The Barrens.
Home to Ratchet, the Crossroads, and every Chuck Norris joke known to man.
Our Cataclysm Beta correspondent spent some time (under duress) taking some screen shots of the giant crack that has torn the Barrens asunder.
I am waiting for the best Chuck Norris joke that explains how it happened.
The molten crack and the invading jungle
Maybe this will keep the Alliance out of the Crossroads
Lake on the edge of the fissure
Staring into the crack
Trees on the edge
A contrast of green and orange
As always, clicking on any of these pictures will display them in their full glory.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I take it, then, that you can indeed fly in these old world zones? Yay! I hope they put any restrictions on flight in any of the new or old zones. Too many hoops already for the flying thing!
And ps I’m alliance. Why would you want to keep me out of The Barrens?
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Who said anything about keeping you out of the Barrens? I am just tired of hearing “The Crossroads are Under Attack!” every time I play horde. You big kids, go play elsewhere! Shoo!
But yes, you appear to be able to fly freely throughout the world now. I had my daughter fly up to the landing strip over by Ironforge this morning. I’ve always wanted to go there. Granted, it has changed a bit, but more on that later.
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One of the things that gave me most pleasure in my few months in WoW was trying, and eventually succeeding in getting up to the Ironforge airstrip.
I was so excited when I finally made it that I downloaded FRAPS for the first time ever and filmed myself. Hmm. Occurs to me that this may be actual proof of my contention that the sandbox is in the player’s mind, not in the game mechanics…
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There are a handful of no fly zones in the old world, seems like they’re mostly in cities.
As for the crack in the barrens, I offer the following:
Chuck Norris wanted to walk across the Maelstrom, but he was looking over his shoulder when he tried to part the waves and got the Barrens instead.
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Oops, I meant to say I hope they DON’T put any restrictions on the fly zones. (Why over the cities? And why was Maverick consistently denied his request to do a fly by?)
And YOU said you wanted to keep the Alliance out of the Barrens. See the caption under your 2nd photo. (Does it really say a zone is under attack when another faction enters? I always turn off all those other channels.)
I’ve always wanted to get to the IF Airport too, but I couldn’t ever figure that out. I DID figure out how to shimmy up the side of the mountain in Winterspring, avoiding the mess o’ dragons inside the cave. That was our first guild adventure, I think =)
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@Pia – The caption says “Maybe this will keep the Alliance out of the Crossroads.” The Crossroads is a single point within the Barrens, it is NOT the Barrens. So no, I did not say I wanted to keep the Alliance out of the Barrens. That is entirely a figment of your own imagination.
The Crossroads is the horde town/quest hub in the middle of the Barrens. The Alliance, in my experience, has a habit of rolling in there with level 80s and killing all the quest NPCs. And every time they do, which is often, the local defense channel broadcasts “The Crossroads are under attack!”
You hear that more than you hear Chuck Norris jokes most nights.
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Oops.
I guess I read “maybe that will keep the Alliance out of Paris” and interpreted that as “maybe that will keep the Alliance out of France”.
Semantics!
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