WoW: Is It December 7th Yet?

Not yet, but almost. I haven’t played much WoW in the past few months, but I’m pretty excited about the Cataclysm expansion launching tonight, and plan to be on at midnight to get a headstart. In fact, while I’ll probably end up leveling in Hyjal, there are quite a few things I’d like to do right off the bat:

• Level my 80 warrior to 85
• Chase down some fishing server firsts (525, the Limnologist)
• Start the new Archaeology profession
• Start leveling my warrior’s other professions (cooking/jewelcrafting/enchanting)

And that’s just the stuff I’d like to do this week. Once my warrior is 85, running daily heroics and able to dabble with the new raids, there’s plenty of other stuff I’d like to do:

• Start up a Worgen hunter
• Level my other 80s (mage, DK, rogue, pally) to 85
• Get professions maxed out across all these characters
• Start a goblin and play through the starting zones

When you look at these lists, it’s easy to see why people get so wrapped up in WoW. At times, it’s less of a game and more of an activity set. There’s so much to do, there’s something for everyone regardless of their skill level, that it becomes a fun place to hang out and engage in watercooler talk with your guildmates.

For whatever reason, it seems that excitement for this expansion is a lot higher than previous ones, which is saying something for releases that sold a million copies practically overnight. My guild in particular has had an explosion of new applicants, and I guess my biggest question now is how well the servers will hold up once Blizzard flips the switch. We’ll find out tonight!