I'm sure you already know that it's out but it skipped your mind since most of you use Next-Gen systems. Either way, I'm on the fourth day of Cataclysm trial and I'm really enjoying everything they've done with the starting areas. Since Ahmad seems to dislike the MMORPG genre (or at least WoW) to a greater extent that Tom or Oliver - I'd just like to say that they've improved the quest chains and the "world" in general. The Cataclysm has reshaped the Azeroth and Blizzard has used this as an opportunity to re-do nearly all of the quests in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms (Outlands and Northrend have probably been left untouched).
Something even I didn't like so much about the earlier quests in WoW was the fact that the quest givers would give you fetch quests with almost no purpose behind them. I'm not saying there aren't anymore fetch quests - there are plenty. However, they're dressed up in such a way that you look forward (more so now then before) to do them. They also introduced plenty of quests that stray from the fetch-quest-theme. More quests are related to the some developing story if not the main story of the Cataclysm.
Something else Ahmad explicitly stated he didn't like was the unchanging world. At the start, mid-way, or completion of many quests, there are many minute changes to the environment. Larger changes in the environment usually happen when you're a higher level and take part in more important quests that're usually related to the main story. Something else that I noticed was the improved instancing compared to what was available in Northrend (Lich King expansion). When you completed a quest that changed the environment even minutely, you would be a different world instance and you wouldn't be able to see allies or enemies who hadn't completed that quest yet. As a hunter though, you would be able to track allies or enemies in the vicinity but you wouldn't be able to physically see them. Cataclysms avoids creating unnecessary new world instances (I don't know how or why they didn't implement this in the Lich King expansion). In Cataclysm, when your go collect the armor and weapons for slaves you're rescuing, they actually wear it (you see them wearing it while others who haven't completed the quest yet see them half-naked) and you're not in some parallel realm where you can no longer interact with other players who a few steps behind you in the quest chain.
There are many more changes that Cataclysm introduced that I'd like to mention but I got six more days of the trial left and I'd rather play it than talk about it. Since you have already tried the ten day trial back during the Lich King expansion, I'd say try it again and play the specific starting zones, try the two new races (Goblins and Worgens) and see how the game has improved and find out what you dislike. I'd highly recommend playing replaying the Undead starting zone because the changes they made make their story more entertaining. Since the Trolls (and I'm assuming the Gnomes as well) got their homes back, they no longer share the beginner quest chain with the Orcs and Dwarves, respectively. I've played the Troll starting zone and it is really nice and ties into the lore pretty well. I'd recommend playing through the Worgen and Goblin starting zones but it appears to unlock those classes in the trial, you need to be a previous or current subscriber.
If you plan on testing it out soon, I urge you to play on the realm "Blackwing Lair" since my trial is taking place there.
\,,/, Have fun,
Eric Fernandes
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