Sunstrider Isle to the Ghostlands

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Sunstrider Isle

"First I'm a powerful Night Elf priestess," said Neriad. "Then I wake up one day as a lowly undead priestess and work my way back to being even more powerful than before. Now I'm a blood elf novice! What is going on?!?"


Woohoo! I finally got in the beta! Booo! I can't copy my level 60 priestess over to the beta. Woohoo! I can still check out the new starting zones!

In a way, I'm glad that I can't copy undead Neriad over to the beta, because it gave me the perfect excuse to scout out the new Blood Elf starting zone. It starts off much like any other starting zone in the game, but as I leveled up and especially when I crossed into the Ghostlands, I found that the Blood Elf starting zones blows every pre-expansion starting zone in the game away in terms of content, storyline, and riches.



Upon first appearing on Sunstrider Isle, the lowest level Blood Elf zone, Neriad found herself on a grassy slope near large towers, magical floating platforms, and large trees.



Dominating the view is the enormous Sunspire, a tower that supposedly overlooks the ruined Sunwell.



Like all starting areas, the first quest NPC waits for you in plain sight so that those new to the game know where to go first. In this case, the first quest NPC is Magistrix Erona who asks players to kill mana wyrms, who were once guardians of the nearby Burning Crystals. The Scourge's invasion of Quel'Thalas has made the mana wyrms go "errant" and out of the control of the blood elves. From a story line perspective, this is a nice touch. Right away, you're asked to deal directly with one of the consequences of the Scourge's invasion of Blood Elf lands.



The mana worms look like floating fish, and like starting mobs in other areas, they start off neutral (yellow) until you attack them. I had fun playing around with the Blood Elf racial abilities, Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent. I'll have more to say about them later.



Neriad killed the required eight mana wyrms, turned in the quest, and surprise surprise gained level 2 right away. If only the rest of the levels came that easily. She got the next quest, which was to kill some lynxes, and also another quest that encouraged Neriad to talk to the priest trainer inside the Sunspire. Neriad purchased the Fortitude spell from her and got another quest to go talk to Well Watcher Solanian. This is one of those quests that say, "Hey, newbie! Take a look upstairs!"



Inside the Sunspire, Neriad first spotted the magic brooms that can be found all around in the towers, houses, and pathways on the island. If they remind you of the magic brooms from Fantasia and the idea of out of control magic, you'll get the idea of why they're there. More than one person commented in general chat about how spooky the brooms were. To whomever at Blizzard came up with the idea of including the brooms, nice touch!



Well Watcher Solanian apparently keeps a vigil over the remains of the Sunwell and hasn't had time to collect his belongings, so he asked Neriad to collect them for him. Ah, the requisite "find things on the ground" introductory quest.



In addition, he asked Neriad to find the Shrine of Dath'Remar to the west and pay homage by reading its plaque. This sounded like it would be a simple task. Little did I know.

[MongoJerry]

But first came the duty of killing the Springpaw Cubs and Springpaw Lynxes in the area, which like the mana wyrms had once been controled by the Blood Elves. As the Magistrix Erona says, "It gives me no pleasure to ask you to destroy these beasts. While in times past we have lived in relative harmony with woodland creatures, these are different times. The first order of business for all sin'dorei is survival; make sure you remember that." When turning in the quest, she continues, "You have done well in providing us with a buffer of security, but we will need to reassert control over the entire isle if we are to survive here in the long run." We see the establishment of themes here that pervade all Blood Elf dealings -- the concepts of the need for control and survival at all costs.



While hunting lynxes, Neriad came across a Blood Elf family playing along the beach. The two girls, Nova and Jane, seem to comically echo comments that the two boys in Stormwind City with comments like, "I think I can see the Sunwell from here!" However, the father, Jessel, wakes up periodically and says, "Was... Was it all a dream? Azuremyst. Bloodmyst. Zangarmarsh. Shadowmoon... even Zul'Aman... Jane! Jane where are you!" Jane then reassures him by saying, "I'm right here, daddy. You've been asleep all day long. You sure must be tired!" He replies, "Ah, wonderful. It was all jsut a dream..." and falls back asleep. I don't know the full history of the High Elves / Blood Elves, so I don't know who these names refer to.



