Sunstrider Isle to the Ghostlands

[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.