World of Warcraft: Classic's auction houses will be going offline for roughly five days in preparation for the arrival of the Burning Crusade expansion pre-patch on May 18.

As revealed by Blizzard on the game's official forums, auction houses across all WoW Classic servers will be shutting down at 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET on May 14, and won't be brought back online until the arrival of the game's Burning Crusade pre-patch following server maintenance on May 18. The move is being done to help get the game's existing servers ready for their Burning Crusade upgrade, as well as to prepare new, Classic Era servers which won't receive the pre-patch.

Blizzard is advising players not to post items on the auction house shortly before May 14, as nobody will be able to use the auction house during the maintenance period and deposit fees for posting items will be unable to be refunded.