Okay, I know you can easily bypass this by choosing to start in one of the basic starting zones but some brand new players won’t do that. Their first introduction to World of Warcraft is this clusterfunk of a story zone that seems like it was written by a monkey with ADHD. So let’s discuss what’s wrong with the Expedition starting zone.
You start off with basic spell casting or attacks…so far so good…then you move onto the island where you fight murlocs…ok…and get lunch for the laziest troll/draenei I’ve ever seen. The food is literally RIGHT there. This is where things really start going downhill. You venture through a gnoll camp and come across the first of several ‘rituals’ on the island. What is the gnoll ritual for? Are they working with the ogres? What’s going on? Then there’s probably my least favorite line in this whole shipshow. ‘…always said you’d come for us.’ Really? They always said that? Even before you were marooned here? They ALWAYS said that?
More rituals are disrupted, only one of which has to do with the ogres and the other two have no explanation besides an angry Forsaken being angry. And let’s not forget the ‘For the Horde/For the Alliance’ overkill. The Horde/Alliance leaves no one behind, is the super bestest! always prevails yada yada yada. Give it a rest would you? By the end of this nonsense I was ready to switch sides.
The whole thing is a mess right up to the end when the ogre is reviving the world’s smallest, least intimidating dragon. Who has the world’s least intimidating lines. ‘Your deaths will NOURISH me!’…oh I’m scared now. I mean it’s sad. And this is some players first introduction to World of Warcraft? The story makes little sense with everyone and everything but the murlocs doing rituals JUST CAUSE and the writing is horrible. Just horrible.
I know this was long and if you stayed with me this far thank you. I’m interested to know if anyone else felt this way about the expedition zone and the horrible introduction it delivers to brand new players?
Not me. I enjoyed it a lot and think it’s a great alternative to the old starter zones.
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Wait do you actually feel this way? I went through the whole post thinking it was a meme
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I’ll take it over all of the starting areas aside from Eversong Woods and the Wandering Isle. I don’t know if any intro area will ever beat Eversong for me 
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I rather enjoy it.
It’s a great way to start a new server, and by the end, you have a decent amount of starting gold and at least 4 bags.
Plus 1-10 level grind is faster than most regular starting zones, and the story is pretty decent.
I think this new starting zones is one of the best things they’ve added to the game in recent memory.
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I’m far more bothered that new players are exposed to BfA than I am with the 3rd grade story writing of the new starting zone.
The zone lasts all of a half-hour.
BfA (for new players) is 50 levels of blech.
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I like it. The forsaken dude is hilarious. He should be Necromancer class trainer next xpac.
IT JUST NEEDS BOOTS.
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The thing is that the 3rd grade story writing could be enough to scare away new players before they get a chance to see the rest of the game. Granted some parts of the game are worth missing but this zone seems like a horrible first impression imo.
It’s meant to be a tutorial, not some grand amazing narrative. It accomplishes that purpose.
Were you expecting to be saving the planet and fighting god within the first 30 minutes of the game at level 7?
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As a brand new account that had to do it, I thought it was good.
Essentially your 5 paragraphs boil down to the fact that the dialogue could be better and that you were confused as to what the Gnolls were doing. Even though it explains it perfectly.
It’s to teach players how to interact with world objects.
It literally says:
Quilboar are savage and violent. I had thought the practice of necromancy beyond them. Obviously, we cannot allow them to continue their rituals. And certainly not on members of the Horde.
The quest is even called Forbidden Quilboar Necromancy
For someone who is so critical on dialogue and story, you sure can’t read.
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You say that like the rest of the game isn’t the same thing LOL
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I expected some effort put into it. Guild Was 2 offers a starting tutorial as well and theirs is much nicer and better written than this junk. WoW deserves better.
Sounds like you’re just pissed at WoW and want to attack everything WoW related.
There’s plenty to get pissed at right now, but this ain’t one.
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Did you find the secret turtle cave? If you haven’t yet… well… (wink)
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I really don’t think so. I feel like most game vets know that starting zones (or the beginning of any game) has some sort of basic intro on how to play the game. This is just Blizz’s version.
The story is lackluster, sure. But it’s not as bad as you lead on imo and it’s definitely the most basic intro into WoW. Everyone’s different tho - and if a player decides just after 30 mins of WoW that it isn’t a good game, then oh well. 
Some of the best stories are in the questing and raids (and never have been in the first 10 levels of character leveling) and people usually know to hold out for that.
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There’s quite a bit of effort put into it. I found the characters to be quite funny and it really goes in depth on the mechanics of the game-even specific mechanics for each class which was a nice touch…
Sorry it wasn’t to your taste. Personally I think the start of guild wars 2 is awful and boring, so I think this is just a case of it not aligning to your tastes like that one didn’t align to mine.
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If I were pissed at WoW I wouldn’t be saying it deserves a better introduction. I love this game and I want new players to get the chance to love it to. I feel like this zone, while a nice to current players, is more likely to make new players think the whole game is shoddy.
I wonder why people think their opinions are validated in relevance by someone having a similar one.
Ah, yeah, a certain “demographic” concept of “democracy”.
As if enough people not liking something made the disliking of it an objective concept.
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OP… perhaps Blizz could have tried a smidge harder with this zone … (I find it fine for learning the basics) … but you tried way, way too hard with your post. We get it, angry at Blizz… zZZzz
You might be right, it could just be that the zone didn’t appeal to me personally.
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