What happens when player characters die? They become ghosts! This page explains the death penalty system in World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is a work in progress. Keep in mind that anything mentioned here may change. When a player dies, he or she will be prompted with a dialogue box to "Release Spirit." Pressing this button will instantly transport the player to the nearest graveyard. The player will then be transformed into a ghost.

An Orc Shaman cast the Rebirth spell on his fallen party member

As a ghost, you have three options:

1. You can return to your corpse and recover it. There is no further penalty if you choose this option.
   
   

2. You can have a fellow player (Paladin, Shaman, Priest, or Warlock) resurrect you, which will bring you back to life next to that player. There are also items in the game that allow players of any class to resurrect you. You will not lose any experience when resurrected by another player, but you will have "resurrection sickness" for a few minutes. Players with resurrection sickness will have a temporary reduction in character attributes. Also, you can be resurrected by other players even after you have released your spirit back to the graveyard.
   
   

3. You can talk to the spirit healer NPC (currently located at graveyards) to immediately resurrect yourself at the spirit healer's location for an experience loss. Experience-loss deaths will be rare; ideally, you won't have to use a spirit healer too often since you can be resurrected by a Paladin, Shaman, Priest, or Warlock player. It will also usually be easy enough to walk back to your corpse as a ghost. If you do decide to use a spirit healer, your experience loss will be meaningful but will never cost you your level.

Being a Ghost

Players have special characteristics while in ghost form:

Players will be ethereal in appearance. Players will have a modified perspective of the world. In ghost form, players will be unable to interact with most things in the world. Ghosts will neither be seen by nor see living players and most creatures, other than those creatures that are in the immediate area surrounding their corpses. Ghosts can see other ghosts. Ghosts can run faster, which makes it easier to return to where they died. They can also levitate over water. A few special creatures may be able to see ghosts (these will be apparent to players), and they can attack players in ghost form. If players do die in ghost form, they will be transported back to the most recent graveyard that they were at (not the graveyard nearest to where their ghosts just died, if different). "Public chat" will not be available to ghosts, but "private chat" such as /tells, /guild, and /party chat will still be allowed.

This screenshot doesn't actually have anything to do with the death system in WoW, but it's kinda cool and death related

Finding Your Corpse
When you are a ghost, it will be easy to find your corpse. An arrow will be placed on your minimap, directing you to your corpse. Once you get near the corpse, a special icon will also appear on the minimap to show you the corpse's exact location.

Reviving as a Ghost
Once you approach your corpse, you will see any monsters that are near it. You do not have to reincorporate directly on the spot where your corpse is. As you come closer to your corpse, a dialogue box will pop up, asking if you are ready to be revived. You'll then be able to pick a safe location near your corpse to come back to life. The range within which you'll receive these options has not yet been determined.

Dungeons
If you die in an instanced portion of a dungeon, crossing the instance line into that dungeon as a ghost counts as reclaiming your corpse. You don't have to go all the way back in to find it, and it doesn't matter if your particular instance no longer exists. You cannot explore the dungeon in ghost form. Also, your ghost may not enter an instanced dungeon in which you do not have an active corpse.

Other Information
Players do not need to manually bind at the graveyard. The game selects the nearest graveyard automatically.