A number of exceedingly interesting posts this week talk quite a bit about potential changes in Cataclysm (I think this is all pretty spoiler-free, though the posts themselves are not):
”This [varying your main] is one of the reasons why Cataclysm will shake things up, even for people who don’t expect it. You may think you are in a tight knit raid guild right now, but how many of those raiders will decide that actually they’d rather focus on a different alt on a different server when the expansion hits?”
Spinksville
“6. The road gets approval.
7. The loot gets approval.
8. And that gets TOTAL approval. Now we’re angry about the last years of not having it.
9. And that.”
Big Red Kitty
“Blizzard has big plans for gnomes and trolls, with brand new starting areas and questing experiences available for those races when Cataclysm launches. But before that can happen, they need your help! There are some awful baddies that’ve been crashing on their couches, and they’ve been kickin’ around for far too long.”
Michael Sacco, WoW.com
All this speculation put me into a very curious state of wondering what things people (a) expected last time, but didn’t happen, and (b) didn’t expect at all that totally changed the way they play.
As a non-player when Lich King came out, no doubt there were huge, burning issues that became burnier or moot in the actual expansion that I know nothing about.
If you played pre- and post- Lich King (or Burning Crusade, for that matter), how would you answer the two questions above? (Assuming that I’d posed them as questions, natch, which I’m too lazy to go back and do.)
Disciplinary Action 
Hmmm.
I’m not sure there was much in category a).
For me, the main unexpected change came not with the expansion itself, but later patches. Love it or loathe it (and in my case it’s a bit of both), Dungeon Finder has brought about a huge change in the way we play.
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Hmm.. Maybe I’m getting senile in my old days – but I can’t really think of any expectations I had that didn’t happen. Except maybe that I didn’t kill Arthas yet. 😛
Dungeon tool sure changed the way we play. And heirlooms. Gotta love heirlooms. Didn’t expect those!
What about you? You don’t answer your own question 🙂
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I actually didn’t start playing until after the Lich King came out, so I have to rely on you guys to tell me what it was like in the good old days (uphill both ways to Molten Core, through lakes of lava!) 🙂 But I’m very excited to experience my first one!
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I was honestly the biggest noob in the history of the game all through BC and had no expectations of WOTLK other than more zones to quest in.
I don’t remember exactly when the rules changed about mounts – ie what level you could get one and how much they cost (though I recall it being moved forward more than once) but this changed the game for me — Zoell spent sooooo many hours walking up and down roads, and the grind for the 100 gold to buy a mount at 40 meant a solid 3 weeks of nothing but mining runs. No way would I have leveled another toon if it had stayed this way.
But back then, it seemed an integral part of the game – those slow land mounts were a badge of honour, a significant in-game achievement, a sign that you were really a player. But the starter quests are much more fun now when you’re not spending so much game time mindlessly running with numlock on.
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