For those who have never been through a patch like this...
Please go ahead and get up from your computer and go do important things. The maintenance was just extended for another 3 hours and I can say with confidence it will likely be extended several more times. Last time this happened I sat in front of my computer high on aderrall for 12 hours before I realized it was time to go to bed. Of course I didn't go to bed and sat for another 3 hours. I implore everyone to go about a normal day and pretend like WoW doesn't exist.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't most major patches take quite long to deploy? I mean, we experienced this as recently as 4.0.1. This is nothing new.