The harbinger of doom has spoken from on high.

And by that I mean Boubouille from MMO Champion has released his forecast for Cataclysm’s release date.

Now that Patch 4.0.1 is on PTR, I get a lot of mails asking for a release date and I guess I can answer that without too much risk now.

Keep in mind that Blizzard didn’t announce it because the release can still be postponed, but as far as I know the target release date for Cataclysm is the first week of November (that would be November 2, if you like numbers). The first part of the Cataclysm prologue started exactly 8 weeks before that and the next part of the pre-Cataclysm event will probably happen in 2 or 4 weeks depending on their schedule.

You got your answer, and hopefully people won’t yell at me if something goes wrong.

Link HERE.

Now I’m always skeptical when anyone from a non-official website starts passing along knowledge like it was gospel.  I got heated last year when MMO Champion started telling folks that the new playable races were going to be Worgen and Goblins.  This was based solely on the fact that they happened to datamine some new halloween masks.  They released the information just before Blizzcon last year, which had Blizzard a little bent out of shape.  MMO Champion had information (including the name of the as-yet-unnamed expansion Cataclysm) that they only could have obtained from inside sources.  WoW.com was quick to pick up on this and pass along the information.  My rant was based on the fact that nobody offered any solid facts, only theories, yet the masses gobbled it up like it was chocolate-covered awesomeness.

Of course, MMO Champion was right.

Do they have an inside source?  Of course they do.  They repeatedly drop “rumors” that turn out to be true.  Even the wording of the release date doesn’t come off as something that’s speculation.

This time around, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  The proposed release date is November 2, 2010.

The question is this:  Now that you have an actual number to deal with, what are your plans for that day?   Will you start on the road to level 85?  Start a Worgen or Goblin?

Myself, I may not even get the expansion on that day.  There’s always issues on release, and the zones are going to be so packed it’s going to be hard to get anything done.  With server crashes and zone lag, the first day will be insane.

What about you?  Have you booked November 2 off yet?  Let me know what your plans are in the comments below.