Thirty days

That's the time it took me in the Wrath of the Lich King beta to reach 80. Each level takes between six and eight hours, so 70 hours of play in 30 days, which gives about 2 hours every day... ... It felt like very casual leveling but the numbers seem to say otherwise.

Anyway.

Very enjoyable overall. Outland leveling was already fun and WOTLK is even better.

The quests are even more streamlined now: you reach a new zone, you have one or two new quests, you turn them in and new ones open, usually grouped at the same location. Phasing allows for some interesting variations (mostly seeing the landscape change as the storyline progresses) and there are some new types of quests involving various devices and vehicles that break the kill/gather monotony.

All the zones are beautiful and a few of them got me gasping, and I don't get easily impressed by graphic candy.

Every 2-3 levels, something new happens that motivates you to push further: at 72-73, you will do the epic Death Gate quest, at 74 you reach Dalaran, at 77 you can fly again, and at 80, you beat the game and the credits roll.

Ok, maybe not.

I did a short 10-man earlier in the Obsidian Temple, which gave me a short, albeit thrilling, glimpse into raiding at 80. It definitely feels quite new with all the new animations, sounds and abilities that everybody has (for example, I was receiving an insane amount of HOTs). This particular instance is clearly aimed at giving cheap Badges of Heroism to players, but it was short and sweet.

I'm not quite sure what I want to do now or even if I want to keep playing the beta or simply wait until the game ships. This is usually the time when you need to get organized and start running 5 or 10-man and also work on leveling your main professions (along with cooking, which is a bit painful right now) but I don't feel I'll have the energy to do this on the beta.