servers to be offline most of the day, and plan accordingly. If you’re desperate for some WoW, both WoW Classic and Cataclysm Classic have normal maintenance today from 7am – 8am pacific, and Classic’s Anniversary realms have been a lot of fun to jump into.

There will be a lot to do when the realms come back online, though. The Siren Isle awaits us, with the temptation of new collectibles and mounts, including Thrayir, Eyes of the Storm — though since we won’t be able to fly immediately, you may be able to take your time collecting new mounts. The patch will also offer a brand new ring, Cyrce’s Circlet, which we can upgrade and customize with gems — much like the Oynx Annulet that we got in patch 10.0.7, which makes this look like a trend. I haven’t seen a lot of hype for this new ring, which has reportedly been quite underpowered on the PTR, but Blizzard has already announced buffs for the ring so it now looks like something you’ll want to rush to get when the servers come back online.

But for now, we wait. The WoW servers being offline means we’re all stuck with a lot of downtime today. If you need to kill one or two or maybe eight hours, my favorite time waster is browsing zoo YouTube channels and social media. I’m a fan of the Cincinnati Zoo, and Zoodio has a livestream of baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng to enjoy (though I always find myself navigating back to Fiona videos). Not looking for adorable? Last week was packed with great gaming showcases and trailer premieres, and there’s a good chance you missed some of them: we have a roundup of how to watch every show last week, and The Game Awards’ YouTube channel is a good place to just watch the latest AAA trailers. (Though it does miss the best part of The Game Awards, which was Laura Bailey being a queen.) Need something interactive? Larian has a little Advent Calendar to play with, and we’ve just discovered this Hidden Capybaras with Orange in the Whimsical Library game, which has 400 Capybaras that you need to find. (It’s important!) You could also play Duck Detective: The Secret Salami through at least a couple of times during today’s maintenance.

But no matter how you’re spending the day, the servers are going to be offline for a while longer. I’ll keep this post up to date on the latest in WoW maintenance (and if it stretches on, I may have more video game suggestions), so check back for updates.