Cataclysm

[kildorn]

Azshara is useless for everyone, barely has any quests in it as horde. Only good thing about it is killing Azuregos every once in a while, nice gold to it.

Silithus is terrible for leveling, mobs there have more hp and hit harder than everywhere else.

But, but, lolsand!

[Sjofn]

Plus the cooking recipe from there! 

[Nebu]

Azshara had only one use for me: Catching fish to level my cooking skill.  I think there is an engineering recipe there for a water breathing helm as well, but it has been a while.

Silithis sucks.  Period.

[Hindenburg]

I think there is an engineering recipe there for a water breathing helm as well, but it has been a while.

Dude, hydrocane.

[Rendakor]

Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge are so far out of the way (horde) that I had totally forgotten about them tbh.

[Ingmar]

I often top off in Silithus if I'm out of low hanging fruit in the other end-of-50s zones, because there are several quests you can do without having to wander too far from the flight point. Basically I do all the 'easy' quests in all of the high level zones (EPL, Winterspring, Silithus, Burning Steppes) and get myself a drink or whatever when flying to the next one.

The zones I always try hardest to skip if I can, personally, are Un'Goro and Desolace.

[Sjofn]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Desolace. I'm glad that's getting exploded too.

[kaid]

I kinda like desolace but it was just way the hell to grey. I am glad its getting some love.

[Nebu]

Dude, hydrocane.

Yet another thing I was ignorant of.  Thanks for that.

[Nevermore]

Searing is green, and Burning and Ungoro are both orange. The problem is that all the zones start or end at 50, and usually have an assumption of you getting a few levels elsewhere. With the XP changes, I found I'd burned all yellow and low orange quests by the time I hit 49, and everything else was a little silly on the difficulty, or effectively grinding greens.

51 gets a lot better, but 51-53 is still a bit obnoxious where you'll run smack into +3 mobs on quests and still lack the massive power boost characters get with TBC gear opening up.

This is just all from my last attempt at leveling. I may level in a really odd pattern.

Yeah, we noticed you hit that leveling brick wall at around 50.  It took you what?  An hour to get from 50 to 60 instead of your more typical pace of 10 minutes or so? 

[Jayce]

I have a thing for the ambiance of Aszhara, but I agree the quests are few and all involve humping back and forth down that loooong road infested with naga.

For Horde at least the quest giver is more centrally located.

[Ratman_tf]

Ratman I've honestly had the exact opposite experience. On my past 3 characters, 50-58 is just a nightmare. After the Hinterlands there are no good questhubs, so you have to bounce around earning half a level here, a level there, etc. Once you get to Hellfire you're back in quest heaven, STV style.

I'm not gonna strut it and say my opinion is the only right one. I did do it on a Pally both times, and they're not the quickest levelers in the pack. But Outlands seems so.... slow... compared to vanilla WoW. I did do the second run after the XP/Leveling boost, and that combined with using Jame's leveling guide took me to 60 pretty quickly.

Once Lich King hit they also lowered the XP curve in Outland to match what they had previously done for 20-60, so if you haven't done it since then, it is much faster. Like, ding 68 in the 2nd or 3rd zone you hit faster.

Ah, I was 70 by then.

[Ratman_tf]

Azshara is useless for everyone, barely has any quests in it as horde. Only good thing about it is killing Azuregos every once in a while, nice gold to it.

I love Azshara. Seriously. I used to farm General Fangferror on my hunter alt for kicks. (and his blue sword drop was worth a fair bit of gold on the AH) And there's not as much competition for Thorium there. (Even if it is a bit sparse and spaced out.)

Maybe I liked it because no one went there. 

[Typhon]

I liked it because there is a large amount of stuff which just looks like it should have quests associated with it... but don't.  It's like a throwback to an earlier age - a huge zone filled with oddities that you have to hunt out, and no one leading you by the hand to tell you what or where they are.  I liked it because it was an oddity, not because I want to return to the grind.

