9.0 PTR is Live

 The 9.0 PTR is now available for testing.

I've hopped on to check things out. Unfortunately, the player hubs in Boralus and Dazar'alor seem too crowded for the game not to disconnect, so primarily I've been able to test things out on lower-level characters.

The first thing I looked at is Exile's Reach, the new 1-10 starting experience for new players. Leveling here goes at a fast clip (though a bug in a particular quest caused me to pause my Worgen Warlock at around level 7.) There are a few nice features like some quests that instruct you on your particular class mechanics - I had a sparring match with an Alliance officer in which she'd yell at me when my Corruption was about to fall off.

One very smart touch is that the story is generic enough to the world of Warcraft that it won't feel weird when new expansions deal with other subjects - which was one of the big flaws in the Cataclysm revamp.

Lacking race-specific starting stories (like the Worgen, who have one of if not the best) does sting a little, but this is a very modernized way to introduce basic game mechanics to new players.

One thing I noticed creating this new Worgen character is the new customization options. I wanted to take a look at my existing characters, but ran up against the problem of those disconnects in high-density areas. But just making that Worgen, I felt like I had a lot more options for really interesting, unique looks - I could give him a scar over one eye, and have the eye under that scar be blood red, while the other is fogged over and blind - perfectly edgy for a werewolf wielding dark magic.

Looking at some lower-level alts of classes that I play a lot, I've definitely noticed bigger shifts for some of them. Shamans, for example, have a lot of old things like weapon imbues back, and the Maelstrom resource is gone, so it's going to take a lot of re-training to get the rotation down again.

One really odd but interesting change is that your abilities can now be found in multiple tabs - a bit like the pre-Mists version of the spellbook. Only now, you have a "general class" ability tab, and then one specific to your spec.

I rolled up a new Draenei Death Knight named "Fauxterro" after finding I couldn't log into my OG DK Oterro, who is in the Chamber of Heart. DKs start at level 8, but if you're playing any pre-Pandaria race, you still have the original starting experience. However, this will level you up well beyond 10, which I had thought was the intention.

Anyway, obviously a work in progress, but I'm reasonably impressed with how things have turned out so far.