Annnnd in Blizzard country...

Operation Gnomeregan and the Zandalar event are LIVE today, with no advance warning whatsoever.

Tricksy, tricksy, Blizzard.

Predictions!

Nearly every day in Trade chat I see people asking "When is Cataclysm coming out?". Guildies are asking it, bloggers are asking it... and I certainly would like to know as well. Time for some predictions!

Let's see what we know so far:

• As of January 5, the next wing of Icecrown Citadel will be unlocked in two weeks, or around January 19. 

• If the final wing is released 2 weeks later, that would be February 2. I'm going to say February 9, just because it's Arthas and I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard drags it out.

• The current arena season ends on January 19th. It started on September 1, so it lasted 4.5 months. If the new season starts right away and runs the same amount of time, it would end sometime in late May.
  

• The Wrath of the Lich King beta started July 17th, 2008, and WotLK released November 13, so you're looking at approximately 3-4 months between the start of beta and the launch date. 
  

• To add to that, patch 3.0.2 (the launch event patch with the barbershops, achievement system, Stormwind Harbor, Inscription, and all the other WotLK goodies) released on October 14, a full month before the launch date. 
  

• As of right now, there have been no reliable leaks of a Friends & Family Alpha of Cataclysm, nor any word on the Beta. This seems to put a February/March release date out of the picture, as there likely wouldn't be enough time to complete testing.

So given all of that:

If we hear about the Beta soon, say, sometime in late January/early February, and then allow 3 months for testing, we could be seeing the launch date as early as April. That seems really early to me, again, knowing that we're talking about Blizzard here, so I'm thinking May is more likely. I also think May is more likely given that the next arena season may be ending around that time frame, and they could start fresh with both the expansion and the arena season. Plus you have the Memorial Day weekend, which would be prime gaming/buying time. This means that patch 4.0.x, the one that starts the pre-launch event, could very well start in April.

So yes, my guess is May 2010 for Cataclysm launch, with patch 4.0 going live in April.

Winter Veil squeeee...

I am an achievement whore. There, I said it.

Granted, I'm not one of those people that gets nearly every achievement known to man, and I don't like to impose on others or play in a fashion contrary to the spirit of the game just to get some weird "Kill 100 sea boars while naked, picking your nose, and flying on a wiener schnitzel" achievement. Although I have been known to jump repeatedly off cliffs unclothed for unlocks in other games. ;)

But I loves me some achievement goodness. And if it's combined with a World Event, even better. Enter: Winter Veil.

Last year was the first time ever that I wasn't playing WoW during Winter Veil, due to burnout and other issues. Every year before that, it has been a silly Christmas Morn tradition for us to log-on to WoW first thing and get the presents from Greatfather Winter. I'm excited to be able to complete the Winter's Veil achievements this year and get the title "Merrymaker".

WoW.com has just posted their Guide to Winter Veil, as it starts tomorrow. Hope you've been collecting your small eggs, as they'll likely be selling very well this week. My plan was to chain-run heroics the rest of the week, but I'll likely be busy with Winter Veil for at least 2-3 evenings.

After that, I only need two more world event achievements to get the Violet Proto-Dragon: Love is in the Air (which I've heard is a pain) and the Lunar Festival event. So if all goes well, I'll have the drake sometime in February.

I've had some folks ask why I "waste" time on achievements, titles, and world events, saying that such things are pointless and stupid and for people that have no lives. That may be somewhat true, but the same can be said for any aspect of any MMO. In the end, it's all pixels in a video game. The real objective is to have fun, whatever that definition of fun may be.