[K9]

Badlands is the most pointless zone for alliance really.

[Ingmar]

Swamp of Sorrows is even worse, really. Badlands is pretty bad, but hey, you get your first shot at a plate BP reward or something there, I seem to recall from my noob warrior days!

[Paelos]

Swamp of Sorrows is the worst and most pointless zone for Alliance. It also has the stupidest, longest, most pointless 5 man in the game.

[Ingmar]

I agree with you on two of those points but in terms of longest you must have blacked out all memories of BRD.

[Soulflame]

BRD seemed long and pointless at... I forget if I went in there at 70 or 80.

Either way, it was still ridiculously long.

... wasn't that a 5 man instance?  Now the goddamn raids in WoW take less time than vanilla 5 mans.
 

[Paelos]

BRD was longer, but it at least had many attunements and could be done in chunks. Clearing the whole damn thing wasn't really the goal usually. With Sunken Temple the quest was at the very end, and it required all those stupid intermediate running around in circles activating shit bothers.

[Merusk]

they've mentioned a few times over the years that BRD was one of the first dungeons they designed.  It was intended to be this epic, sprawling place that went on forever and you could spend many levels running around in.  You see this by all the runs you can do.  Ring of Law, The Back doors for the giant, the gate, the fire eles, the salamander dude and the throne room.  Of course, it's way too fucking big and I don't know what made them realize it.

I think  Blackrock Spire with its two distinct experiences via the same entrance came later.  Then, towards the end of beta they designed Scarlet Monastery, and we know how loved that place is based on how every dungeon complex since then has used the hub design.

[Sjofn]

Swamp of Sorrows is awesome for leveling herbalism. Otherwise yeah, useless for zee Alliance. I like it well enough as Horde, though.

[Malakili]

they've mentioned a few times over the years that BRD was one of the first dungeons they designed.  It was intended to be this epic, sprawling place that went on forever and you could spend many levels running around in.  You see this by all the runs you can do.  Ring of Law, The Back doors for the giant, the gate, the fire eles, the salamander dude and the throne room.  Of course, it's way too fucking big and I don't know what made them realize it.

Its the kind of thing that makes a ton of sense when you are designing dungeons around the idea of "hey, this is the evil dwarven city"  instead of "hey, this is going to be 30 minutes of trash and 3 bosses."  The former sounds WAY better on paper.  I can almost imagine them sitting around a table thinking about how awesome it will be to explore this hostile city with a bunch of people.  Come to find out, the MMO audience doesn't actually want to explore a city, they want dinggrats.  oops.

[Ingmar]

they've mentioned a few times over the years that BRD was one of the first dungeons they designed.  It was intended to be this epic, sprawling place that went on forever and you could spend many levels running around in.  You see this by all the runs you can do.  Ring of Law, The Back doors for the giant, the gate, the fire eles, the salamander dude and the throne room.  Of course, it's way too fucking big and I don't know what made them realize it.

Its the kind of thing that makes a ton of sense when you are designing dungeons around the idea of "hey, this is the evil dwarven city"  instead of "hey, this is going to be 30 minutes of trash and 3 bosses."  The former sounds WAY better on paper.  I can almost imagine them sitting around a table thinking about how awesome it will be to explore this hostile city with a bunch of people.  Come to find out, the MMO audience doesn't actually want to explore a city, they want dinggrats.  oops.

I really liked exploring it quite a lot... the first time. I bet a lot of other people shared that experience, but the problem with MMOs is you can't get away with stuffing your game with a bunch of stuff people will only do once.

[Rasix]

The zones I always try hardest to skip if I can, personally, are Un'Goro and Desolace.

Un'goro is awesome.  I only got squashed by a dino once the last time I went.  Although I got mighty sick of the place when leveling mining.  Round and round we go. 

