After waiting 5 hours for a 1.8 GB download, I was ready to patch the game to Wrath of the Lich King beta and begin whatever adventures Blizzard had in-store for me. After another fifteen minutes of installation, the Blizzard downloader fires up inviting me to login. I eagerly clicked "Play" only to be greeted with another 500 MB download, and another twenty-minute wait. It was worth it though. Fully patched, I fired up the game and proceeded to login. There is a new login screen with a lot of blue and snow. The "Cinematic" button doesn't do anything yet, but I imagine there will be some snazzy new Lich King video at some point.

With absolutely no fanfare, I was dropped where I last logged out in Shattrath City. All my keybindings were wrong, settings were out of wack and I had no talents either. I spent a good twenty-minutes importing my old settings and configuring the user interface to my liking. In the meantime, the trade channel was going nonstop in Shattrath, and some guy was going on and on about how cool Stormwind Harbor is. I was sold. Off to Stormwind Harbor I go.