Just because it's a holiday for most of us doesn't mean that World of Warcraft's weekly maintenance is canceled — though it is a short one this week, with all iterations of WoW going offline for just an hour.

December and thus 2024 is rapidly approaching completion, and every organization is rolling out their Game of the Year Awards -- including us!

As the calendar sets on 2024, we at Blizzard Watch recognize the work of countless developers by looking back fondly on our games of the year.

And so many creatures were stirring!

Who’s got everything done already? Not this guy! There are presents to wrap and people to see and places to go and and and… I need a holiday.

I’m sure that everything will be much calmer next week.

Until then, it’s time for — The Queue!

Blizzard just announced that in the upcoming World of Warcraft patch 11.1, Undermine(d), Marksmanship Hunters will lose access to Hunter pets.

I find myself being a bit envious of Scrooge sometimes as we round this particular temporal corner.

We're into that final weekend before Christmas, which means that new releases in gaming have more or less dried up.

A game can’t put buttons in front of us and expect us not to press them. Buttons are there for the pressing, and the bigger and redder they are, the more tempting they are to tap. If you don’t want us to press a button, have you considered not having a button? I think that’s a surefire method.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the Queue.

Join us as we discuss the new content that has arrived in WoW with the roll out of patch 11.0.7 Siren Isle, the treasure goblin kill fest Diablo 4 holiday event, Hearthstone’s current meta mess, and the new Heroes of the Storm custom game mode that gives us hope that the title may still be revived.

It feels like just yesterday the Steam Autumn Sale ended, but now the Steam Winter Sale has begun and the sales will continue into the new year.