So I've had a bit of a chance the last couple of days to finally take my mage into Northrend now that it has been copied over to the beta realms. I've had a quick look at Howling Fjord, but I've mainly been questing in the Borean Tundra zone.

As some people may have read about previously, with the Wrath expansion, Blizzard are offering the option of 2 starting zones - these being the Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord. The choice of 2 starting areas is in an effort to prevent the sort of quest mob camping and random world pvp that occurred in Hellfire Peninsula at the launch of the previous expansion The Burning Crusade where everyone was jam packed into a single starting zone.


Mount / pet changes

One of the changes that Blizzard have made is in regards to player mounts and pets is that they now reside within their own separate tab. When you acquire a new mount or pet, you learn it as a sort of skill and it no longer takes up a bag (or bank) slot. For me, this meant immediately reclaiming 8 bag slots, as I've been carrying around in my bags all 8 mounts that I have (riding and flying). As you can see in the screenshot to the right here, you click on your current mounts to learn them as a skill and they disappear from your bags.

This will also work for vanity pets as well. So for those who are avid collectors (like a member of the guild I'm in is) of all of the vanity pets in the game, then this will no doubt free up quite a considerable amount of bag and bank space for you.


Borean Tundra

As I mentioned above, you have a choice of 2 starting zones. For horde players, you can catch a zeppelin from outside of Orgrimmar to Borean Tundra or alternatively the one from outside of Undercity will take you to the Howling Fjord instead.

I chose to start off my questing in the Borean Tundra, so my experiences so far will be based around questing in this zone (even though I did go and have a brief look at Howling Fjord - see screenshots down the bottom). You start off at Warsong Hold performing quests for the "Warsong Offensive" faction, lead by Garrosh Hellscream.

As with most zones, you start off at a main town and then branch out from there, so within no time in Borean Tundra, you're riding a flying carpet, fighting things in a creepy mist and you're mowing down scourge in a siege tank (pictured to the left). You also run into the Kirin Tor, where you fly to an island off to the west of the main Borean Tundra area and complete more quests and this area also contains "The Nexus" 5 man dungeon (which I'm yet to check out).


Bugs

There was a new build and patch (127Mb) of the beta released yesterday. But as always there are a few bugs and one that I think has been introduced with the latest patch (not that I tested it before though), and that is the size of the mage frostbolt spell graphic.. is a little large (see screenshot to the right).

The mounting in capital cities problem I mentioned before hasn't been fixed yet, but I also noticed something rather strange when trying to use my Hippogryph mount in Shattrath, I ended up riding a brown Elekk instead. No, it doesn't fly. :)


Screenshots

Anyway, enough of my talking and more shiny things, so I present some of the screenshots I've been taking along the way:

Screens:
- WoTLK login screen
- WoTLK loading screen

Borean Tundra:
- Warsong Hold - Borean Tundra map
- Warsong Hold
- Riding a flying carpet
- There is something in the mist
- Questing for the Kirin Tor

Coldarra (Borean Tundra):
- Flying in
- Questing 1
- Questing 2
- The Nexus

Howling Fjord:
- Arriving by zeppelin
- Vengeance Landing map
- Scenery 1
- Scenery 2