When Neriad reports back to Magistrix Erona regarding all the lynxes she killed, Erona tells Neraid to head out west and report to Lanthan Perilon regarding "a more pressing matter" at the Falthrien Academy. This works out well, since Neriad was heading west to get Solanian's belongings and find the Shrine of Dath'Remar anyway.

At about this time, Neriad also got another quest in town to find "Arcane Slivers" off the creatures in Sunstrider Isle as well. The quest giver, Arcanist Ithanas, says, "Many of the creatures here on the Isle were at one point bound into non-aggression and complacency by our magical skills. When the Scourge destroyed the Sunwell, our hold over these creatures shattered. Arcane slivers are the remnants of the control we once had, and as such might be usable in fashioning a new device to aid us in regaining their control. Better still, perhaps the slivers could be used to see what malaise the isle truly suffers under." The themes of control and domination over creatures is again repeated.



Along the way to meet Lanthan Perilon, Neriad stopped by one of the Burning Crystals. It's kind of pretty with all the mana wyrms floating about it.



And what do you know? Solanian's journal was there just as Solanian predicted.



Lanthan Perilon greeted Neriad and told her that she would be leading the effort to recapture the Falthrien Academy to the west from one of the Wretched -- Blood Elves who have lost their way and "succumbed to their basest cravings." (Introduction of a new motif).



But first, he wanted Neriad to kill some trees -- trees who (say it with me) were once under the control of Blood Elves but have grown out of their control. I like Lanthan's very Blood Elf way of saying, "surivival is survival" and "I'll mourn later."

[MongoJerry]

So, Neriad went about killing trees.



She then found the fountain where Solanian's Scroll of Scourge Magic lay.



She then found Solanian's Scrying Orb near the pond to the south.



Having found all of Solanian's belongings, killed all the trees she needed to, and collected sufficient arcane slivers, Neriad went back to town to turn everything in. In return for the arcane slivers, Arcanist Ithanas cast a 30 minute buff called "Fortitude of the Sin'dorei" on Neriad. Considering that Neriad only naturally had about 140 health, a bonus 50 health and some extra spirit was a pretty big boost for that level.

However, Neriad still hadn't yet found the Shrine of Dath'Remar.



Having gotten the tree killing business out of the way, Lanthan Perilon sent Neriad into the Falthrien Academy to clear out various apparitions there, including Arcane Wraiths, Tainted Arcane Wraiths, and the Wretched responsible for the whole mess, Felendren the Banished.

Killing the Arcane Wraiths was pretty trivial. They could always be pulled one at a time.



The Tainted Arcane Wraiths, which act like the boss's bodyguards, were a little tougher but were still easily disposed of.



One of the Tainted Arcane Wraiths dropped a Tainted Arcane Sliver, which when clicked on starts a quest asking the player to take it to Arcanist Helion back in town.

Notice that the magic sweeping brooms can be found even here.



The boss, Felendren the Banished, died so fast that I didn't get a screenshot of fighting him. I recall that I partied up with someone else who was already there so that we could both get the quest done faster. When Neriad turned in Felendren's head, Lanthan Perilon says, "His demise will solve our immediate concerns, but all blood elves share the potential same fate as him if we let our addictions get the best of us." This theme will return in many forms in future encounters.



After Neriad turned in Felendren's head, Lanthan Perilon pointed her toward the south where he said the Outrunners needed help. Basically, it's the old "You're too big for this area. It's time to move on" quest.

