The wait is finally over, today in a press release Blizzard announced that closed beta testing for Cataclysm will begin. Much like the Golden Tickets from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, invites will be going out to a lucky few, who signed up previously via their Battle.net accounts, to participate in this first testing phase. Anticipation is running high amongst players for the new expansion, so the wealth of information that is sure to stream out from this initial beta testing will be a welcome reprieve and it appears we have much to look forward to as pointed out in today's press release:

“Our focus with Cataclysm has been to build on the knowledge we’ve gained through the previous expansion to deliever the best, most compelling World of Warcraft content for our players to date.”

It remains to be seen if Cataclysm will top the last two expansions, however I certainly wouldn’t say no to an early invite to find out. To see if you are one of the lucky few keep an eye out on the e-mail linked to your WoW account, you might just find your golden ticket there. More about href="http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?100630"
target="_blank">Cataclysm's closed beta can be found on Blizzard's official site.