The Cataclysm launch has come and gone and it’s time I got some of my reactions out of my head and down on paper.

Since the only things exclusive to the Cataclysm expansion are levels 81-85 and the two new races, I decided to hold off for a bit before buying the upgrade for my second account. Thanks to Blizzard’s temporary price slashing, my second account is now all the way up to Wrath ($15 for two expansions = WIN) and that’s still too many levels between my pairs and 80 to plunk down another $40.

But being the addict that I am, I wanted to know what I was missing out on!

I ran both a Goblin and a Worgen through the starting areas so I could see the new content and get a feel for how hard it would be to dual-box them. While the Goblin area did have some phasing, it was nowhere near the nightmare that the Worgen starting area turned out to be.

I enjoyed soloing the content (railroading aside), but there is no way I will ever try to dual-box my way through either of the locations. Leveling is so fast now that taking the time to run both toons through the starting area would probably take just as long as trying to fight my way through while dual-boxing.

The Worgen starting area phases constantly, almost to the point where every time I turned in a quest I expected everyone around me to vanish. It’s great for the storyline and the immersion, but annoying when you constantly get split up. Just teaming with other players caused no end of headaches since there was no indication that they had moved to a different phase.

The other problem are the kidnap-quests that move you from point A to point B with no way to return to the previous area. The whole shebang is very railroaded and linear, but it never gives you any warning as to when the psychotic horses are going to run you willy-nilly across the landscape with no way back.

There are also several quests that involve using vehicles that I’d have to do solo (catapulting onto ships and capturing horses) that I can’t quite work out how to do as a team. I’ll start wandering back into the dual-boxing forums soon, maybe they’ve found tricks I haven’t– which wouldn’t be at all surprising.

So while I did enjoy the new areas and will mostly likely upgrade the second account to Cata at some point, the new races aren’t shiny enough to make me want to get them now.