[MongoJerry]

But first Neriad had a little unfinished business to conduct. She turned in the tainted arcane sliver and along the way noticed a quest giver, who instructs young Blood Elves on how to use Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent, near the gazebo who Neriad had missed before. Mana Tap drains a small amount of mana from an enemy and has a cooldown of 30 seconds. The Blood Elf does not get this mana. Instead, this action merely charges the Blood Elf with a Mana Tap charge, stacking up to three times. When the Blood Elf releases this energy using Arcane Torrent (cooldown: 2 minutes), everything is silenced in an 8 yard radius for two seconds and some amount of mana is returned to the Blood Elf depending on the number of Mana Tap charges the Blood Elf had.

These are good abilities, but they aren't as powerful as one might think at first glance. At first, it seemed like the Mana Tap / Arcane Torrent abilities provided a nice steady influx of mana, but as I leveled and as my mana pool grew larger, I became less impressed with the amount of mana returned. The extra ability to silence your opponent also sounds nice on paper, but for a priest, it's much less useful than you think. The main opponents for priests in group fights are warriors, rogues and to some extent hunters, and this ability doesn't help at all in those fights. When priests are fighting other spell casters, usually the combatents don't fight at melee range. I'm not saying that the ability is useless for a priest, but given the choice between Arcane Torrent and WOTF/Devouring Plague, I'd take the undead abilities any day for PvP. If you want to create a Horde PvE priest, choose blood elf because of the extra mana you'll get. If you want to create a PvP priest, choose undead. If you want to be strange, choose troll.

However, I should mention that the Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent abilities seem awesome for a rogue. A fully charged Blood Elf rogue gets 30 energy returned with Arcane Torrent. Plus, the rogue can silence spell casters that he or she is attacking -- like say silence a priest or paladin healing himself or herself. I just don't think that these abilities are that useful for priests beyond a small additional stream of mana.

And Neriad still hadn't yet found the Shrine of Dath'Remar.



Ah, there it is!

I ran around Sunstrider Isle three times and visited every landmark and moused over anything that looked like a plaque in an effort to find the stupid thing. I mean, yeah, once I saw the shrine, I recognized it for what it was instantly. The trouble was that it's way up north up a grassy hill, and there are so many "shrine" looking things on the island that it's easy to get confused. I mean, that fountain sure looks like it could be considered a shrine, right? That pond could be a shrine. Some of the floating platforms in the Falthrien Academy could also be considered shrines.

I'm not the only one who had trouble finding the shrine. In fact, the question "Where's the shrine?" seems to have become the Eversong Woods version of, "Where is Mankirk's wife?" in general chat.



So Neriad found the shrine and read the plaque and got some sort of disturbed feeling from the shrine of Dath'Remar. This really makes me wish I knew a more detailed history of the Blood Elves, because this went completely over my head.



After reporting back to Well Watcher Solanian on a quest she got at level 2, it was time for Neriad to head south and help those Outrunners. She crossed a bridge to the mainland and saw a large ruined city in front of her.



A quick check of her world map revealed that these ruins were none other than those of Silvermoon City, the once proud capital of the Blood Elves.

UP NEXT: The Ruins of Silvermoon

[Tuftears]

*sadkittyeyes for the poor lynxes*

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Ruins of Silvermoon

Last time, I forgot to mention some of the most important aspects of blood elves. First, you know how night elves every once in a while do a flip when they jump? Blood elves do a 360 twirl in the air. It's much cooler. Second, I gather that the female blood elf dance is based on an old Brittany Spears video. It's OK. It's better than the human female dance, after all, but it's no female night elf dance, if you know what I mean. (The early beta idea of using the Pulp Fiction version of the Twist would have been better). Finally, all the /silly comments are valley girl type jokes like, "You mean I'm stuck with this hair color?" and "Will the expansion make me fat?" The best one is, "So, I went to this troll spa the other day. I wound up with dreadlocks and a friggin' bone in my nose. I mean come on! Who pays for that?"



