Cataclysm Release Date
Season 9 starts on December 14th, expect Cataclysm on that day or one week before. (But if you've been reading the site you already know that)

* +ARENA_MASTER_NO_SEASON_TEXT = "Arena battles and Rated Battlegrounds are only available during an active player versus player combat season. Season nine will begin on December 14th, so be prepared at that time to take your shot at glory!";

Patch 4.0.1 Release Date "Gone"
Bad news everyone! The release date for Patch 4.0.1 is gone from the Streaming Trial Download page and it no longer displays October 5th or October 12th.


Good news everyone! The latest Cataclysm build changed the version of the game to 4.0.3 instead of 4.0.1, it means that Blizzard is most likely done with PTR builds. Blizzard probably decided to hide the dates just in case something bad happens but I think you can still expect 4.0.1 on live servers very soon, especially with all the recent announcements about it.

This evolution in raid philosophy is built on the belief that the size of your raiding group should be a choice based solely on what's more fun and enjoyable for you, and that you should not have to complete the same raiding content twice in a week to maximize your character's progression

World of Warcraft(R): Cataclysm(TM) in Stores Starting December 7

IRVINE, Calif., Oct 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(R): Cataclysm(TM), the highly anticipated third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game*, will be released starting on December 7, 2010. The expansion will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows(R) XP/Windows Vista(R)/Windows(R) 7 and Macintosh(R) at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector's Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of $79.99.

"Cataclysm includes the best content we've ever created for World of Warcraft. It's not just an expansion, but a re-creation of much of the original Azeroth, complete with epic new high-level adventures for current players and a redesigned leveling experience for those just starting out," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "With the help of our beta testers, we're putting on the final polish, and we look forward to welcoming gamers around the world to enjoy it in just a couple of months."

The first two World of Warcraft expansions, The Burning Crusade(R) and Wrath of the Lich King(R), each shattered PC game sales records upon their release.* In Cataclysm, the face of Azeroth will be forever altered by the return of the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing. Players will explore once-familiar areas of the world that have now been reshaped by the devastation and filled with new adventures. In an effort to survive the planet-shattering cataclysm, two new playable races — worgen and goblins — will join the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. As players journey to the new level cap of 85, they'll discover newly revealed locations, acquire new levels of power, and come face to face with Deathwing in a battle to determine the fate of the world.

The beta test for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is currently underway. Visit the official Battle.net(R) website at http://www.battle.net to set up a Battle.net account and sign up for a chance to participate. To learn more about World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, visit http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm.

We will be introducing a new, hard cap of 600 members in a single guild for Cataclysm. This function will go live with patch 4.0.1 and is already live on the beta and PTR's.

As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.

The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.

The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap

Although we’ve revealed some details of the conversion process (https://forums.wow-europe.com/thread...74620794&sid=1), many of you have asked how many Justice and Valor Points bosses and daily dungeons will actually award. This list is incomplete, and the values may still change, but it covers the majority of the content we’ve been asked about.

* Lich King Heroic dungeon boss -- 16 Justice Points
* Lich King daily normal dungeon -- 12 Justice Points
* Lich King daily Heroic dungeon -- 23 Justice Points
* Lich King raid boss -- 23 Justice Points


* Cataclysm Heroic dungeon boss -- 75 Justice Points
* Cataclysm daily normal dungeon -- 75 Justice Points
* Cataclysm daily Heroic dungeon -- 75 Valor Points
* Cataclysm 10-player raid boss -- 75 Valor Points
* Cataclysm 25-player raid boss -- 105 Valor Points


It’s important to note that once you outgrow content, by leveling past it by a predetermined amount, you’ll no longer gain points. The ‘outgrown’ level for end-game Wrath of the Lich King content is likely to be level 81. Once you level beyond Lich King content you’ll still be able to enter the dungeons, kill bosses, and see their drops, but they will not award you with points. This same principle applies to all content that provides Justice Points, including content from The Burning Crusade.