This week I thought we’d get on our debating socks to talk about a subject that’s near but not very dear to most of our hearts: MMO server maintenance. This week saw a rather long maintenance of 12 hours over at Star Wars: The Old Republic – you only have to read the comments to see how maintenance can be a little annoying, particularly if it runs longer than scheduled.

So here’s the question: what do you do to while away the time a server is down? Do you play other games? Do you have a backup MMO you jump right into? Post a comment and share – we’re keen to know!

There’s always something happening in MMO land but I have to say that this week’s been one of the busier ones. What, with Mists of Pandaria landing, The Secret World releasing its Issue #3 update and SWTOR putting Patch 1.4 live, there’s a hell of a lot on offer.

So let’s open up the discussion across those three games: what are your thoughts on what’s been offered this week for your favourite game? Are you in a renewed honeymoon period with the game, still really disappointed or somewhere in between?

Let us know!

It’s T-Minus 5 days until Mists of Pandaria drops, and whether you’re a WoW player or not, there’s no doubt this release will shape the MMO industry just like previous ones have. Beyond that though, there’s some great fun over the coming week for those who do play.

Hence the topic of this week’s soap box: what will you do for your first hour in WoW after the servers go live – and you can successfully log in? (Click here for all the details of local launch times)

Will you be jumping straight to Pandaria or will you be going for a realm-first in some other area? As I’ve bored my fellow WoW players to death with, I’m attempted a realm first in… fishing.

Jump in: what’s in store for you those first 60 minutes?

Ahhh, weekends. Most of us love them, and aside from some very unlucky souls who may have to work every weekend, t’s usually a time we can allocate a slot of time for gaming.

Which leads to our soapbox topic of the week: do you get more playtime on weekends and if so how do you schedule it? I’m looking at you mothers and fathers out there as well: how do you get some game-related fun time in amongst everything else?

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Anyone remotely following the MMO market at the moment knows that the coming month is a huge one. With Guild Wars 2 launching, the pre-Mists of Pandaria patch hitting World of Warcraft and both SWTOR and The Secret World getting content updates, there’s more on offer than hours in the day for most of us.

This is where you come in: are you getting involved in GW2? Are you pumped for new WoW content? Knee deep in the new SWTOR world event? Or are you playing something totally different that you want to tell people about?

Jump on the soapbox and let us know!