Where were we? Oh, yes, Neriad walked toward the ruins of Silvermoon and found Outrunner Alarion who told her that the road ahead in the ruins was crawling with Wretched -- blood elves who had been overcome by their addiction to magic. She asked Neriad to find traces of an outrunner who had gone missing.



"And the award for easiest quest ever goes to..."

And 20 feet up the road, Neriad found the Slain Outrunner without having had to fight a single mob. Neriad wanted to go back to Alarion and say, "Look, you fool! All you had to do was walk up the path a little ways and look!" Some NPC's just can't do anything for themselves.

Neriad found a package on the slain outrunner's body, returned it to Alarion, who then asked Neriad to deliver it to the innkeeper in Falconwing Square -- which was apparently somewhere inside of the ruins of Silvermoon.



Before walking into the main part of the ruins, however, Neriad decided to make a small detour along a side path. There was an ornate building with some wagons nearby off to the side, and she wanted to see if there were any quests given out there. There were none apparently for her, however. She found a gentleman by the name of Master Kelerun Bloodmourn who didn't seem very talkative to Neriad. However, his shouts, such as "Well done, Liranda! You have passed the second trial" could be heard periodically. I suspect that this guy is there for a paladin-only series of quests.



Neriad then entered the main section of the Ruins of Silvermoon City. The ruins were enormous, and the artwork was beautiful.



Blood elf buildings of varying styles lined the street on the right.



On the left, a large building dominated the scene.

[MongoJerry]

The main roadway was clear of Wretched all along the path, and Neriad quickly found her way to Falconwing Square -- a small corner of the ruins controlled by the blood elves.



Inside the buildings were the usual assortment of shopkeepers and trainers.



In addition, the priest trainer gave the usual priest-only quest to cast Fortitude on npc's. In this case, it was to cast Fortitude on some guards defending the city from Scourge raiders. The reward was also the typical +1 spirit robe.

What seemed odd about the "town" was that there seemed to be very few quests in it. I was expecting a place like Goldshire or Brill, where one expects to make one's home for four or five levels. Instead, it seemed like you spend very little time in Falconwing Square.



Neriad did pick up a couple of quests to kill and collect things in the city ruins, but first she wanted her special robe. The quest directed her to go "just south of the city," so she exited the city and instead of finding blood elf rangers, she found a blood elf apprentice needing some help. Apparently, some wretched had ambushed him and his companion and had stolen some artifacts. Apprentice Ralen directed Neriad further down the road to his companion Meledor who had chased after the ambushers.



Meledor reported that he saw one of the wretched throw a particularly valuable elemental grimoire into the water, so he asked Neriad if she would dive into the river to find it. Oh, yes, the requisite "find something in the water" quest. She dove down and found the book right under the bridge where they were standing. Once again, some NPC's just can't do anything for themselves.

When she returned the grimoire, all soggy and wet, the apprentice had a brilliant idea. Maybe if he paid Neriad some money, she would take the blame for him for getting his master's grimoire all wet? That sounded like a splendid idea to Neriad. At least, the money part was.

Neriad was a little confused, though. The priest trainer had said that the rangers were "just south of the city," but she hadn't run into them yet. Well, the path she had taken had veered a little to the west, so maybe she needed to go east instead.



Aha! There's something that looks like a "Dead Scar" with blood elf rangers guarding it! The "Dead Scar" is a long massive stretch of ground that the Scourge trampled on their way to overrunning Silvermoon City, and it splits both the land and the city in two. Nothing grows in the Dead Scar -- except undead who seem to thrive there. This group of rangers vigilantly guard the city from a constant stream of Scourge raiders. Periodically, a group of ghouls will charge into the ranger pack, and the rangers will fend them off.

Neriad gave each of the rangers a fortitude buff and picked up a quest to help the rangers kill off some of the Scourge. She decided to return to ruins of Silvermoon first to help out there first, however.



