Off to Northrend, Sooner or Later

So the WoW decompliers were right: we're off to Northrend.

In many ways, Wrath of the Lich King feels like less of a "big change" expansion than the Burning Crusade did. There's no big showstopping feature, like flying mounts were. So what do we have?

• Death Knights/hero classes, from what little we know of them right now, don't seem all that exciting. They're hero classes because they start at level 55/60. They're not going to be the most l33t, uber pwnage classes because that would throw the game significantly out of balance, and Blizzard doesn't want that. I wouldn't want them to be more powerful than any other character, because I'm too lazy to have the time and cash to try to unlock one myself. =D
• A new continent with more quests. Nice (and I actually like the Tuskaars a lot), but more of the same.
• Siege weapons — now this is kind of interesting. I'm not a big PvPer, but being able to blow up buildings in a whole zone (not just in a limited instance, like in the current PvP system) and to have flying weapons of destruction does seem kind fun. From the PvP session at BlizzCon, it looks like Blizz has learned a lot about what works (long timer in Terrokar) and what doesn't (confusing rules for Zangarmarsh PvP) and has taken that to heart for WotLK.
• Finally, the one thing that really interests me as I mainly play casters: inscription. There's very little information about this now, but this might be a way for everyone in the game to finally get some true differentiation in character play, regardless of class. You can buff this spell or ability to pump up damage or healing or capabilities within a class, on top of your regular talent points. That could prove to be very useful, and interesting, unless, of course, it's everyone trying to get every inscription imaginable, and then we'll all be the same.

Don't get me wrong: I'll be buying WotLK when it comes out and I don't see the end to my time in Azeroth in the near future. I'll probably look back at this post in 6 months time and think "what was I thinking?," but this is where I'm at right now.