Phasers on Stun

"He's dead Jim, but not as we know it!"

As spoken by the venerable Dr McCoy (at least in the song). And with the new expansion, that was never true-er.

Phasing has to be the single greatest change in WotLK. But most people I've spoken to haven't even realised it was happening... exactly the way it should be.

For those of you out there who don't know, here's how it works;

Pre-WotLK, when you completed a quest, the world around you stayed the same. Even if you'd just killed the biggest bad-ass boss in a zone, 5 minutes later the same NPC will be standing there harking on about how this boss really has to go. And the Boss will be back where he always was, just as if all your efforts were in vain.

Post-WotLK, that same boss might stay dead. And the NPC would have thanked you, and probably moved on to go and whinge about something else, in some other location..... but only for you.

For you, the boss dissapears. For you, the NPC moves on. For you, the world has changed.
For everyone else, that hasn't done that same quest, it hasn't... the NPC is still there, the boss is alive, etc...

Anyone who has doen the DeathKnight starting area will have seen this in action, even if you didn't realise it. How else do you think Ebon Hold becomes a Haven for you, while still being a Scourge area for those rolling new characters?
You both use the same area, but you see different things, and you probably don't even see each other. You could be stood on top of a newborn level 55 DeathKnight, or even Arthas himself, and not know it.

I've noticed this more and more, but last night I saw an epic version of this in action:

A long, and nicely rewarded, quest chain in Dragonblight ended in a video cutscene (another new experience). In it, the Allies and Horde teamed up to fight Arthas, and everyone was wiped out by a rogue Forsaken who killed everyone. He tried to kill Arthas too, but that didn't work.
High Lord Bolvar died during this scene, and when it ended the whole area around me had changed. Bolvar was still dead, the Dragons that had purged the area were still there, and the whole place was on fire.... But it didn't stop there.

The Dragons then sent me off to see King Wrynn in StormWind, and he set me off on another epic journey, involving me travelling to Ogrimmar and Undercity, and kicking major ass there, with the help of the King Himself, and Jaina Proudmoore. An utterly brilliant storyline, well thought out, nicely done, and very out of the ordinary "kill ten X" type quests.
(The quest rewards were also excellent, as should be expected from a quest of that magnitude).
For me, the world has now changed, Arthas knows I'm coming, Bolvar is dead and I've gained the trust of the Dragons.

The entire quest chain tooko an hour or two to complete, but it's broken into lot's of smaller quests, so there's plenty of scope for completing others at the same time.

Anyone who hasn't done it yet, really should. It starts with a "Strange Device" that drops from a mob you kill, from a quest in Stars Rest. I was level 73 at the time, and had no problem with it.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give Blizz a standing ovation for this feature. It wasn't expected (at least by me), and has added massive potential to the game.

Rather than the next expansion needing an entire new continent, what if they just re-used the Old Azeroth areas? Some of those areas are beautifully designed, and it's a shame they are going to be more and more wasted.

Imagine:

Sargeras returns to Azeroth, and lays waste to the whole place. StormWind is burning? The DeadMines has now been taken over by Sargeras minions? The whole of the Old World zones have been taken over by lvl 81+ Mobs.
To you, the world is destroyed. And all this could happen at the same time as level 1 noobs are still begging "1g Plz!" and level 19's are doing their PvP thing in Goldshire.
Because, to them, things are the same as they always were. And if you want to prove it to yourself, you'd just have to roll a new toon, and go and take a look.

Surely this would speed up the time it takes to release a new expansion too? Which can only be a good thing.