She picked up three quests for the ruins of Silvermoon. The first quest was to collect Arcane Cores from the Arcane Patrollers that roam through the city. The Arcane Patrollers were once (say it with me) under the control of the blood elves but now the blood elves have lost control of them. The second quest was to collect Unstable Mana Crystals that the Wretched had stolen. They could be found in crates scattered around the city.



The last quest came off a Wanted poster -- it was to kill Thaelin the Hungerer, the leader of the Wretched in the ruins of Silvermoon.

And that was it. Despite its enormous size and the obvious enormous amount of artwork time spent creating it, there are only three quests dealing with the entirety of the ruins of Silvermoon. All other quests in Falconwing Square led to other NPC's outside.

[MongoJerry]

Most of the quests seemed to be leading Neriad to NPC's or towns out west, so Neriad headed east to complete some unfinished business. First, she helped the rangers kill some Scourge pillagers.



Then, she returned the soaked grimoire to Instructor Antheol, and the apprentices' roles in ruining the book and in bribing Neriad to lie about it may have slipped out. Antheol asked Neriad to discipline them with a Disciplinary Rod.



Neriad turned around to head back west, when suddenly a sight caught her eye. A bat handler? What the heck was a bat handler doing out here. Not having found any other bat handlers, Neriad couldn't take a bat anywhere, of course.

Wait a second, if there's a bat handler here, then this must be...



Oh ho!!



Now, this is what a Blood Elf city should look like!

UP NEXT: Silvermoon City!

[MongoJerry]

*sadkittyeyes for the poor lynxes*

It's OK. I'm sure Kel'Thuzad will reanimate them soon enough.

[Arnulf]

First off, wonderful writeup. I can't wait to see it all myself!

And that was it. Despite its enormous size and the obvious enormous amount of artwork time spent creating it, there are only three quests dealing with the entirety of the ruins of Silvermoon. All other quests in Falconwing Square led to other NPC's outside.

Think about it, Elwynn Forest is one of the most beautiful places in the game... yet if it were not for the Darkmoon faire no high-level would ever need to come back here after level 20. And it is huge and has many details. Think of the cat lady. Or the tower of Azora. Or the island with the monument, etc. One could say all this was wasted, since most of this stuff is passe after you have outgrown it.

[MongoJerry]

First off, wonderful writeup. I can't wait to see it all myself!
Think about it, Elwynn Forest is one of the most beautiful places in the game... yet if it were not for the Darkmoon faire no high-level would ever need to come back here after level 20. And it is huge and has many details. Think of the cat lady. Or the tower of Azora. Or the island with the monument, etc. One could say all this was wasted, since most of this stuff is passe after you have outgrown it.

No, you don't understand. There's not much to do there *even for lowbies*. The Ruins of Silvermoon is this huge area with lots of artwork and history and all, but there are only three easy kill/gather quests and then you're out of there. What's more, unlike say Goldshire or Brill where you can make your home for several levels, one outgrows Falconwing Square in about one and a half levels, even if you count the quests that lead you outside the city. It's just this place you speed past on the way to other NPC's scattered about the zone.

[NiteFox]

Well, I suppose it's time the Horde got a sucky starting area.

Mulgore, Durotar, Tirisfal Glades > Teldrassil, Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh

[MongoJerry]

Well, I suppose it's time the Horde got a sucky starting area.

Mulgore, Durotar, Tirisfal Glades > Teldrassil, Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh

First of all, Teldrassil > all other pre-expansion starting areas with Elwynn Forest and Tirisfal Glades as a close seconds. Durotar and Mulgore are the worst.

Second, I hope you're not taking away from this that it's a bad starting area. Quite the contrary. It's awesome -- and gets better the further you go into it. Stay tuned.

[Warlock]

*mentally reserves a character slot for a BE*

How do the Draenei areas and quests compare?

[MongoJerry]

*mentally reserves a character slot for a BE*

How do the Draenei areas and quests compare?

