Time for another update on our adventures in a whole new World (of Warcraft)!
We left off halfway through Desolace feeling a bit uneasy. It was justified. The zone continued to feel a bit strenuous we ended it a bit early after finishing the quests in the center of the map from the Druids. The zone didn’t change as much as we had hoped from looking at the promo videos. We would recommend that you do Southern Barrens — yes Barrens — instead.
Western Plaguelands – WPL is now a level 35-40 zone. To break into the zone you go to the Bulwark again. The quests have you at first getting your feet wet by checking out what’s changed. Some of the quests are a bit rehashed and some over the top as you seek a bazillion animals of various types, but there’s a gem in there. Andorhal is, somehow, still being inundated by undead and Araj the Summoner, somehow, is still going strong. The Alliance and Horde both have cities and they’re engaged in a three way battle in the town. These quests went quick and gave good exp. The next gem was seeing Tirion Fordring back in Hearthglen. That’s about it though… beyond seeing him the quests were a bit “meh”. Good zone.
Thousand (1k) Needles – This is, by far, the best zone so far. One word: BOAT! You get your own boat that you sail around the now flooded zone. The water has risen to the tops of the needles and you’re looking at about five levels of quick exp and amazing atmosphere. The main theme of the zone revolves around Goblins for the Horde on a floating city that they somehow manage to share with Gnomes. All your old favorites are back like Daisy (now the bartender) and the Ice Cream guy who now has his own barge floating out in the shimmering flats (deeps). Fizzle and Pozzik bring the zone alive with quest chains that start you off defending the barge from a pirate attack. Going underwater, which you do a lot in this zone, is accomplished with a magical bubble around your head and rocket flippers that let you run on the floor as though you were lunar jogging.  We were extremely sad when the quests were gone because half the time we were laughing. Do this zone or you’re missing out on the best yet.
We’re now level 46/47 and doing a few quests in Tanaris before heading over to Badlands. Tanaris is a decent place. A lot has changed but not a lot at the same time. Thankfully, from what we’ve seen, the bandits have been flooded out and the questing is much more isolated. That annoying beacon dropped for us though…
We also did Stratholme‘s “live side” (as it was once called… might be called main gate now or something) and it was tough! The mobs were thinned out a bit, but inside the cathedral the pathing was a bit annoying with the mobs still running and pulling more. Good times though.
The experience continues to be great and we’re thoroughly enjoying the new world. I’d be lying if I said that I can’t wait to get into the new higher level content though… it’s calling to me like Aztec gold…
“Goblins for the Horde on a floating city that they somehow manage to share with Goblins.”
Preposterous!
I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.
You are missing out by not doing Badlands. That zone is incredible now.
How do you start 1k? I assumed that the quest giver would be over at rfk and rfd but no friendly npcs are there anymore.
Also I don’t know why but I cant stand it when people call strat live or dead. My original server called it front and back door. I free server merged and they called it live and dead… they have undead on both sides people how can you call it that. Well i guess its better then the server I am now… now its scarlet and mount. Since baron is gone no one has cared enough to remember his name so they just call that instance “mount” lol
@Hund
Well, I guess your dream came true. Now even the crusader parts are undead. You can no longer refer to live strat as live because there aren’t any enemies that are living!
Personally, if you say DM I always think Dire Maul. Dead Mines is VC =P.
Anyway, Keen, you sort of missed out. EPL has to be one of the best zones in the old world, it is such a tremendous shame it shares the level range with 1k Needles, because they are both incredible. EPL is now a cool caravan story. You start out at the start and pick up caravan members as you go along, eventually joining the argent dawn and getting a really cool story about these two paladins, becoming friends with them throughout the course of the zone. I was legitimately sad when the zone was over because these two NPCs were such entertaining pals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and goals.
Agreed, EPL is one of the top 3 new old-world zones. You should play through it even if you’ve outleveled. Great story, great mechanics. Call WoW “world on rails” if you want, but this is the “world on rails” at its very finest, and extremely enjoyable to play.