Still, it's a place you can turn in like 15 quests at once as you do a circuit of the entire zone.  Awesome for ding-grats and unintentional comedy (Devilsaur, I choose you!).

[Selby]

Un'goro is awesome.  I only got squashed by a dino once the last time I went.  Although I got mighty sick of the place when leveling mining.  Round and round we go. 

Still, it's a place you can turn in like 15 quests at once as you do a circuit of the entire zone.  Awesome for ding-grats and unintentional comedy (Devilsaur, I choose you!).

So true.  My warlock just got 55 off of that place starting at 52-53ish or so.  Now that the kill counts are reduced and the mobs required are halved, it's a much happier place (still a good example of circuit quest design).

And for Horde, I am 1 bar from 56 and starting Felwood.  All of the quests are green (only the earliest grey out before 59-60 or so), and when turned in I'll be 57, then on to Winterspring for 58, and then back to Felwood to finish it up for 59 and maybe plaguelands if I haven't hit 60 before finishing the last of Winterspring (nothing greys out in Winterspring before 60).  I've done this on 3 different characters in the last few months, so I've got a pretty good system down for breaking through to 60 and hitting Outlands.  I know, everyone loves to hit it at 58, but I've had nothing but trouble when I tried to do that on some of the quests and the frustration at failing at Zeth'gor over and over was just too much to deal with.  Not to mention until recently you didn't get your epic land mount until 60 and trying to do HFP with mobs that can catch you and kill you on a 60% speed mount was no fun either.

I do Azshara as horde as it's good for one level or so if you hit the one quest hub and hit the other goblin for his quests.  Do all of those and you get a pretty decent amount of experience for the time invested.  Lots of running though.  Azshara does have some pretty nifty quests associated with it, but they are so far buried in elite 60 chains with such lousy rewards and time investments that no one ever bothered to do them.

[Ingmar]

I suppose I can stop skipping Un'goro now that mounts can swim, thinking about it.

[Tannhauser]

I love Azshara!  Fairly high level herbs just a skip away from Orgrimmar.  Plus just a beautiful zone and quiet.

[K9]

BRD style dungeons would be fine if the trash didn't respawn. They would be better suited as a raid. CoT:BRD would be something I would jump at in a heartbeat.

[Hindenburg]

If they reduced the amount of trash by 85%, sure.

[Lakov_Sanite]

[Azaroth]

Swamp of Sorrows is the worst and most pointless zone for Alliance. It also has the stupidest, longest, most pointless 5 man in the game.

"Hey man, can you please run me through ST?"



groaaaaaaaaaaan.....

[Malakili]

Swamp of Sorrows is the worst and most pointless zone for Alliance. It also has the stupidest, longest, most pointless 5 man in the game.

"Hey man, can you please run me through ST?"



groaaaaaaaaaaan.....

ST isn't THAT bad, but it does have the problem of having a pretty big level gap which makes it almost impossible to do the end stuff when if you've gone in at the right level for the beginning stuff.

[K9]

ST is one of those instances that is interesting to do once; like Uldaman.

[Scadente]

I always found BRD to be the best instance in WoW, ever. Not design-wise, it was a horrible play experience unless you knew exactly what to do. But the feeling of a sprawling dungeon with multiple paths is unique in WoW. Clearing all of it with a group of five back in Vanilla was a feat, hell just getting to the final boss required some good group coordination. It also had plenty of "fun" quests to complete and secrets (such as the enchantment books, opening of the vaults, several ways to get past the bar etc.). It was an experience, rather then a roller-coaster ride of mobs and bosses.

Ungoro is also, imho, the best old-world zone design-wise. As mentioned, you can do the whole zone in two circuits, and it has plenty of quests that gel well with other zones, such as winterspring and felwood.

As for Cataclysm... I just got a reason to resub, in a year! I think it looks terrific. And I believe that, unless a better alternative presents itself (yeah right), they will probably recoup plenty old and burned-out players.