I think Bioware is lying about the Cataclysm being an 8 week only event. I think they are trying to use FOMO tactics to boost player counts temporarily.
This is based on some tweets from Jesse, the CM.
Q: I don't know if you guys can answer this but what happens to the cataclysm map after the 8 weeks? Does it disappear from the game? Become a new area to explore?
Jessie: You’ll have to wait and see, but it would be pretty strange for it to be around temporarily and just go away completely...
Jessie (clarifying): And I wasn't intending for this to be as cryptic as people are taking it. To put it more plainly, it would be kind of silly to just toss out content the team has worked so hard on and not use it in some way after the 8 weeks.
So at this point we know that the team doesn’t want to drop the content after the 8 weeks.
So the question is... what will stay and what will go after the game 8 weeks are up?
Will BW remove the vanity items during the event?
Will BW remove the 3 story missions or will they be replayable?
Will BW remove the new weapon types and gear that is being added to the game with the cataclysm? If so we would only be able to get access to new weapon types during a 6 week time frame. How would we grind for the best rolls when we only have 6 weeks to do so
Will BW remove the war chest lootbox and the new credits gained from finishing a cataclysm run based on your score?
Will BW add the map onto the existing map in freeplay? Will it be subject to the same freeplay events as the normal freeplay map?
A ton of questions but it doesn’t seem likely that anything important will be exclusive to the 8 week event or it will piss odd a ton of players, including me.
This is why I think BW is trying to use FOMO to boost player counts and then at the end of the event they are going to be like “out of the goodness of our hearts we are going to make the cataclysm permanent so that you can continue to grind war chests! You’re welcome!”
Therefore solving a problem they themselves invented just to appear to look good.
Time will tell if I’m wrong. Either way I’m going to annoyed because if they seriously remove new weapons and gear and a game mode after the 8 weeks is up I will be pissed. But if they say they are going to keep it then I will be pissed they lied to us just to drum up FOMO.