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WOW patch 3.3 in "coming weeks"

What does that mean for Cataclysm?

During yesterday's Activision Blizzard investor conference, Blizzard chief Mike Morhaime said the next World of Warcraft update would be released "in the coming weeks".

VG247 heard the words, and got so excited they thought Morhaime was actually referring to next expansion pack Cataclysm. Bless.

However, we're pretty sure he means the update known as Patch 3.3, which is currently on WOW test servers. This update introduces three five-man dungeons and one 10 or 25-player raid within Icecrown Citadel, and allows players to fight the Wrath of the Lich King end boss, Arthas.

The patch will also introduce the new dungeon system, with cross-server grouping and other features that make it easier to find a party and more rewarding to run dungeons. There's also a quest-tracking feature allowing quest objectives to be tracked on the in-game map. For more info, we recommend that you check out WOW.com's patch guide.

As the final major update to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the imminent appearance of patch 3.3 raises questions about how soon we can expect to see Cataclysm. A release before the end of next year seemed unlikely, but Blizzard allowing WOW to go without major content updates for a whole 12 months would be unprecedented. Could Cataclysm be coming sooner than we thought?