I've finished the Draenei 1-12 zone, Azuremyst Isle, and just a little bit of the next zone, Bloodmyst Isle. It's hard to compare the BE and Draenei zones, because they're so different. There are individual quests in the Draenei zone that I think are fantastic -- the whole series of quests helping the Furbolgs was inspired, and the quest that turns you into a tree to find out who the traitor is is great. When you first step onto Bloodmyst Isle, which is technically the next zone, you also get a quest called the Kessel Run, which will long be remembered as a classic. (The Star Wars and Star Trek jokes and puns run thick in the Draenei zone).

However, from a gameplay point of view, I like the BE zone better. Thinking of the zones from a newbie point of view, the BE zone makes more sense, is more artistically beautiful, and I think keep with a stronger sense of storyline and history. Well, I guess the Draenei zones do have a lot of consistent themes and storylines, too, but maybe I just didn't buy into the storyline as much. There's just something about a people who are running for their lives and are threatened by forces from all sides and yet are most concerned about irradiated animals and undoing the damage that their crash caused that I just don't buy into. I guess I'm more of a Blood Elf "survival first" kind of person. Plus, I found more small but annoying bugs in the Draenei zone than I did in the Blood Elf zone.

However, what bothered me most about the Draenei zone was its setup. As a newbie area, you want people to be directed a bit to let people know where they could go. But in order to find a lot of stuff, I had to go searching for it myself. The most obvious example was that after completing the 1-5 zone, I made my way along the road to Azure Watch, the Draenei equivalent to Goldshire or Brill. After completing a neat fishing quest at the junction between the two zones, I walked up the hill to Azure Watch and found that most of the NPC's had grey exclamation marks over their heads. The couple of yellow ones were simple hunting/gathering quests. After finishing those, most of the quests were still grey to me. This was because most of the quests for level 6-8ish players are found in Odesyus's Landing to the south, but nothing ever directed me there. The only reason I found the place was because I asked a guard where the cooking trainer was.

Also, NPC's kept making references to the Exodar, without explaining what it is or where it was or how big it is or anything. There are lots of spaceship like things that if you don't know ahead of time that the Exodar is a massive ship -- i.e. the Draenei's city -- it could be very confusing. For example, there's a guy at Azure Watch who says he keeps watch over the Exodar. Azure Watch has a lot of spaceship pieces, and I assumed for a long time that that was the Exodar. I suspect that if someone has a good machine with distant farclipping and all graphics settings turned on high, then he or she could see the massive wreck of the Exodar from Azure Watch. But for me on my clunky machine with my graphics settings turned low, the direction toward the Exodar was just a grey haze. It just seems like the zone assumes that you already know the history of the Draenei and how the island is set up. There are references to Blood Elves in Azuremyst Isle, and Blood Elves make a stronger appearance on Bloodmyst Isle. But still, there seems to be very little given in game regarding the Draenei history or how the crash happened (and I read *everything* in game). It's like the game assumes you know all about the Draenei, the Burning Legion and how the Blood Elves caused the crash of the Exodar before you ever installed the game.

But still, to be fair, I've only done a little bit of Bloodmyst Isle. Where the Blood Elf lands really get exciting in terms of storyline and intrigue is in the 12-20 zone, the Ghostlands, where you see the Forsaken and the Blood Elves teaming up to fight against the Scourge, the Night Elves, and the 3rd party trolls. Perhaps the Draenei lands get better in the level 12-20 zone, too.

Also, I don't want to get across the wrong impression. I enjoyed myself when playing in the zone, and there are a lot of good things to be said for it. It just feels like it's not quite fully polished, yet, and I feel like the Blood Elf zones are more polished than the Draenei zones.