I’ve been concentrating on my main mostly but my lvl 17 Worgen is currently in Darkshore and it’s pretty great. Don’t fancy Ashenvale much myself so will need to think up an alternative zone to level in. Anyone got any suggestions?
@Mordiceius: We’re headed to Badlands today. We wanted to get some Tanaris done just because we were in the area (1k Needles)
@Hunt: Top left of 1k needles near Feralas, northern side, you’ll see a quest. That starts the zone.
@Caleb: EPL will be done on my next character. Since there are 2-3 ways to progress now, I plan to see it all eventually. Great replayability.
must…resist…
@ Pierre
I know man… I’m trying to resist so bad… but reading Keen’s posts makes me want to play again. AHH!!
So I grabbed a 10 day trial of normal WoW (which is very easy to do nowadays with the linked B.net account and the ability to stream the game data as you play), and played through the new Troll starting area and Durotar, reaching level 10 on a mage.
Obviously this area isn’t as interesting as Gilneas or the Goblin starting area, but it lets me get some ideas about the new content. In brief, I’m not very impressed, but I see the appeal – I think I just don’t enjoy WoW much anymore, and clearly this expansion isn’t changing anything drastically, it’s just giving you more WoW, refreshed and improved.
The content (questing and story) I’ve seen is certainly improved from Wrath, I will give them that. For example, the questing sometimes gives you the feeling of being let loose in the world for a time, which I never got from Wrath. The tweaks and new additions to the graphics engine look amazing, while in contrast I find a lot of the new sound design to be really jarring and obtrusive. The design of the new starting zone gear is so bad it makes me miss the old brown leather dress, which isn’t a big deal but sort of makes me scratch my head: Why does my Troll mage look like he’s wearing a Star Trek style unitard?
The low-level mage experience is improved, but I still find it simplistic and boring. It probably works well for someone new to the game, but I find the trickle of new abilities to be too slow to keep me interested. Combat feels very repetitive, which is exacerbated by the large number of generic kill/collection quests that pad out Durotar.
All that said, the changes for Cataclysm look gorgeous. The flooded area along the river looks fantastic, and the hulks of ships washed onto Duratar’s eastern shore are fun. Orgrimmar looks amazing, but it feels less lived-in to me for some reason, like there are a lot of cool new details but they don’t serve a practical purpose for anyone who lives in the city.
I realize that the good stuff doesn’t really happen until later, so it’s not entirely fair for me to be so critical of the game based on such a limited amount of play time. I’ll try to play some more to give it a fair shake, but I’m having trouble motivating myself to continue. Perhaps if I go to the new Azshara I’ll be more engaged.
Does anyone have a redone starting area that they recommend as especially indicative of the best of Cataclysm? Other than Goblin/Worgen, of course. Or perhaps a good 10-15 area I should aim to try before my trial runs out?
Best of luck to everyone, be they leveling a character or trying to resists the siren song. 🙂
@Pierre I know! It’s Finals Week for me, and I’m trying to promise myself I’ll re-sub -after- finals are over. It’s so tough to resist a WoW “study break” though, haha.
“Does anyone have a redone starting area that they recommend as especially indicative of the best of Cataclysm?”
Although I’m leveling Horde at the moment I have heard good things about Westfall and especially Redridge. Although Elwynn itself is supposedly not all that changed.
I have also heard fairly good although not amazing things about Azshara.
Whatever you do, don’t do Mulgore>North Barrens.
But you are right that the core of WoW is the same. And if anything around the early teens it’s slower… I feel like I had more abilities by that point before the revamp.
Doing Badlands.
Bad Dogs > Day Deathwing Came has to be the strongest 2 quest sequence I’ve ever done in this game.
@Nissl
The Day Deathwing Came is easily the funniest quests i’ve ever done in any game.
Take that, dangerous enemy!
Get punched!
Continuing reviews for anyone thinking of an alt…
Un’goro… yuck. Pretty grindy. Lots of raptors everywhere. Lots of running, kill *20* mobs quests. A couple quest targets you have to squint to see. Etc.
The new hubs in northern Felwood are nice and give very high xp. Winterspring isn’t all that changed but is at least more compact questing than Un’Goro.