Well of course Worgen and Trolls will get different looking moonkin models. GC mentioned before that tree form is being revamped to look like a tree of life and maybe they will make it have some differences with each race and they have been avoiding anything about travel form.

I suppose you've all seen the new way the Dungeon Finder will work in Cataclysm: you have to discover the actual instance in the world before you can use it in the Finder. A minor victory for everyone that likes to do quests and instances 'properly', I should say. But I wonder if this means you can purposely not discover certain instances on alts...

There is also a new screenshot; http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downl...ens/ss1312.jpg

It looks like Stonetalon to me. With a goblin rocket launch ramp at some kind of Tauren camp?

It is Stonetalon: Warcraft Facebook
It's in the caption, not a very interesting screenshot really.

I do like the idea that players must discover new dungeons but the chance of players artificially creating another Mechanar or (more likely) purposefully avoiding the next Oculus is pretty strong. I would imagine this could be solved through some sort of fail-safe trigger that forces discovery of all the dungeons after a certain point. Perhaps something like the accumulation of X amount of Hero Points or something.

I don't think that's necessary, to be honest, the reward system should be enough. Those who discover and clear the dungeons get more rewards (points and blue items). Those who don't either wait until they overgear the dungeon or lag a little behind with less items and points. Anyway, I don't really see anyone but hardcore PVPers leaving a single dungeon behind with the main character they level in Cataclysm. And Blizzard may always change loot tables in order to have harder dungeons drop better gear - or "bronze drakes".

The only "triggers" I'd actually like to see would be attunement quests, especially if they ultimately lead to raid dungeons.

On the screenshot...could that be the aerial transport from Stonetalon? It seems actually plausible, in my opinion - not to mention how cool it would look.

Except that now there's a penalty for avoiding dungeons in the form of a "deserter debuff" which encourages players to fill up and play through dungeons they might now otherwise do.

Taken to the extreme you end up with a small population of players who, for one reason or another, need to do the dungeon that "everyone" hates but can't through the LFD system because nobody is available to do it with them. Under the current WotLK system those players may have to endure someone dropping group but they'll eventually get it done. In Cataclysm, if a large group of players are able to exempt themselves from that dungeon without penalty that means those players that need the drop/quest/whatever are in a much poorer position.

With the F&F alpha of Cataclysm underway, does anyone know if this is an actual model or just a very good fake? Found it in the Wow.com comments so am skeptical at the moment.

Since the FFA is officially underway, can we get some clarification (or rather re-posting and re-stickying) of how EJ is going to handle things from the alpha that are covered by the NDA. There's a good chance things will leak again and I can't find the post from the WotLK alpha/beta.

Bloody thing looks almost perfect! However, I really can't believe Deathwing's model would get datamined so fast. It'd be catastrophic for Blizzard, in my opinion, even if it's due for a good few more tweaks.

Oculus wasn't really too awful, it was just the Eregos fight giving players unfamiliar fight mechanics that weren't really forgivable on mistakes, which every inexperienced person makes. That may be fine in a raid environment but not so much for a 5man. I suppose constructor packs could be pretty rough on groups which didn't have much in the way of CC.

For whatever reason people still drop from Oculus groups despite the fact that it's one of the shorter instances even pre-nerf(Make it Count with a co-ordinated group of people, usually people you already knew, was not totally hard to achieve, though admittedly t7 helped in clearing). 6-8 badges in less than 20 minutes, and people still drop, wonders will never cease.

I quite like the thought of Uldum being a bit longer than what we've become accustomed to over the past two expansion, however if it's pre-raid gear, it's going to end up being one of those places that's avoided once ToC.5/ICC.5-type instances are released and triumph/conquest-equivalent gear is obtainable through LFG. About the only thing that could save it is unique drops like mounts and other flavour items.

e - slow writing, many new posts; that deathwing model is insane, but almost seems too small for someone who broke through Azeroth?

Arthas shows up in Howling Fjords. It's not weird to assume that Deathwing will make a presence very soon into Cataclysm, for which he would need a model. It's not that weird or... catastrophic.