The new quest system is a lot less demoralizing than in Burning Crusade. After being fond of completing a whole big region, the next small outpost was filled with tens of yellow exclamation marks. In Wrath of the Lich King, quests are progressively revealed to you, and initially you get just one or two in each city. This along with the bigger size that your quest log can handle now - 25 quests and 25 daily quests - can help you decide in which region to quest after you pick a couple of initial tasks from a few different regions.

Lake Wintergrasp is a totally optional open-world PvP zone where you may or may not choose to pass by. And then Crystalsong is mostly there to hold the capital city, the mage town of Dalaran. Hold is not such an appropriate word, because after its destruction by Archimonde in Warcraft III, ruins of Dalaran were contained under a great magic forcefield just under the Alterac Mountains for some time, before it was teleported by united mage forces and started being rebuilt in Northrend. Now it floats above Crystalsong, and access to it is only available by flying mount and portals.

Dalaran and new factions

Although only a small part of the city was rebuilt, Dalaran is once more a proud city, one of the wonders of Warcraft, and a perfect example of good Blizzard design. It's simple enough to have as much utility as possible, yet it looks ancient and magic at the same time.

Because Blizzard (and some of us players) felt a little lonely in Shattrath while everyone was pimped out on their fancy flying mounts and just sitting there in the air, doing nothing all day, a decision was made to have flight forbidden inside the Northrend capital city. You will certainly notice the 15 seconds timer until you will be dismounted if you manage to get on a flying thing inside Dalaran.

A few new creatures and factions are introduced in WotLK, from the cute Tuskarr fisherman that offer you the nicest epic fishing pole in the world to the ruthless Viking giants - the Vrykul, including the return of the Argent Dawn, undead trolls, the strange Frenzyheart and Oracle tribes, more Explorers' League and so on and so forth... Plus a lot of wildlife creatures...

Once at level 80 or close under way, there are 5 factions that you have to pay attention: Argent Crusade, Kirin Tor, Knights of the Ebon Blade, The Wyrmrest Accord and The Sons of Hodir. Depending on your class, you should favor a certain faction first, until you get it to exalted. Once you complete several basic quests with the first four factions, your reputation will increase to friendly, from neutral. You will be able then to check out what goods do they have to offer and make your choice. You will also be given the opportunity to buy a tabard to represent that specific faction in battle. Wearing it will insure a reputation raise with it while fighting in every level 80 instance. So you are basically free to do whatever you want as long as you wear your desired tabard.