Guess the patch 2.4 release date and win!

The contest is now closed. Thanks for playing! We'll get a hold of winners as soon as the patch is released.

We all know that World of Warcraft's patch 2.4 is coming soon -- the only real question is when. And that, dear readers, is what we're asking you! Any time in the next week you can leave a comment on this post with your guess on when patch 2.4 will officially be released. When the patch comes out, we have four 60-day game time cards (worth approximately $30) to give to the readers who guessed correctly. (If more than four people guessed the correct date, we'll randomly choose four correct entries as winners. If no one guessed the correct date, we'll award prizes to those closest to the correct date.) All entries must be received before Monday, March 3rd at 9:00 AM EST, though we can't select winners until 2.4 has officially launched.

But Wait! There's more!

I'll even make this easier for you by using some of that good ol' mathematics. After some research, I've compiled the dates and lengths of previous patches. Take a look after the break for not only your chance to win some free game time, but also for an educated guess at when patch 2.4 will go live!

By taking a look at all the previous patches, and using some of those college smarts of mine, I've come up with a handy dandy graph and accompanying data table for when we can expect patch 2.4. Of course, this is just a prediction. It could be way off base.

Broken down by major patch (1.4, 1.5, 1.6, etc...) here are the dates that the patch went to the PTR, and then the dates that the patch went live, followed by the length of testing.

These numbers are pretty useful. Breaking them down further we see overall that on average, each patch takes 27.6 days to go from the PTR to the live servers. If the patch includes new raid content (excluding BWL), the average jumps to 33.4 days.

When we put these numbers on a graph, we can see a pretty nifty trend happening.

The time it takes for each patch to go live is steadily increasing, and there seems to be a pattern amongst patches: one quick patch, one long patch, one quick patch, one long patch. This periodic trend, for the most part, stays the same. So when looking at the graph, we can see that 2.4 should be a patch that takes some long testing, and we can expect it to be in testing somewhat longer than 2.1. Note that I'm not looking at 2.2, since this patch included a major backend change with the inclusion of in game voice chat; not raid content.

Where does that leave us?

Let us look at what we know / can hypothesize:

• The patch will take longer than 39 days (the time it took for BT to come out).

• The patch will be released on a Tuesday (server maintenance day).

• The patch was released to the PTR on February 10th.
  

So let's draw a conclusion that the patch will take 40 days to go from testing to release. This means it will be ready to go the 21st, but won't be released until the following Tuesday.

So there you have it!

My prediction is the patch will be released on Tuesday, March 25th.

Now of course, you are welcome to debate my numbers, and I might just charm in on the discussion too. ;-) But more importantly, you can win free game time! And you can even guess March 25th if you want!

Please enter your guess in the format MONTH/DAY (so March 14th would be 03/14) -- if you don't, you may be disqualified! You only get one chance to guess, because anyone entering more than once will be automatically disqualified -- so make your guess count! And, as always, you must be a US citizen of age 18 or older to enter. Please read the full contest rules before entering.