In an ironic twist to all the in-game advertising we've been seeing these days, several World of Warcraft players have noticed references to WoW popping on prime time shows.

While this sort of thing has happened before (the South Park episode "Make Love, not Warcraft" comes to mind), the increasing frequency with which the World of Warcraft references have been occurring has led forum members to speculate about the actual motives behind them.

Some players have wondered if the references were simply Blizzard's way of plugging it's famous MMORPG. Others have suggested that perhaps it's the prime time shows that have contacted Blizzard for permission to use the World of Warcraft name in their episodes.

One forum member even wondered why no one even bothered mentioning the one about the "Lawgiver" and his mighty Toyota truck. Blizzard poster Nethaera gave her two-cents' on the matter:

Things are mentioned all the time in different shows based on popular culture of the time. It gives people that watch those shows the sense that the writers and by extension, the characters, are in touch with what the viewers are involved with in their own lives.

Regardless of whether it's Blizzard or the networks who are really behind the World of Warcraft references, the point is that WoW has already entered pop culture domain, and prime time show writers are quick to make use of something that they know viewers will recognize.

Bad news for the late night World of Warcraft players in US servers but this should definitely sting for players on Oceanic servers. Blizzard poster Eyonix announced that there will be an Authentication Maintenance on March 27 (err, today) starting 5 a.m. PDT and will go on for approximately three hours.

The maintenance will hit primetime gametime for them Oceanic players, (depending on what time zone they're at) it hits around 10 p.m. Players are of course complaining since this Tuesday was supposed to be a rolling restart maintenance day instead of the realms going completely down.

It couldn't be helped however since the authentication servers would be down - meaning players won't be able to log in. Let's just hope this goes as scheduled so everybody can have their World of Warcraft.