Blizzard might have pushed back the Cataclysm release date, but Patch 4.0.1 looks about ready to go live.

MMO Champion pointed out two interesting tidbits that would indicate that Azeroth is about to go down the poop-tubes in the very near future.

The first nugget of knowledge was actually dished out by Ghostcrawler himself.  GC mentions that the current PVP Season will end just before the patch goes live, and the indication is that Season 8 wraps up around October 12.

The second bit comes from Blizzard.  They announced that the streaming client (a function that will allow players to play parts of the game while the client is still downloading content) will be available on October 5.

Streaming trial?  Or streaming pile?  I smell crashed systems aplenty.

Therefore, it looks like we’ll see the Word (of Warcraft) end as we know it within the next two weeks.  From what Ghostcrawler says in a blue post, that may not be so good for Your Truly.

… Off the top of my head, Fury warriors and Feral druid damage seems low. BM hunter damage seems high. There are probably others. You’ll start to see more number tweaks over time, especially as more players get to 85 on the beta that we can compare to our internal testing.

This is Herculano.  Hey Blizz, you just take your time and get my damage back up to snuff before you do anything crazy, okay?