Well it would seem while everyone else in the world was busy with holiday celebrations and New Years, Blizzard workers were being forced to slave away on World of Warcraft. The fruits of their labor: the long awaited 1.9.0 patch. This is a huge patch, adding quite alot of content, changing many things, and making things a bit easier for players. The patch weighs in at about 76 mb.
Among the usual bug fixes and what not, here are just some of the many things either added, or changed in the new patch. Linked auction houses have been added. Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will all be connected on the Horde side, while Ironforge, Stormwind City, and Darnassus will be connected on the Alliance side. Tanaris, Everlook and Booty Bay will also be connected, and those are the neutral auction houses that both factions can use. Multiple Battleground queues have been added. From now on, you can queue up all Battleground instances and even remain in a queue while in a Battleground itself. Most Tier 2 armor sets have had a complete graphic overhaul with new art. New raid dungeons have been added. The Ruins of Ahn"Qiraj, a 20-man raid dungeon, and the Temple of Ahn"Qiraj, a 40-man raid dungeon. Players will have to complete a world event of massive proportions before they can open the Gates of Ahn"Qiraj on their server. The Paladin talent tree has been completely redone and all talent points have been refunded.
There are of course plenty of other additions, changes and fixes in this patch. You can of course use the in-game BitTorrent thingy, or download from a few sources. Enjoy everyone.