Changes are pretty crazy. Got lost in Orgrimmar for about 20 minutes last night. It's pretty badass now. Changed my druid to a troll and I'm going to start leveling him for the next two weeks, I think.

It's huge! A shame they didn't redo The Undercity as well. And goblins everywhere. I tried to go into Hyjal but the game kept teleporting me back out! Guess I have to wait until the 7th.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1220626

$10 for Wrath.

I started a new Troll Warlock last night but didn't see many differences yet. Haven't been up to Org though. I did fly my Death Knight down to Light's Hope Chapel and saw the new wall, which was cool.

I have too many characters that are off in the expansion stuff already, so I need to get back to the original continents and see more of the changes. The opening cinematic was pretty neat, though I expected the dragon to be bigger.

I went to Ogrimmar and it looks great now. I still havent explored much of the rest of the world yet. I did get slaughtered by some of the new 85 elite guards when I was trying to do the thanksgiving acheivment stuff in the ally towns man they hit hard.

Also went to Dalaran and its a ghost town now that there are no portals but you can fly your mount there now.

Wait...what? No portals?

Yep, gone....mages making a mint on ports.

I went down and checked out the huge gash that split the Barrens. It's deep and I couldn't find a way to cross it. Razorfen Downs has briars everywhere up to your waist. Thousand Needles and Shimmering Flats is flooded. Hard to get anywhere without a flying mount.

Excellent! Thanks!

So there is no way to really get out of Northrend quickly anymore? I can't believe they would remove the main way to get back to the original continents.

Dalaran and all of Northrend will quickly become a ghost town just like Outland.

Which is kinda cool because now the original cities will be the center of activity again. Which makes a good impression on new players. That was the trap Everquest II fell into. They made the guild halls so you never have to leave them to do anything, so the cities are empty.

You didn't notice any differences? The entire troll starting zone is completely new.

Yeah, they took the portals out of Shatt and Dalaran and replaced them with trainers and an AH. So now you don't need to leave Outland/Northrend to go back to the old world at all while leveling.

You can still use the Dark Portal to get to Outland (and there's a portal in each main city TO the Dark Portal), and the zeppelins to get to Northrend. But if you're 80, you don't need Dalaran any more. It will soon be the ghost town that Shattrath City is.

Have to say, the old world changes are pretty awesome. Leveling my (troll) druid through Stonetalon, Southern Barrens and Dustwallow Marsh and didn't do a single quest I had done before until I got to Dustwallow. Everything was shiny and new. Oh, and Thousand Needles is pretty sweet as well!

Went from 24 to 40 in about a week of casual play. The "breadcrumb" quests are helpful in moving from one zone to the next, and if you don't know where to go, there's also a Command Board in Org now that gives you the breadcrumb quest to the next zone too. Very nice.

Thought I'd put this back on the front page since the new content comes out in 6 days.

Don't mind me, just talking to myself here.

I'm listening. I started playing a Gnome Priest just to check out some of the new content, as I normally only play Horde. Pretty cool, and it's nice that you level much faster now, as each level tends to mean a bit less at the lower levels than they previously did. It's mostly an illusion though, because previously you got more talent points but they had less of an impact, and you no longer buy ranks of spells since they just improve with each level you gain.

I've randomly decided to play after only making it up to level 34 when i last tried 6 years ago. I'm level 14 after running around over the Thanksgiving weekend

I got my pally from 70 to 78 in the last week. Need to get him to 80 to join my 5 or 6 other 80s

I am so tempted to start playing again, but after about 3 years playing everyday, the past year off has really given me time back.

You ain't kidding - I started playing about this time last year, and my 2010 Rate Em As You See Em post over in Movie Talk is a lot sparser than my 2009 one.

Yeah, that is the big downside LOL. Even with my dramatically cut back playing time (couple hours a night, couple days a week), it still means a lot less time for Netflix, TV and my Blu-ray collection. And my Xbox time has gone down to practically zero. But I am SO loving the Cataclysm changes that I can't help but log on. And it is making me that much more excited to see what they did with the new zones. I can't wait to head to Hyjal and soak in all the lore-y goodness.

And yeah, this is the best time for new players to check out the game, or old players to come back. The entire world is different (and better). Questing is easier and more fun. And you can get the original game and the first two expansions for a total of $20 through the end of December at Blizzard's website ($5 for original, $5 for first expansion, $10 for second expansion). Come be one of us!

I am going to miss LK since I had a ton of fun this expansion. I now have all 10 classes at level 80.

I am trying to gear and make a decision on my new main since they made Hunters use a casted shot to regen resources. I just hate the feel of the class now.

I think I am going to go hybrid this time and use either my druid or shaman.

I can't imagine how crowded the servers will be come the 7th. The whole portals are gone thing sounds interesting, especially since my main is a Mage

But as I said before, there's just too much other things going on (in the gaming world and more importantly real life) for me to get involved in the time sink that is WoW again.

But, I will return someday. I am a big lore nut and all the changes sound totally cool. Did they revamp the old dungeons, too? What became of Mankrik's wife? Does the Ally still raid Crossroads? What towns were destroyed, if any?

I was hybrid for the last 2 expands (priest/shaman) and am going for pure DPS for my main this time. I really don't care if it takes longer to get into randoms.

If you're a hybrid, you WILL end up healing if you have a tree for it. I'm sick of it! No more healing for me!

Well, if you had a Night Elf at some point, you might remember Auberdine:

Menethil Harbor was pretty surprising,



Oh, and Southshore too...