Starting afresh

I'm sure that someone, somewhere, will have gone on at length about how important newbie zones are. After all, they're the first thing people see of your game.

Last week I started playing WoW again, and have no progressed to the lofty heights of, well, level 15 or so. I thought I'd play through the only bit of content I've not really seen, the Blood Elf starting zones (which I had seen, but only passing through to kill the Blood Elf leaders on my mage), so I thought I should comment on them a bit.

In short, I'm incredibly impressed. I'm certain that its the best newbie zone in the game; not from any one huge and obvious thing, but all the small things together.

For example, I've already sold a bag from not being able to equip it, due to receiving ample bag-space from quests. I was level 12 by the time I'd finished the quests in the 1-10 zone, Eversong Woods, and I think I missed one or two. It all flows nicely together. It doesn't hurt that it all looks rather good as well.

Having now arrived in the 10-20 zone, the Ghostlands, I've started running the quests there as well. These are also well designed, explaining why the Blood Elves are dealing with the Forsaken, and not requiring you to run from one end of the barrens to another (hello Mulgore's "go to the Crossroads" quest).

A post on MMOG Nation suggests that the next expansion should be a revamp of the old world to TBC standards (or better), and I totally agree with this, especially with the newbie zones — I poked at the troll and undead starting zones as well, and neither of them seem quite as consistent and easy to run as the belf one, especially with the lack of quests giving bags. I also seem to remember coming out of newbie zones at level 9 plenty of times before, never more than 10.

In other news, having rolled a rogue, white damage is quite the epiphany to a mage. Passive damage? Yes please!