From the day I was invited to Closed Beta of the original WoW, I fell in love with its beauty. My first character was an Undead Warrior. As I slashed and (well, died, a lot) quested my way through Tirisfal Glades, there were quite a few times that I teared up--watching the Sun set over the ocean, listening to the ambience of the dead forest. I could almost smell the muggy air and the rotting flesh coming from my character.
As time has gone on, the world has evolved in it's own way as new graphical capabilites become prominent. I am most excited for the visual changes (water, for instance) and how cataclysm will make all of my old favorite zones (WPL, STV, Barrens) look. I will miss the old WoW, but it is forever entrenched in my mind. Never has a single game embedded itself into my imagination before like WoW has. Sometimes when cleaning out my computer, I think to myself, "there's another whole world on this machine, and it is beautiful." I promptly log in, crank up the graphics, and go for a stroll through my old zones, or create a new character. After 50+ new characters, it still hasn't lost its luster. Still, I find myself giddy over walking out of that dark crypt into the dark night. That first quest giver greets me, and off I go.
I have since almost lost sight of what was once beautiful, and have become more so a "numbers" kind of guy (being a heavily geared tank, that will happen to you). But Cataclysm invites me to revisit that time in my life, (5 or 6?) years ago, when all I cared about was how amazing this game made me feel. I could get lost forever and not have a care in my mind. A beta invite would give me that opportunity. To view the world I once loved in it's new form, without having to wait around only to be disappointed in servers being down on the first week/day of Cata's release.
Thanks,
Varsin of Drak'tharon