It all began with a patch.
It was Tuesday and like every Tuesday, World of Warcaft was shut down for "routine maintenance". This Tuesday was special, though, and we all knew it. This was patch Tuesday. 2.1 was supposed to be the patch where Blizzard would fix the paladins, making them more playable. Even though my main was a hunter, I was still looking forward to the various small changes to the hunters and to the game in general. Patch Tuesdays always led to new additions and exciting surprises.
They also usually meant longer down time. So it just figured that this would be the day when a freak snowstorm would blow through and force my entire city to shut down, giving us all a day off of work. A day that I would have liked to spend with a mug of hot chocolate, two kitties and my Night Elven hunter, Kelirien. Instead, I was spending it practically pacing my apartment living room, waiting for "routine maintenance" to be complete.
Runtwell: I found the patch addy!
The message flashed up on my IRC chat window, where myself and several other girls were impatiently waiting out the downtime. Her comment was followed by the internet address where we could download the patch, getting that much closer to the time when we could finally log on. Everyone in the chatroom quickly followed the link, including me: 'save as' 'okay' 'continue'. The little window on my monitor showed papers floating from a small globe into a folder as the patch downloaded onto my computer.
I resumed pacing then as the chat continued and my two level 1 critters – Trevor and Jesse – watched their mother move back and forth in front of the computer. Finally the patch was downloaded and began to install. Curious, I returned to my desk to read through the description of the newest patch. I blinked. I scrolled down. Scrolled up again.
Instead of the usual page after page of changes – some big additions, some minute bug fixes, my patch description window read simply:
Patch 2.x
Virtual Reality Bug Fixed
I shook my head. Maybe this wasn't the right patch? Wouldn't it figure I'd download a virus instead. I wasn't going to panic, though. Maybe Blizzard was being funny again? Who knew. So I waited. The patch took forever to install. Then, just to be safe, I ran McCafee. No sign of viruses. I even asked the other girls if they had noticed the weird description. None of them admitted to having paid attention.
"Well, I guess we just wait and see, then." I mused allowed. And so we did. Wait, that is. And wait.
Over time impatience grew to frustration. Then into anger and desperation. We were like crack addicts going through serious withdraws. Every couple of hours Blizzard posted a memo saying that maintenance was taking longer than expected and that servers should be up soon. They never were. 10 o'clock in the morning turned to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, then to 6 o'clock in the evening. The wind continued to pound snow against my window, I finished off all of my hot chocolate, most of my leftovers and called every one of my family members to catch up. I balanced my checkbook, watched a movie and even cleaned out the litter box. Still, routine maintenance continued on.
Finally, it was with a very strong feeling of disappointment in Blizzard that I retired for the night. An entire day wasted waiting for what should have been 5 hours of downtime and a new patch. The only good sign was that the snowstorm didn't seem to have slacked off – we might actually get another day off. Hah, not likely. It was more likely that we would lose power during the night if it kept up. And there I'd be with yet another day unable to play World of Warcraft. With that distressing thought, I fell asleep, with no clue that the new patch had already begun.