The difficulty of synching game entrance

[TheWesson]

The solution would be as Jarulf says, for the server to not finish inserting you into the world until the client is ready.  If someone jams or delays the 'ready' client signal they will be sitting at the loading screen longer, is all.  If someone sends the 'ready' signal too soon, they will be sitting around present (in all ways) but unable to act until the game finishes loading.

I think one dilemma Blizzard has here is that they want you to able to do things even if not all the textures are loaded, etc.  For example, after jumping in I can run around an Orgimmar in which most entities are only shadow blobs on the ground, the mailbox doesn't exist, etc - for a little while until my computer finishes loading.  This is actually slightly useful, because I can head to the mailbox or the auction house or do other things in the few seconds while my client gets updated (from the local hard disk and/or the server.)

So allowing the client to do things before the game is done loading seems to be a design decision.

And if you allow the clients to do things when the world is not done loading on the client, then you must also allow the world to affect the client at that time (else run the risk of abuse.)

We can add to that the difficulty of deciding when the world IS done loading.  Maybe the client never knows when the world is done loading because that is not a well defined state.  If I haven't loaded the textures for the Jade Ooze, should the client not send "ready" just because there *could be* Jade Oozes around?  How about the Sulfuras textures -- there *could* be somebody around wielding Sulfuras.  This isn't a show-stopper, but it's not a trivial question to resolve.

Much nicer code-wise to simply rely on dynamic on-demand loading, though that does have side-effects with regard to synchronization.  I'm sure Blizzard also likes dynamic loading for crossing zones so that there isn't a loading-lag ...
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I guess Blizzard decided that control of the clients movement would tax the servers too much (figuring out where the hero is in a 3d world when climbing hills etc.)

It does seem cruel to kill by falling though.

A samilar problem: Gadgetzan teleport sometimes leaves me a hundred feet in the air. If this happens, I usually load dead and never even get to see myself falling (or get a chance to slow-fall or use a parachute cloak etc).