Has there been any word or hint about when Cataclysm might be released? They mentioned that they'd like to have one expansion per year, but there's no way this would appear before Christmas. Christmas 2010 perhaps?

They'll have to release Icecrown Citadel first - which would be the last patch for v3 - and I hope Cataclysm would follow a few months after that giving raiders time to kill Arthus.

I would suspect just on the timing from the releases of Burning Crusade and Wrath that it won't be Christmas next year but the year after.

Actually, it might be this year, and I suspect it will be.

They have said at Blizzcon that they've been developing Catac since they starting developing WOTLK. And there is a lot of content completed as seen in all the videos.

My rough guess is early to mid December this year.

HA! Blizzard releasing a product EARLY?

I admire your youthful, naive optimism.

Mike Morhaime verified in an interview yesterday that Cataclysm is one of Blizzard's two planned releases for 2010. They've already said StarCraft II should be released in the first half of 2010, so I think Cataclysm will probably be coming in the latter half.

I believe it was Mike Morhaim on DirecTV who said that when they spoke of aiming two games for release in 2010 they were speaking of SC2 and Cata. My guess is next Summer, assuming they really drag Icecrown out then leave people a chance to experience that.

I'm guessing it'll be a little more than a year from now.

Two things that I heard - one, as the previous posters said, Mr. Morhaim said 2010 was the release time. The other was in the first panel, when the third guy (forgot his name, don't have time atm to go back and rewatch that part of the feed) was showing pictures, and he got to the Goblins, and showed a Goblin Rogue. Direct Quote (as far as my memory is good) - "The Goblin Rogue, sure to be the bane of many Alliance players in battlegrounds. I'm sure by Blizzcon next year you'll all tell us how much you hate them."

That would suggest to me probably late spring/early summer is the target, cuz if they had JUST released it before Blizzcon next year, we wouldn't really have much time to hate them. :P

15months from announcement to release for BC and WotLK. :(

I'm under the impression that Icecrown is roughly 3-4 months away.. putting it somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Another 4-6 months later is when I believe Cata will drop, putting it roughly around Easter of '10, maybe a bit after. There's no possible way they're waiting until NEXT Christmas to drop the expansion, especially with just one more major patch left in Wrath.

My belief? Cara's out no later than 4th of July of '10.

I'm with Crazy41699

Icecrown can't be more than a few months off and we know that's meant to be the last major patch. Judging by the amount of time we were given to raid Naxx/Ulduar we can assume we'll get a relative amount to raid the Colliseum now before Icecrown comes and then similar afterwards...

No one is going to spend an entire year raiding Icecrown.
Unless Blizz have another "Sunwell" patch to suprise us post Icecrown or have not developed the expansion as far along as they originally planned then Cataclysm will likely be early to mid 2010 I reckon.