As anyone who’s following WoW already knows, The Shattering (aka patch 4.0.3a) has occurred on the PTR. Naturally I had to go take a peak, and I had some adventures.

First off, obviously there’s no Old-World Flight in 4.0.3a since that’s a Cataclysm bullet-point feature, but that didn’t stop folks from bitching and moaning the whole hour I spent touring Stormwind. As for Stormwind, it is GORGEOUS. I love the new layout, and the changing pavement is amazingly beautiful. I learned a few things while in the human capital. One, was that there is now a quite extensive crypt below the Cathedral of Light. Two, I had a pillow on my back.

I swear, I have no idea either. It eventually disappeared so I don’t know what it was about. I finally decided to head out and explore, with the stated goal of riding my bear north to the Wetlands. I left Stormwind and headed east to Redridge, and was met by a curious sign.

No transients? Ok, I’m not real bright, so could someone explain what the hell they’re trying to keep out? WTF? I actually first read it as ‘no transvestites,’ which might actually apply to a large number of players. In any case it ultimately didn’t apply to me so I rode through the zone to the Burning Steppes. I learned some interesting new facts about the zone during this ride through. For one, the Dragonkin population has exploded and absolutely overrun the zone. Next, there’s a crazy standing army of Blackrock orcs near Blackrock Mountain, which I guess makes sense. There’s also a new outpost near BRM called Flamestar Post and it has a gryphon master. It’s also the world’s stupidest flight point, since when I tried to catch a ride to Searing Gorge, I was told that I knew no connecting flight points. I was rightly miffed, ranting and pointing at a bevy of nearby flight points, but the dude was unmoved. Thoroughly pissed, I rode all the way back across the zone to Mogan’s Vigil and caught a gryphon north the Thorium Point.

Riding from there to Loch Modan, I came across some advice for those who may yet be working on getting the key for Stonewrought Pass: skip it. Seriously, the damn gate is gone so that key will be scrap come Cataclysm. Once in the Loch I nearly rode to my death while headed through Thelsmar to the Loch because the land just dropped away into the dry loch. I never knew it was that deep! I opted to ride to the Badlands for fun, and was looking around while autorunning when I happened to glance ahead for a second and saw… this.

I literally turned around and saw this crevice just in time to stop where you see me. What the hell is this? Shouldn’t they warn me somehow? I mean damn, I don’t need klaxons sounding or anything, but any kind of heads-up would have been nice! I navigate the game primarily via muscle memory, and I understand that Cataclysm is designed to shake me out of my routine and that there will be an adjustment period, but I see a slight differentiation between “adjustment period” and “getting tossed to my doom.”  You just know some developer is cackling each time a player autoruns to his doom here. I bet they keep stats and everything.

Once in the Wetlands I stopped by the Greenwarden’s Grove for a short before riding to the now-flooded Menethil Harbor to take a boat to Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh. Theramore was thoroughly boring to I boarded a bird and flew to Gadgetzan to see the damage there. The coastal water was – as we’ve been told – up to the gates of the city, but inside not much had changed. Apparently you can fight in a Ring of Blood series of battles there that a number of level 80s were blitzing through.

At this, after a couple hours of exploration, I called it a night. It looks like we’re but a week or two from this hitting Live, so get ready to relearn the old world. Just do everyone a favor and leave Dalaran before The Shattering. If you don’t, the rest of us don’t want to hear you whine about having to hike back to the old world on foot when they take out the Dal portals. You’ve been warned.

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