According to the breaking news section of the World of Warcraft login screen and this blue post on the O-Boards, 12 hours of extended maintenance will be performed tomorrow, Oct. 14, for all realms. The downtime will begin at 2 a.m. PDT and end at approximately 2 p.m. PDT.

In other words, get ready for Patch 3.0.2!

BlizzCon 2008 may have come to a close, but our extended coverage of the event is just beginning. Our BlizzCon wiki is already full of exclusive panel recaps, interviews and photos for you to enjoy, but that's not all! The intrepid ZAM Network staff, including our tireless Allakazham employees, went without much sleep all weekend to make sure that you get as much in-depth information as possible, and new content will be added to the wiki daily. So bookmark the page and refresh it regularly for your BlizzCon fix.

By now you've probably checked out Wordaen's class panel review and found out that the Wizard is the new Diablo III class, but there are now full articles posted on PvP, dungeons, and a free-for-all Q&A session with Blizzard. One of the best news tidbits is that mounts will no longer dismount in water outdoors!

As for interviews, our team realizes that the community aspect of WoW is incredibly important. That's why even though our wiki is full of official news from Blizzard, there's also interviews with regular players. In fact, there's even an exclusive interview with costume contest winner Amanda Hosler!

I have also heard from Tamat that he got a chance to speak personally with the cast of The Guild. Keep checking the wiki for that. In the meantime, talk about BlizzCon in our WoW general forum and keep reading below for a summary of some of the panel articles.

Our very own Wordaen is currently at BlizzCon absorbing all the information the event has to offer. For his first panel, Wordaen attended a discussion regarding Blizzard's intentions for each class in World of Warcraft.

Check out our BlizzCon wiki to read Wordaen's article on the class discussion. He covers everything from a complete overhaul of the hunter pet system to the changes in all three talent trees for warriors. Of course, Wordaen outlines the death knight class in depth, as well.

Classes weren't the only topic of conversation at the panel. Blizzard also discussed major changes in buffs/debuffs in groups and raids. While they didn't talk much about dual specs, they did have this to say:

Dual Specs are going to be designed more for flexibility and "on the fly" swapping (such as in a raid setting) but they are not going to be something as viable for a hardcore raider as they will for a more casual playstyle.

Once you've read Wordaen's article, discuss it in our forum.

Casey "Malgayne" Monroe from our sister site Wowhead has been chatting with Jeff Kaplan, one of the lead designers for WoW, and he's got a lot of great stuff about what Blizzard is thinking about doing in the future.

While everything here brings exciting possibilities and encompasses a wonderful future, let's keep in mind all of it is still in the design phase and it could be modified or further progress to the project(s) could come to a halt at any moment. Even if development on said project(s) continue, then it certainly isn't going to be in the game anytime soon!

That said, on to the good stuff!

Blizzard is looking at an internal way to rate guilds in both a PvP and PvE respect. Obviously this is a huge undertaking with so many variables to consider! Progression, killing percentages, group makeup, and player moving guilds are just a few of the things that need to be looked at!

If you haven't heard yet, The Guild is attending BlizzCon!

The whole cast of The Guild will be attending Blizzcon Friday and Saturday! There will be a Guild panel from 1:30 - 2:30pm on Saturday where we will preview Season 2 as well as answer questions about Season 1 and anything else the audience would like to hear!

Also, thanks to the kindness of Blizzard, we will have a booth set up where we will be selling DVDs and an Official Cast Photo, debuting at the con! All 6 main cast members will be hanging out, but will be specifically signing DVDs and Photos at the following times in the booth:
Friday 11am-1pm
Saturday 3-5pm

Please stop by and say hi, or catch us around Blizzcon!

Our faithful Tamat, wandering the halls of BlizzCon apparently caught up with some of the folks from The Guild, (pics or it didn't happen! ) inspiring our resident wiki guru, Bludwyng, to cry! But while others were discussing the awesome WoW inspired show in IRC it turns out two of our resident WoW admins are unaware of the greatnes of The Guild! Tyrandor and fewyn are hearby banned to the depths of Darqflame's dungeon until they've watched at least season one! Which is on sale now in DvD format for only $20, or can be viewed online!