This year, one of the most important events in the MMO world is the releasing of the World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm. It's well known that the launch date is the next December 7, and by that time thousands of excited players will be counting every second till that date. If you want to enjoy from the very first moment when the expansion launches, you can go and upgrade your WoW account pre-purchasing Cataclysm digitally, so your client will be ready to let you play while the servers go live. Once you've upgraded your account successfully, remember to log in the game before the launch date to begin the background-downloading process. This will have your client ready and you will be one of the first players to get in the game. If you don't care about having a boxed retail version of the expansion, this is a very WOW Gold choice.

By being able to download the game in advance, players will be able to start blowing through the new content the minute it goes live.

To take advantage of the preload, players need to buy the expansion online and log in at least once to initiate the download.

Blizzard is only selling the standard version online, however. If you want the Collector's Edition, with the art book, sound track and pet, you'll need to purchase through traditional retailers.