It sounds like that's what Blizzard is thinking now, regarding the Death Knight (anyone can get it at X level, and then all the lore quests will be done on the Death Knight.)

Quote from Tigole in the recent video Curse interview (starts at 1 minute in):
There's more explanation there of the current thinking: they didn't want to have people rushing to 80 on a character they weren't going to play, just to unlock the Death Knight; lore makes more sense on the Death Knight character itself.

^^

I really hope they do this. I am in a hardcore guild but would love to try a deathknight, however between farming for raids, working full time and attempting to have a social life I don't think I would have time to get a deathknight.

It also makes more sense just in terms of gameplay, leveling a character to 80 that you just plan on dumping once you get there seems like a pointless timesink (not that I don't expect those from MMOs).

I don't. A blanket value of 78 (or whatever) is too blunt a tool. Just as it makes no sense to have level 70 players flying into the level 80 areas and skipping content, it also makes no sense to force level 77 players to stay on the ground in the entry zones that hold nothing for them.

They should weave the unlocking of flight into the lore of the region, with due attention to the *purpose* of preventing flight. If they don't want us flying over / skipping the quest content of an area, then make unlocking flight an integral part of those quests.

Say the Lich King projects an aura of evil that reduces flight speed to walking pace, or gives you a debuff that dismounts you every 10 seconds, or something. Once you've cleared the quest content in a given region, you win a victory over the Lich King and cleanse the area of his taint, unlocking flight for that specific region.

That system has the required granularity - it lets you fly over content if and only if you've already done it, while forcing you to go on the ground into regions you haven't explored yet.

I believe that's pretty much what I said.

... apart from the whole "at level 78" bit, which is what I was arguing against. The important point is that I'd like to see players unlocking flight on a zone-by-zone basis, integrated into the quest chains in the region.

So, when a guy is flying and occasionaly breaks the line, SPLAT. Doesn't make too much sense for me.

.. they get slowed for a bit, or a 30 second warning to cross the line again?

Well, DKs can't use shields, so balance-wise I suppose it should at least rank around what a dual-wielding dps-warrior does. Although perhaps it pulls aggro by actually doing the most damage, in wich case it would be a great class for certain mages and warlocks to reroll to . If DKs get anything like WC3's Unholy Aura, I'd say they are melee-buffers (in WC that aura does passive healing, wich is probably overpowered for WoW.. perhaps it increases HP5 or next-gen spirit).

Ofc this is all still subject to change but seems the clearest explanation I've heard of how it'll work, the joys of having someone on the inside!

Have they commented on a token system of some sort for 5-mans? That's one of the weaker points of 5-man design, in that some classes have their gear stretched extremely thin, to the point where slightly less-common loot is shifted into Heroics (or other sources) which may not be particularly attainable for some classes. DPS warriors, Ret paladins, and oomkins all seem to have a very substantial amount of their gear in Heroics, which is precisely the place where they're not very desirable due to a lack of crowd control or, for that matter, enough players to synergize with.

Have you ever tried to fly up to high or off the edge of a zone to far?

It just stops you and you can't go any farther.

This would work perfectly and no one would fall to their death.

Yeah... they've pretty much been saying that all along. Death Knight is just a new class like any other: rogue, warrior, paladin, mage, etc. Their use of the term 'Hero Class' is little more than a marketing tool at this point.

I think they mostly use 'Hero Class' as an excuse to let it start at a higher level.

Seeing as how they have three talent trees and a rough description of their function being:

Blood = damage
Frost = control/tanking
Unholy = DoT/utility

I'm leaning very heavily towards the (especially)Unholy and Frost trees. If they can really be the mega survivable badass debuffer that I was hoping the Warlock to be then I could be persuaded to drop the DPS and pet, don some plate armor, and head out there and really control the flow of battle.

Anything that can get me closer to the Meleemancer build from Diablo 2 is good in my book!

Take it with a grain of salt, but there is an interesting post on allakhazam claiming to have found an early beta design document outlining the planned zones (and their levels) for future expansion sets. If true, gives an interesting picture of the endgame blizzard has in mind (as well as some future playable races).

Source: Allakhazam.com: World of Warcraft: Forums

The list strikes me a bit odd, especially in that there's only two expansions which add new starting zones, presuming that they'd only add new races in those two expansions.

Of course the hero class is the obvious solution to new classes without new starting zones but I don't think hero classes were defined like that at the stage where these documents would have been written.

It also outlines Dranei and Blood Elves as the first two races, but that's plausible as part of the game plan going from alpha/beta -> intial release.

In case anyone was wondering, Xorothian Plains and Wolfenhold refer to the Nathrezim.

Xoroth - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

Actually, we know that Pandaerns "mask" their "island". Doesn't say how they got to the island.

Also, that list includes mostly Emerald Dream areas? (Eye of Ysera? the Emerald Nightmare?) So, just because its a "plane set" doesn't mean its not tied to Azeroth.

Well with plane they are referring to the different metaphysical planes of Azeroth. The elemental plane and the dream plane. Both are very much part of Azeroth.

Sounds like blatant name-dropping to me.

Deephome - 88 to 91
Skywall - 91 to 94
The Abyssal Maw - 94 to 97
The Firelands - 97 to 100

That's the part that excites me. Going to the Elemental Plane? Yes, please. Too bad it's pure speculation but it did make me just a bit happy.

I call bullshit on account of listing Azuremyst/Bloodmyst. There is no way Blizzard had the Draenei planned out, or the spaceship falling into Azeroth, whatsoever. Its all so sloppy there is no way I can believe that long-view planning went into it.