WoW DOWN: Classic Blizzard Server Status latest as new update maintenance starts

World of Warcraft Classic servers are down today as Blizzard prepares to release the games latest sizeable Battlegrounds PvP updates to the game.

According to Blizzard Support, the World of Warcraft Classic game will be going offline for maintenance today (December 10, 2019) at 7am PT.

For those not in the USA, that is 3pm GMT in the UK, or 4pm CET for those in mainland Europe.

Maintenance is scheduled to last for several hours, concluding at 3pm PT. Yes that's a long period of 8 hours downtime for the game.

It also means that for anyone in the UK it won't come back online until 11am GMT, or for those in mainland Europe, 12am CET on December 11.

Of course, it goes without saying that with any period of server maintenance the game's downtime could be extended if there's any other issues that the developers run into whilst releasing the games next big update.

So, it goes without saying to stay tuned for updates if you are still planning on trying to play later this evening.

Alternatively, we would certainly imagine that the Blizzard Support account on Twitter (@BlizzardCS) would also be sharing updates throughout the evening as well.

Why is World of Warcraft Classic down?

As mentioned, its a fairly big update that Blizzard is dropping today, introducing both Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley Battlegrounds to the game.

For those who dont know, Warsong Gulch is a 10 vs 10 capture-the-flag battleground whilst Alterac Valley is a 40v40 large-scale PvPvE battleground for level 51+ players.

The plan is for Blizard to launch this content simultaneously on all realms today, December 10, likely explaining why downtime is quite so long.

This isn't the only update though, as Blizzard has also confirmed that at the same time they will introduce "Elemental Invasions in Kalimdor, with Blazing, Thundering, Watery, and Whirling Invaders appearing in Un’goro Crater, Azshara, Winterspring, and Silithus respectively."

Today's update was originally intended to arrive much later, perhaps in early 2020 and originally part of a six-phase plan.

However, Blizzard appears to have moved up the launch, perhaps owing to the success of how well the World PvP on PvP realms has gone down since releasing the Honor system into the game some weeks back.

Stay tuned for more updates and info on today's downtime as it becomes available.