[Mirajj]

Also, NPC's kept making references to the Exodar, without explaining what it is or where it was or how big it is or anything. There are lots of spaceship like things that if you don't know ahead of time that the Exodar is a massive ship -- i.e. the Draenei's city -- it could be very confusing. For example, there's a guy at Azure Watch who says he keeps watch over the Exodar. Azure Watch has a lot of spaceship pieces, and I assumed for a long time that that was the Exodar.

Not to mention, if you have no idea of how BIG the ship is, and see someone telling you to go to the Exodar, what do you do? You pop open your world map and see "Exodar Crash Site" back in the 1-5 area, so you run back to the 1-5 area, which is the completely wrong direction...

I found the Exodar by accident, wandering around exploring stuff and getting my map filled in. THEN it all made sense. But yeah, it's confusing at times. The best part I liked for confusing? The video introduction to the Draenei says things about them crashing a month ago. Yet when you start up, you are given quests that give you the impression that the Exodar JUST hit the ground. Surivivors all over: Quest giver - "Go help that survivor before he dies." Me - "But...he's been laying there for a month, I think he can hang on a few more minutes..."

Once I got past that (up into the 8+ lvl range) things started making a bit more sense. I liked Bloodmyst Isle, except a lot of the directions there are pretty vague, too. Quest giver - "Go to the Crashed Pod Site and find me X". Me - "Which one? I've run by at least 4 places all over the zone that con as "Crashed Pod Site"..."

[MongoJerry]

I found the Exodar by accident, wandering around exploring stuff and getting my map filled in. THEN it all made sense. But yeah, it's confusing at times. The best part I liked for confusing? The video introduction to the Draenei says things about them crashing a month ago. Yet when you start up, you are given quests that give you the impression that the Exodar JUST hit the ground. Surivivors all over: Quest giver - "Go help that survivor before he dies." Me - "But...he's been laying there for a month, I think he can hang on a few more minutes..."

Exactly. There's nothing that sends you to the Exodar until the very end when you're about to leave the area, and there's nothing that even takes you close to the spot so that you'd "accidentally" find the city like I did in the Blood Elf zone. Like you, I found it only when I decided to go exploring and fill in my map.

[Artega]

First of all, Teldrassil > all other pre-expansion starting areas with Elwynn Forest and Tirisfal Glades as a close seconds. Durotar and Mulgore are the worst.

Second, I hope you're not taking away from this that it's a bad starting area. Quite the contrary. It's awesome -- and gets better the further you go into it. Stay tuned.

I've always preferred Durotar to any other starting area. The quest density there is exceptional, and if you intend on picking up Mining for any reason, copper is in an abundance there.

Mulgore contains too much walking around in circles for my tastes, as does Tirisfal.

[MongoJerry]

Mulgore contains too much walking around in circles for my tastes, as does Tirisfal.

Oh, no, with Tirisfal, you can do 3-4 quests at a time in short trips if you plan it out. The density of quests is as exceptional as Durotar plus it has more storyline, interesting characters, and great ambiance. Durotar, on the other hand, feels thrown together at the last minute. "OK, let's have them kill a few pigs and scorpions here. Now, let's have them kill some harpies. Now, let's throw in this Northwatch hold crew. Then, let's have one cave related to the Burning Legion...".

[Artega]

Oh, no, with Tirisfal, you can do 3-4 quests at a time in short trips if you plan it out. The density of quests is as exceptional as Durotar plus it has more storyline, interesting characters, and great ambiance. Durotar, on the other hand, feels thrown together at the last minute. "OK, let's have them kill a few pigs and scorpions here. Now, let's have them kill some harpies. Now, let's throw in this Northwatch hold crew. Then, let's have one cave related to the Burning Legion...".

Seeing as how Metzen has been steadily and repeatedly butchering his own storylines ever since WoW was conceived, I don't do quests for storylines; I do them for efficient leveling. Having done both Durotar and Tirisfal, I must say I prefer Durotar, particularly due the the abundance of Earthroot and Copper.

If I wanted storylines, I'd read a novel:)