Well it's the day before Our 1st WotLK Patch

For most of us it has been 30 days since we opened Northrend on live servers. Some of us are again level capped; raids have been done, professions are moving along if not capped again. So i thought i would take a minute to look back at the last 30 days comparing these to TBC first 30 days as a contrast and compare.

We will look first at what didn't change between the different expansions. Over priced items on the AH the first week or two until more people had access to them. General chat being full of where is "x" at. Griefer's and ninja's doing there best to ruin our/your time in game. The race to the level cap either because you wanted to be first or you wanted to beat your buddy. Do these always exist in game to some extent? Yeah, x-pacs seem to just highlight them again.

Now the fun the stuff the new. Easy ones another continent to enjoy, 10 more levels of yeah the blue/purple xp bar is back. New factions,recipes,instances and what not. To me the greatest change from this x-pac from TBC is the flow of the story line. Lore makes a come back and its important and not just cursory. We redid a few old Azeroth groups both good and bad. Our zealous oft times confused friends from the Scarlet Crusade renamed themselves and continue to carry their war against the scourge and everyone else now are the Scarlet Onslaught. Mr. Fording has been welcome back into the heroes of light and now leads the old Knights of the Silver Hand and The Argent Dawn under the banner of the Argent Crusade. Plus innumerable old friends that time and space does not allow me to list. One that stood out for me was the return of Ol' Blanchy that tired old horse from westfall quest for the alliance. As you move threw the different zones you will encounter important NPC's from old Azeroth. To avoid spoiling things for those that have yet to reach these zones I will stay as vague as I can. Stormpeaks has incredible dwarven lore. Icecrown will catch you up on your Argent Crusade and Ebon Hold lore. The over the top winner has to be Dragonblight.

Now Dragonblight has brought back a Blizzard feature that I've missed since the days of Diablo II. The in game cinematic, the one you can "unlock" via a quest chain is the best simple hands down. I know that cga has vast improved since the old D II days but this was breath taking.

So to close I must offer to Blizzard a huge thank you. While TBC grew on me and opened raiding up to me more, I just never felt it fit into my "idea" of the wowverse. WotLK is the everything I hoped for and then some. 30 days does not make a x-pac or a game but I have hopes based on my shallow tour of the new areas.