Cataclysm = Borean Tundra?

I have a confession to make. In many ways I feel that my time in World of Warcraft is coming to an end. I no longer play with any of the friends that made me care about the game. And the ones that still do play are pretty much sick of it. And are no longer even in the same guild. Without those online friends and connections, the draw for an MMO drops considerably. All that's left is the gear grind, which has always been an annoyance to me anyway. And this close to a new expansion, has no appreciable benefit to my character anymore.

So my original plan was to quit after the start of the new expansion. I wanted to see all of the changes, of course, and to see all of the new 5 mans and first raid zones--basically see everything there is to experience before the real grinding set in. And then quit, either by moving to FFIV, or SWTOR. The real end-date for quiting WOW really has little to do with the game at all at this point. I still enjoy raiding and larger groupings. And WOW is still king in that regard, what with most new MMOs concentrating on PVP content...and crashing and burning in the process (it still surprises me that so many MMO makers concentrate exclusively on PVP and RVR content, when PVE content seems more popular to the 'masses'. I guess those content developers are very much like most PVPers...hardcore,

So, my original plan was to quit at the end of Wrath and the death of the LK, along with a friend (my last RL friend who still plays this game). That way I still get to see the new content, while it is still new, and then I can bow out once the grind hits in full force again. But as I already admitted, Cataclysm is interesting me a lot more than I was figuring it would. Though I don't think it will be able to get past the fact that much of the content seems designed to bring in new players, to revamp the old world at the expense of adding a lot of new high-end content. Sure alts will be 'fun'...but that's still a super-long level  grind, which is always the sort of thing I've left to alts when I never had anything to do with my main.

Still, the story progression in Cataclysm seems interesting, and is starting to definitely look like it will be worth going through at least once. But, there is another problem that seem to be emerging out of Cataclysm. And that is the fact that region design seems to be suffering from what I call the Borean Tundra ADD Syndrome. Now, there is no mistaking the fact that most zones in Wrath were quite interesting and beautiful. But Borean Tundra, while still pretty, was a zone badly suffering from ADD. Each little area was a patchwork microcosm of radically divergent terrains which had nothing to do with each other. Oh look, ICE? Right next to a swamp; right next to rolling plains, right next to icy cavers, right next to wheat fields, right next to volcanic fissures and hot springs, right next to....well you get the idea. Borean Tundra was a zone that in no way would exist in the real world...Outland zones were more realistic (as dumb as that sounds). And flying above the zone you just get the idea that the developers had 10 or so ideas on what they wanted to do, put them on pieces of paper and threw them in the air and marked where they all landed. The zone's schizophrenic nature took away from the actual beauty of the zone, and it's ability to make large, openly expansive regions look beautiful.

The region design in Cataclysm looks very much like Borean Tundra. And while the old world may have been boring in its visuals (at least by today's standards), massive terrain variations normally happened between zones, or within zones, where the changes at least made some sense. Cataclysm zones are much denser, much like BC/Wrath...yet to me look very much like patchwork zones of massively divergent terrain features that make things look very stupid when you really think about it. And it completely takes me out of any suspension of disbelief when you look at it from the air.

Now, this is the sort of thing that simply won't change before Cataclysm ships. So, and since I've only seen a few videos of the zones so far, maybe I'm just seeing the most  radical zones first. But this sort of ADD-addled zone design is annoying at best. And probably related to the concept of tighter quest hubs being localized to small sub-zones before moving you on to the next sub-zone. Maybe playing through it might not be so bad, but we'll see.