The reason there's only one vessel following any given route, said Kaplan, is that WoW's mass transportation is one of the most technically challenging aspects of the game, even though the actual experience of traveling between zones feels relatively mundane.

Apparently it's rather a technical feat to manage a handshake that swaps characters between zones, between servers, and does so while keeping everyone on the boat (longtime players may remember the days when some poor commuters ended up swimming with the fishes).

Kaplan admitted that this was a question they get asked often, and that a more robust system of mass transit was indeed something the WoW team was working on.

In more time-appropriate news, preparations for Wrath of the Lich King seemed to be learning quite a bit from WoW's previous expansion - with two separate starting zones in the new continent of Northrend, Blizzard hopes to avoid the zone funneling and overcrowding that besieged Outland during the first weeks of the Burning Crusade.

Likewise, the entire Death Knight starting experience is being instanced to avoid a "PvP nightmare," and from my time in the beta it's an excellently crafted experience even at this stage.

Blizzard "[hasn't] given up on the old world entirely," in terms of content development - with the former site of Dalaran in the Alterac Mountains being the most immediate example of ongoing development for the original two continents of Azeroth. Another is the construction of Stormwind Harbor, which extends the size of the human capitol of Stormwind by almost a third, and provides access via ship to the new continent of Northrend.

It's also worth noting that Kaplan says they'll continue to make each vessel more individualized, a trend that's done a lot to enrich the existing world of Azeroth.

For a game that's been around for almost four years and was never at the bleeding edge of visual technology, WoW has been and will continue to receive gradual graphical upgrades, such as character shadows and increased draw distance.

You also won't have to wait for Lich King to release to enjoy some of the new content - the prepatch that will release well in advance of the expansion pack will introduce the new 71-point talent trees and level cap, letting everyone play with the yummy newness and generally helping even out the transition to expansion content.

Not surprisingly the leveling rate has also been adjusted, so that the time it took to get from lvl 1-60 during the Burning Crusade should equal the time it will take to get from lvl 1-70 after Lich King launches - the new content takes more focus, as it should be, while the leveling experience is tweaked to stay fresh and not become an obstacle to new content in itself.

World of Warcraft is also reaching out to new continents in the actual world, having just launched successfully in Latin America and the launch in Russia just two days ago.

That's enough for today - check back in tomorrow for more random, rambling bits of Blizzardian lore, including a look into Starcraft II and Diablo III, as well as more WoW bits such as why Lich King almost got released before Burning Crusade!