World of Warcraft changes forever tomorrow; the Cataclysm is here

The 4.0.3a patch is scheduled to hit World of Warcraft in the next 24 hours, bringing with it the long prophesised destruction of Azeroth. This is very good news: from tomorrow (Wednesday in the UK), you'll be able to play most of the new content before World of Warcraft: Cataclysm's release date of December 7th. If you've been thinking of coming back to WoW, now is the perfect time; you'll get to see most of what's new to Catacylsm, even on a free trial. Read on for a full list of what's hitting the servers tomorrow.

What is in:

Portals in Dalaran Removed
Class trainers in Dalaran where portals once were
New race-class combinations (excluding Worgen/Goblin)
New Gnome/Troll starting areas
Changes to existing zones
New Cataclysm load screens
New Cataclysm intro cinematic
New Cataclysm login screen
New music
City Quartermasters, with rep tabards
Bug fixes
Class balancing
Druids, paladins, priests, and shaman will have their talent trees reset
Threads pertaining to specific class changes:
- Paladin
- Shaman
- Priest
New hunter pets to tame (Monkey, fox, dog, and beetle, as well as new skins for exsisting pet classes. Complete list here )
A steam powered auctioneer, similar to the engineering only one in the Like Clockwork store, has been added next to the justice point vendors in Dalaran. They are now usable by all non-engineers.
Experience required to gain levels 71 through 80 is being reduced by 20%

What is not in, and arriving on December 7th

Creating Worgen/Goblin characters
Worgen/Goblin start zones
Archeology
Professions past 450 (Illustrious Grand Master)
Guild leveling
Guild achievements
Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor flight
New Zones (80+)
Race Changing to new class combinations

Cataclysm is now available for pre-order , which will let you pre-load the game so that you can play as soon as the expansion goes live. PC Gamer UK has a thriving World of Warcraft guild; join them on the PC Gamer forums .

[via MMO Champion ]

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.