The not later than date was said to be August, realistically it was expected to come out in Summer.
But now, with the announced May 20 launch date (Apr 30) prepatch, Cata Classic is coming out … in spring.
The content release dates are also suggesting of fast roll - the last raid is coming in Jan 2025, and the expansion ends.
Perhaps Blizzard wants to give us Pandaria as soon as possible?
that depends if they leave wrath era server or not.
if not then yeah its way to soon .
if they leave at least 1 wolk server ? then cata can last 3 months and people wouldnt mind 
the only annoying thing is that it overlaps in begining with S4 on retail .
Then i guess it is to soon for some people.
No wotlk era ever was mentioned by blizz.
With Cata prepatch, wotlk fanboys should accept that finaly.
With the launch of the Cataclysm pre-expansion patch, some items and achievements will no longer be available or will be harder to obtain. It’s important to keep in mind that the game world is going through tremendous changes that will affect the availability of certain rare mounts and items.
ICC released in october, raid participation has been crashing since november, currently at it’s lowest levels since the second week of TBC, it’s not too early.
I am having issue comprehending this line:
Are they going to make raids scale like on retail or only that you can do the raid (one time in 10 men and the other in 25) two times per reset?
Being the OP of the thread, being also the one who’ll gladly play Cataclysm Classic, being one who loved WOTLK (whaat, am I not a fanboy too?), being neutral on this topic - I think both arguments for/against have merit.
On one side, I think it’s bad not to have WOTLK servers from a business standpoint - what, is Blizzard going to give that niche to the private servers? And most of the private servers (and biggest ones) are WOTLK.
But on the other side, game-wise I think it makes perfect sense to have three modes of the game. First one - retail, second one - classic with new modes, raids, seasonal content, and third one - re-release of older expansions under Classic brand.
Why? Because pure WoW Classic (without expansions) is a good basis for Blizzard to experiment and upgrade, and retail is running its course. These two games have their own life.
But while many people would say that Cataclysm is the first retail version and it ruined the game, I’d gently disagree. I’d say that WOTLK is the first “retail” version. It’s where RDF appeared, gearscore and obsession with metrics appeared, achievements and obsession with their completion appeared. You may say WOTLK is the last classic because of the old world, but gameplay and mechanic wise I think it’s the first retail.
That’s why when Blizzard decided to go with re-releasing BC and WOTLK, the only logical pathway appears to be continuing on to Mists of Pandaria at least. By the time MOP ends, if the population is significant, I don’t see any obstacles not to go with WOD too.
10/25 share boss kill-lockout.
There is allready 3+ Retail/Vanila era/SOD/Hardcore/wotlk and thats allready 2 much,besides that every 1 got faforite expansion and may wine about fav expansion era.
Mostly private comunity its different people,some of them played wotlk classic alil at best and left to play on privates. I see nothing good on era realms.
Did anyone here join the cata beta? I wonder if we are going to get thoroughly tested and polished xpac?
It’s always possible we’re a bunch of versions behind on beta, but a lot of stuff dont work and there hasn’t been raid testing yet (probably on account of half the specs having nonworking spells)
Wow this sounds a bit worrying! I guess Blizzard can keep updating the game during prepatch and I hope it won’t be that bad as I wanted to experience the updated world by levelling through 80 
What does this even mean??? People who like an expansion play it how is that wrong.
Separating community, we dont need more WOW’s, wotlk online droped hard since week SOD released.
People playing Era have ZERO interest in playing whatever other expansion is out.
Some of em*
Good for them for playing something they enjoy, I know many people who quit Wrath because they didn’t find Ulduar/TOGC/ICC fun but came back for SOD.
so is the same as it was back then, ok no cata for me.
How’s it going to work with free transfers from SoD? If you can only transfer to specific Cata realms, it makes sense to wait and see which ones before getting into Cata.
Has it been confirmed that there will be transfers from SoD?