i’d say it’s a safe bet that EHG themselves don’t know the exact hour the patch will be available. there are a lot of variables that could affect that, so rather than promising a specific time and putting undue strain on the devs (who i’m sure are already in crunch mode), or potentially disappointing fans by missing a publicly stated time, they are giving themselves a window to shoot for.
with the knowledge that the studio is based in the US, and being that i don’t know which state/time zone they’re in, i would consider “december 4th” to be any time from 12am PST on december 4th to 3am EST on december 5th. that covers the entire day in all time zones. we can further narrow it down to probably within the workday, so between 8am and 5pm in whatever timezone they’re in.
it sucks for people who need to manage their time so strictly, but i think it’s asking a bit much for them to have a specific time to announce. obviously they would have if they had one yet. we all want to get our hands on the new content ASAP, but i honestly think people are spoiled by GGG’s habit of announcing the exact minute of their patch releases (and announcing the announcement and the announcement of the announcement). this is a small dev team working their asses off to deliver more of the game we all love. give them a little slack.
maybe as the time draws closer, they’ll have more loose ends tied up and can give us a more precise window for the release.