After reading this installment, I got to thinking. I'm pretty sure it was unintentional, but the new divide between those characters who were around during Wrath and and those who leveled after Cataclysm could add an additional bit of storytelling to the mix.

Those characters at level 80 at the end of Wrath have been through a lot. They proved themselves in the old world and then served their respective side in both the Outland and Northrend campaigns before finally returning home to find a world shattering all around them, both literally and in some cases figuratively. The player characters who were 80 before Cata are every bit the hardened veterans they're treated as when they show up in Hyjal or Vashj'ir. They may lack some specific context of why things have gotten as bad between the factions - i.e. the revamped questing zones – but that's unimportant. They may not have seen where the current fires of war are burning, but they saw first hand all the sparks being ignited over the years.

Meanwhile, new characters leveling through the game are fresh recruits. They cut their teeth on today's battlefields. They're veterans of the new war and have seen the how things are currently being fought. Ignoring Outland and Northrend, which may as well be taking place in the Caverns of Time and are best ignored when it comes to shaping a new character in the post-Cata world, when they reach Hyjal, they're a different breed of character. They aren't the saviors of the world yet like the old characters, but a group hungry to carve out their own stories and eventual glory against new enemies.

It's an interesting contrast between the two groups and I really do wonder whether it was taken into consideration when Cata was in the works or if it was a happy accident.

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