Seriously, and for truly, I don’t mind that the only prognostigatory statement I thought for sure would be true has turned out … not so much. From everything I’ve seen, the launch of Burning Crusade has gone very, very smoothly. There were queues at peak time, yeah, but despite the snarking I think everyone appreciated the heads up beforehand. Once you were in, the servers I was on were absolutely 100% playable from start to finish.

I actually had the chance to test all up and down the Blizzard infrastructure on Tuesday. Over the course of the day I re-upped my account, used the paid character transfer, and upgrade my regular account to BC. At no point was there a slowdown, and despite dire warnings that my character transfer could take ‘up to three days’, I was up on my new Realm and playing within a few hours of punching in my CC number.

Serious, major applause for Blizzard for this. Obviously, Friday is going to be the next test. When everyone gets off of work on Friday and tries to get their character up over 62 in one night it’s going to make that new hardware sweat like a disco-dancing sumo wrestler.

My quick impressions from about 10 hours of play on Tuesday -

High End: I never thought I’d like playing my Paladin again. Maybe it’s the new name (a very Germanic sounding Groedin), maybe it’s the new sparklies that accompany my seals and judgements, maybe it’s the chance to be a (sorta) badass retribution Pally again. For whatever reason, working my way through Hellfire and Zangermarsh have been like a little slice of heaven. I move my Pally from the (oh god what was I thinking) RP server to a PVE server where my Slashdot co-workers are now playing. It’s quite inspiring to have people to play with, who I actually know, again. I’m still going to be the last, or one of the last, to reach 70. That race isn’t even one I’m trying on. But … I’m actually looking forward to running. That hasn’t happened in a long time.

Dranei: The only thing that might get in the way of my making 70 within the next few months is the incredibly engaging Dranei Priestess I rolled up. I knew I was going to like the Dranei; hulking males, cute chicks, cloven feet, Russian accents. What’s not to like? I didn’t realize how much, though until I started playing her. The architecture, the quests, the racial animations … I like Dwarves and all, but this is now the race I wish I’d been able to play when the game launched. Blizz has knocked one out of the park with these folks, and it really really shows.

Blood Elves: Maybe I’m just not a Hordie, but the Blood Elves grabbed me a lot less strongly than I thought they would. The BE guy I conjured up was too haughty, the architecture too imposing. I’ve never really been an elfy-welfy sort, so I think there’s a lot of that there, too. I really think Blizz has nailed these guys too, and I imagine there will be a lot of Horders tired of having horns or rotting flesh that will flock to the attractive elves. Here’s hoping that a non-elven race is still the predominant one in a year’s time amongst the hordies. I know I, for one, will be ready to wipe the smirk off the face of every Blood Elf I see.