In just around two weeks, Wrath of the Lich King will hit live power leveling servers. If the tone around launch time is anything like what we saw in The Burning Crusade, expect a whole lot of people bombarding the servers with "/who" commands, trying desperately to communicate with any lucky souls who've managed to cross into expansion land in advance of the throngs.

Given the impending crush that'll soon hit this virtual space, the vibe in the entry-level spaces in Northrend on the beta servers is eerie quiet. Not exactly unusual for a beta power leveling test in its late phases (especially in light of the novel events going on in WoW's live servers), but it's hard to shed the feeling that you're in the calm before the storm.

To take advantage of the wide-open, relatively desolate spaces, I decided to start off a fresh level 70 on one of the beta servers. For the most part, I feel like I'm in my very own private instance of the game; the quest mobs are usually all mine, and there are very few people around to meddle in escort quests or steal my nodes.

If nothing else, running around a scantly populated Northrend makes it a little bit easier to stop and smell the roses -- something I probably won't be inclined to do once the game is out and the power leveling grind is on. In this travelogue, I'll post screens and commentary on the interesting stuff I encounter during the beta's last hurrah. Let's see how far I can get before the servers shut down for good.