World of Warcraft

East Coast World of Warcraft players fondly remember previous expansion pack launches when they could start playing three hours ahead of the West Coast. Blizzard evens the playing field when the Cataclysm expansion launches on December 7 at 12:01AM Pacific. Click the article title for times for the rest of the World.

Blizzard nailed down the launch time for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm today in a statement that clarifies several bits of information about the upcoming expansion pack. With the availability of Cataclysm as on online purchase, a first in World of Warcraft expansion history, Blizzard is redoing the way it launches expansions. Instead of having East Coast servers up at 12AM Eastern and West Coast servers up at 12AM Pacific, the whole shebang goes up according to Pacific time.

The official times are as follows:

Quote:

Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia - December 7 at 12:01 a.m. PST Europe and Russia - December 7 at 12:01 a.m. CET

Blizzard had mentioned the launch time previously, but without clarification many players assumed the release would be business as usual.

This means that fans attending midnight launch events on the East Coast can take a nice little nap before rolling Worgen and Goblins when the expansion goes live.

Blizzard also took the opportunity to clarify the availability of cinematic movies via direct download. Prior to Cataclysm's release, Blizzard will patch the expansion's opening cinematic to players. All other cinematics (including Wrathgate) will be available for download via the game's patcher as well.

2nd November 2010, 21:38

2nd November 2010, 23:52

3rd November 2010, 15:30

3rd November 2010, 15:33