diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index ba644d3403..5bc2745634 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-2.0.0
+2.0.0-rc2
+ * enable vnodes by default (CASSANDRA-5869)
  * fix CAS contention timeout (CASSANDRA-5830)
  * fix HsHa to respect max frame size (CASSANDRA-4573)
 Merged from 1.2:
diff --git a/NEWS.txt b/NEWS.txt
index 9b2c1720ae..b8079733a8 100644
--- a/NEWS.txt
+++ b/NEWS.txt
@@ -54,6 +54,9 @@ Upgrading
 
 Operations
 ----------
+    - VNodes are enabled by default in cassandra.yaml.  initial_token
+      for non-vnode deployments has been removed from the example
+      yaml, but is still respected if specified.
     - Major compactions, cleanup, scrub, and upgradesstables will interrupt 
       any in-progress compactions (but not repair validations) when invoked.
     - Disabling autocompactions by setting min/max compaction threshold to 0
diff --git a/conf/cassandra.yaml b/conf/cassandra.yaml
index 16d9e25746..db7049dd6d 100644
--- a/conf/cassandra.yaml
+++ b/conf/cassandra.yaml
@@ -21,20 +21,13 @@ cluster_name: 'Test Cluster'
 #
 # If you already have a cluster with 1 token per node, and wish to migrate to 
 # multiple tokens per node, see http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Operations
-# num_tokens: 256
+num_tokens: 256
 
-# If you haven't specified num_tokens, or have set it to the default of 1 then
-# you should always specify InitialToken when setting up a production
-# cluster for the first time, and often when adding capacity later.
-# The principle is that each node should be given an equal slice of
-# the token ring; see http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Operations
-# for more details.
-#
-# If blank, Cassandra will request a token bisecting the range of
-# the heaviest-loaded existing node.  If there is no load information
-# available, such as is the case with a new cluster, it will pick
-# a random token, which will lead to hot spots.
-initial_token:
+# initial_token allows you to specify tokens manually.  While you can use # it with
+# vnodes (num_tokens > 1, above) -- in which case you should provide a 
+# comma-separated list -- it's primarily used when adding nodes # to legacy clusters 
+# that do not have vnodes enabled.
+# initial_token:
 
 # See http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/HintedHandoff
 hinted_handoff_enabled: true