Many Blizzard staff tweets could be found yesterday concerning the power blackout. The staff was asked to go home for lack of power. A Southern California Power Substation caught fire and left over 26,000 homes in the dark. Firemen were able to prevent further damage.
However, there is no ETA on when authorities might be able to replace equipment and restore power. For now, Blizzard won’t be able to bring the World of Warcraft beta realms back online until further notice.
Zorbix: Unfortunately due to the power outage that occurred our staff was forced to leave the office. As such, we won’t be able to finish the push tonight and bring the realms up. — source
Update #1: CBS Los Angeles reports only 8,600 homes are in the dark by 10 p.m. Some areas have gotten power restored. Still no ETA on when all affected areas will get power restored, and until Blizzard staff begins tweeting tomorrow no news whether Blizzard has power.
Update #2 – 4am EST: Power has been restored according to the Official SCE Twitter.
SCE: Thanks for your patience, @City_of_Irvine, and thanks to our best-in-class crews: power has been restored. Have a good night. #Irvine
Update #3: Beta Servers will go live today, but the Raid Test is likely postponed until Monday — according to Watcher (aka lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas).
So, sometimes things literally catch fire.
We were hoping we could get the servers up in time for the scheduled raid test, but that’s looking unlikely. Servers should be up today, but I’d rather not speculate while everyone is waiting on the off-chance that testing will happen.
I’ll post a new schedule for Monday testing, in a short while. — source
