Cool things about the Wrath of the Lich King beta. 1) Death Knights feel epic. I'm tearing through the Death Knight starting zone. The real test will come when I reach Hellfire Peninsula, however.

2) Mayor Quimby.

3) The starting zone changes. I haven't really heard anyone else remark on this yet but the Death Knight starting zone is very story driven and thus very linear. You usually only have one or two quests at any one time. As you progress though the story of the quest line the makeup of the zone changes to reflect the current state of the story. Really cool. I wonder what would happen if my wife starts a Death Knight when I'm near the end of my quest line. Can we see each other? Do we see the same things around us if we're in the same area? 4) Lots of statistics. The second tab on your achievements window is a list of statistics involving money, kills, quests, etc. Very interesting information to have.

Umm... yes. Yes they do my son.

Yesterday my five-year-old son asked me if Darth Vader sleeps. I said, yes, I do think he sleeps because even though he is more machine than man he is still man and must sleep like the rest of us. However, after further discussion with my son we decided that Darth Vader probably does not use a pillow when he sleeps.

How cool is this?

I spent much of the past week and a half pushing Sandmoose (my Blood Elf hunter) to level 59 and then farming Thorium from Un'Goro Crater to get my mining up. I did not want to head into Outland without first making sure my mining was up to level. My other profession is skinning which hit 300 back in my early fifties. Anyway, I finally hit that last Thorium node -- ooze-covered no less -- to push my mining skill up to the magical 300 number.

Then it was 10 minutes of travel, 10 minutes in the auction house, 15 more minutes of travel and I was through the Dark Portal. Ah, entering Hellfire Peninsula is an awesome experience. I've done it once before with my Night Elf warrior but it was just as thrilling the second time around. It seems that so far the Horde quests are very similar to the Alliance quests which is perfectly fine by me. I like familiarity.

I'm about 90% of the way to level 60 at which point two things will happen. I'll get my epic land mount and leveling will get much slower. I'm going to start having to think more strategically about battles too as it seems I'm always fighting multiple mobs at once. Perhaps I should put some points into the survival tree.