I remember one of my first experiences seeing WoW was when my college roommate was playing around on his level 6 or so Orc Warlock. I was amazed at how huge Durotar looked, and that such an expanse could incorporate such a tiny portion of the greater map. One of the coolest things I saw was Orgrimmar, with its big, off-kilter spiky wooden structures - a desert city with cacti and surprisingly friendly orcs (not being familiar with Warcraft, I had always filed orcs away with the "always evil" monsters, in the Tolkien style.)
Watching him play inspired me to try it out, and so I made my Tauren. Thunder Bluff blew me away - the city up high above the plains. And then I made Jarsus and saw Stormwind and Ironforge. The cities in WoW are pretty darned cool.
While Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King took us to new continents, each with a new, neutral city, we still returned to the old ones for our auction house and class training needs (Engineers and Mages got around those, respectively, during Wrath.) Cataclysm took us back to the Old World, and along with the questing revamp, Stormwind, and to a far greater extent, Orgrimmar, were rebuilt.
Actually, one could argue that the state of the two major capital cities give you a good sense of where each faction is at. Stormwind had an entire neighborhood obliterated, and is still scarred by Deathwing's assault. Orgrimmar, on the other hand, is having the last vestiges of Thrall's kinder, softer Horde wiped away in favor of Warsong Hold-style iron and stone.
One of my beefs with Cataclysm was the way that, ironically, by putting so much effort into these two cities, the other three cities for each faction have become greater ghost towns. I used to do my auctioneering and such in Undercity, Ironforge, and Thunder Bluff back when we were on an entirely different planet, but nowadays, regardless of the character, I stick to Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
I'm not entirely sure what the design goal will be for Mists of Pandaria. My understanding is that there will not exactly be a new neutral city, but there will be large towns for each side in the central Vale of Eternal Blossoms (which I understand to be kind of the Crystalsong Forest of Mists) and hopefully motivation to venture into the rest of the continent as well.
That said, I think there's a lot to be said for those original (and BC-era) cities, and I wouldn't mind an opportunity to see some development going on inside the various important cities of either faction. With the Cataclysm revamp done, and Blizzard in a state where I think they (rightly, for the most part) don't want to do much more redesign on currently existing stuff, I still hold out hope that some dynamic change can occur in the cities of WoW.
So here's what I'd like to see, city-by-city, along with quests and mechanics that would encourage us to go revisit them.
Darnassus:
Honestly, Night Elf lore has never really drawn me in, with a few exceptions (even though I think he's a little too emo - with all of his darkness basically born out of a girl not liking him as much as his brother - Illidan and the demon-hunters on whole are a pretty cool concept.) I actually thought it was most interesting when Fandral was still there, and you had him vying for the position of leader while Tyrande - who back then was an ass-kicker who was willing to slaughter her own people to do what she felt had to be done - kept his radicalism in check. This may not have been the best place to start, because honestly Darnassus was always a little weird. The Night Elves are supposed to be these ancient people with ruins all over the world, and yet their capital city and starting zone are more recent than the foundation of Orgrimmar. Perhaps if we could see more apparently the flaws of Teldrassil in Darnassus, and show us the effect of the corruption from this failed world tree (which I'm assuming was Fandral's idea,) it would be better. For a source of natural corruption, Teldrassil and Darnassus are way to nice-looking.
Undercity:
After the Wrathgate incident, the abomination guards in Undercity were replaced with Kor'kron guards. As an undead character, the guards your ask directions from in your own city treat you like dirt. Here's the thing: since Wrath, the Horde has been portrayed as this industrializing juggernaut. Garrosh's influence has been that the Horde is constantly militarizing and constantly enforcing its will on an ever-expanding empire. Indeed, Cataclysm's old-world revamp watched the Horde expand its grasp on the world. Yet at the same time, Sylvanas is more aggressive than ever. Sure, officially she's Horde, but the Forsaken have always been a somewhat more independent entity than the rest of the Horde. I don't know if this is still the case, but Undead and Blood Elf characters used to actually start out only neutral with the Kalimdor Horde, but with a bonus to their Undercity and Silvermoon reps (the opposite was true for Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and if this is still the case, Goblins.) I'm probably going to write a whole article about this, but what I see is that the Horde's grasp on the Forsaken is slipping. Theoretically the Kor'kron are there to prevent another Wrathgate from happening, but I think Sylvanas is doing a whole lot of stuff right under their noses. I think Garrosh has overextended the Horde, and eventually, they're going to have to sacrifice the control they have over their undead allies. I think the Undercity should get its abominations (or new creepy guardians) back, to reinforce the notion that the Forsaken are a wildcard that even the Horde can't necessarily trust. Throw in some more mad scientists and plague works and you'll have a very interesting development in Undercity. One last thing: I always thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity that Sylvanas isn't hunting down any remaining members of Varimathras' conspiracy. Even if Varimathras was more evil than Sylvanas, a witch-hunt going on among the undead would add a level of volatility and even more potential for stories.
Exodar:
Exodar is tough, because it's never really felt like a city. I've always liked to call it the Exodar Convention Center, because rather than shops or buildings, the areas within always felt more like booths. The only thing I could imagine doing to make Exodar cooler would be a very radical idea: repairing it. Imagine if when you got to your home city as a Draenei, you came not to a giant wreck, but an awe-inspiring, floating ship hovering above Azuremyst. The Draenei haven't had much to do since BC. I think it would be a great justification if they had been preparing for an assault on the Legion. The Scourge? Deathwing? Just speed bumps on the way to the real war. The Draenei are ready to go, and their ship is fueled up, armed, and ready to kick some demonic ass.
Thunder Bluff:
I adore Thunder Bluff. For one thing, it's probably the best city to fly around with a flying mount. Sadly, with the removal of Magatha Grimtotem (sort of like the removal of Fandral Staghelm) the internal conflict is not really present. Honestly, I'm not sure what to think of where the Tauren are nowadays. The new classes didn't really incur any cultural change. I think the best direction to go with the Tauren is their ambivalence about their future with the Horde. It would be interesting to see scenes throughout the city where Tauren are protesting Cairne's death and the massacres against Tauren by their own allies (Stonetalon Mountains - play that zone if you haven't.) Having a faction of Tauren who want nothing to do with the Horde anymore would be a very interesting development.
This is getting fairly long, so I'll finish with the other four cities next time.
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