As of now we know that prepatch comes on the 1st of May, and the expansion launches less than 3 weeks after. And that the prepatch will bring the new world and new races.
Back in the day, there were two prepatches, like in Shadowlands - the first prepatch was pretty much a WotLK patch, it had the old world, didn’t even have Cataclysm cinematic and even the login screen was the WotLK one - but it had Cataclysm classes and systems like Mastery. It also had the earthquakes and some new quests. It lasted 6 weeks, last 2 of them had the iconic pre-patch event
Ancients of wheat and water, I have peppered a way for you. Come forth, and glaze Stormwind!
The event was split into two parts, each lasting a week - first week the cultists set up and started summoning the elements, opening the first part of the event quests, and the second week the elements came and started flooding cities, and the second part of the event quests opened. The second week ended with a gnome party in the Park before server shutdown, and after restart it was the second prepatch (4.0.3a), the Shattering was done, and all gnomes were moved to their [Hearthstone] location. It lasted two weeks until the expansion launched - but the two weeks were full of content, because all the new quests in the old world.
I’ll punch this dragon in the face!
So I’m wondering, how is this going to happen? Will it just be rushed, the event starting on the 1st of May, and the post-Shattering prepatch lasting only less than a week? Or maybe the 1st of May is the date of the Shattering, and the actual prepatch is coming next week? (but if so, then how is Blizzard fixing all the bugs from the beta in a week?)