Forged Alliance

So, I have it on good inside word, that this is how Cata launch is gonna play out.

Oct. 5th. - Patch 4.0 launches the new talents.
Nov. 2nd. - Cataclysm Part 1 - You can buy and install the game, create Worgen characters, and all new game features will be live. However, you will NOT be able to level any toons past 80 yet nor will the new content for level 80-85 be live.
Nov. 16th - Cataclysm Full Launch - Level 80-85 content will be released and level 85 raids go live.

Apparently what they are trying to do with this is avoid the situation with Death Knights where you had to choose between leveling a new class
or keeping up with your friends to be able to raid as soon as they could by leveling your old main. You will have two weeks to get a fresh level 1 Worgen to
80 if you want to keep up with the pack. (C WUT I DID THERE!!! :O )

And for our little ICC 10 group this means we may have as little as 6 weeks to complete drake achievs for everyone, which means TWO H Sind kills in that time.

I think that's a stupid idea, when I purchase a game I want all of the promised parts of the game. Raid are NEVER balanced when they first come out, they're always over-tuned, under-tuned, buggy or all of the above. I always found the idea of rushing through well tested content (leveling) in order to get to less tested, less reliable content (early raids) was silly. I have a feeling I'll be the minority on this though.
Also won't this put the goblin/worgen starting zones in serious danger of crashing?

Will I be able to just buy a race change for one of my toons to be Worgen? I don't wanna do anymore 1-80 leveling. Even if the quests are different.

I wonder how much we'll suffer from the talent/skill changes since I presume Blizzard did all of the balancing at level 85 instead of level 80. I think we need to block out more time for heroic Sindragosa before we have to relearn our classes (and break all of our addons) in early October.

-HP