I bring you a quick tour of the troll starting area, now with more horn section!
They did a good job here and it is a very fast five levels and they managed to expand on the Polynesian/Afro-Carribbean/Meso-American feel of the troll and make the story very interesting for new players.
Without Further Ado:

Video by Jaramon of http://deathcoil.org
Music: GB Rastaman by AJT (http://www.musicalley.com/music/producers/producerLibrary/artistdetails.php?BandHash=c3d42bda0c13c7d38256564352db3ba0)

I was busy yesterday doing the *squee* and the *tap tap tap* waiting of downloading the Cataclysm Beta. While I waited, I found myself reading through the Beta Forums for what I needed to be looking at. The list was fairly extensive, but one caught my eye after Big Red Kitty ( http://bigredkitty.net ) had given a little preview of it earlier this week (or last.) “Feedback on Durotar” was requested. Now this I could dig! Getting to play with the new Troll Druid and an Orc Warlock. I rolled my new Troll Druid “Jaratroll” and entered the game.

We got a nice fly by of what was some hazardous bits in Vanilla when the zone was level appropriate; but Vol’jin (bless his Trolly heart,) managed to clean out the place and set up a Troll town to be proud of!

The Echo Isles is now a 1-5 zone that has a lot of good bits to make trolls interesting, expanding on the back story and involving the new Troll in the story. Blizzard did an excellent job making the zone feel more like the Death Knight starting area which engages the player who wants some immersion and lore right off the bat.

The zone gets you familiar with your basic abilities, and you get introduced to some basic concepts and what’s going on in the world. This is nice because it gets you involved in the greater story of the World level plots as well as the quests you are working on currently.

The Orc starting area has shown some nice enhancement and a bit more organization that it used to, with less pointless runs and a better handle on combining quests trips. It does lack the polish of the Troll area, but that could be because the rest of Durotar may be steeped in Orcishness where the troll area and Sen-Jin Village may be all we see of the trolls for a while.

So far so good!

Goblins!

I think goblins were a given for the next expansion, though my wish had been for them to be the first cross faction race.

The Horde did need a small, hard to target race, which is what they got.  No longer will Gnomes be the lone footballs of the battlegrounds, now two sides can play kick the little guy around.  (Goblins are good for this.  My best friend started out as my Goblin Lackey at the gaming store I owned, much fun was had on both sides of the equation.)  The lore makes sense as well, and the Orcs and Goblins have a long and storied past.  Plus, they have a starting area similar in function to the Death Knight starting area, which means that the player will be well immersed in the Lore and goblininess of the toon.  (Gobbos? Yer soaking in it, Hon!)

The racial bonuses are going to be game changers in the battlegrounds, with the rocket jump making Warsong Gulch an exercise in cc and fast kills (even more that it is already.) I think that the cast speed will be something to watch here as well.  Getting that CC or DOT off a tad faster will make them excellent targets.  They can be priests, and may be the preferred race combo for Raid Healing.  The Portable Bank is becoming more common with more high level engineers in the game so it make sense to have this on a starting toon, eliminating the need to buy or beg for access to one.  The cheap faction goods will come in handy with repairs and selling, meaning that access to Flying and Epic flying mounts will be easier.  (Though I expect that the prices will continue to decline a little more.)

I eagerly anticipate this addition to the Horde and can’t wait to see what they can do.