At 1am this morning Blizzard was planning to take down all of its servers to start applying the big pre-Warlords of Draenor 6.0 patch. I did not stay up to see if that went off exactly on time, but the big transition has begun, and Azeroth will be a slightly different place when we are all able to log back in at some point today. The target time for completion is 11am today, but I will be happy if the game is up some time after dinner this evening.
Here come the changes
All sorts of new things will be arriving in game. There will be new character models, a new map interface, a new way to organize gear in your bags, changes to gear, stats, classes, and all sorts of things that were talked about 11 months ago at BlizzCon when Blizzard announced the expansion. And this is all before we get to the actual Warlords of Draenor content.
Of course, some things will be going away. There is a whole host of pets, mounts, gear, and achievements that will no longer be obtainable now that the patch is being applied. This is, I guess, how Blizzard protects the value of things that were difficult to obtain. Nobody will be able to hit level 100 and go back and twink that achievement you had to do the hard way at level 90 back in the day.
Then there is the stat squish. And the removal of guild levels. The patch notes are just overflowing with stuff.
Now it is time to see if the instance group can be roused from its lazy summer slumber. We have about enough time to hit 90 and finish off the normal mode dungeons before the expansion goes live next month, if we can just all get logged on together again. I’d like to be able to do the limited time special Upper Blackrock Spire. We shall see.
I think the biggest change I am looking forward to is the ones that will free up some bag space. The toy box… and I have collected and held on to a lot of such items over the years… and the additional 98 slots of bank storage for crafting materials will be great. I will probably spend the first night after the patch just getting all those things stored away so I will once again have space in my bags and bank. And then it will be off to the Blasted Lands to see the precursor of the Iron Horde.
Is there anything you are looking forward to (or dreading) in the patch?
Addendum: And there it is…
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I know that I am looking forward to a lot of the changes and dreading at the same time. I think that it is going to be a lot of fun and will take some getting used too, however, I think that it will still be a nice change of pace.
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I’m looking forward to seeing some new content as well as trying out what it’s like healing now. We’re getting our raid team together tomorrow to do a fun run through SoO so that we can start getting used to the new way of healing and not racing to heal everyone to full like we used to.
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Gaining half of my bank space with the addition of the toy box.
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I am looking forward to the removal of hit and expertise, to make it that much less annoying to level a new character.
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I’m all about the stuff and the toys and the things, and ability to have/store/organize more stuff and toys and things. I am NOT looking forward to having to figure out stats again. Math and numbers and I do not get along. (Odd that I work in finance. Heh.)
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I keep hoping an expansion pulls some of my old friends back in but so far none of them has. Warlords is at least getting a bit more buzz about it from my former Guild Members though.
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