This zone is just designed atrociously. First time playing Horde before TBC.
Boring to look at
No story
HUGE as hell. Quests send you to the same spot 5 minutes away over and over and over to complete one quest at a time. Brb kill 6 harpies. Brb collect 6 harpy badges. Brb go back and kill the head Harpy now…
Takes FOREVER to quest through. Feels like I have been questing here for 2 straight days already
Huge amount of mobs to clear for various quests. Eg in the goblin area and the Theramore area
I cannot think of a more poorly designed zone in any version of the game. Can’t wait to be done with it.
Barrens is extremely efficient, but it’s potential efficiency requires foresight in knowing all the quests already and effectively grouping them together at one time and grouping the turn ins together in an efficient way. In terms of how it looks, I guess it’s kind of ugly, the Oasis are pretty though. Ratchet and the coast are quite nice as well.
Now you know why Barrens chat became a thing. What else are you gonna do other than exchange facts about Chuck Norris while you’re autorunning between quest locations?
The Barrens has plenty of lore tied to it if you would just read the quests.
How dare you speak of my beloved barrens in such a manner. You’re right though the quest route is crazy.
If you didn’t notice there’s a lot of time sinks built in. Wait until you do like Warsong Supplies in Ashenvale. You have to go to Booty Bay to pick up a crate (1 of 3 items you need) off the dock. Lol.
They built them as time sinks and to give us something to do besides grind mobs. Which most quests send us to grind mobs so it’s more like giving us another reason to grind mobs. Lol.
Anyways. Yea. It’s a time sink to keep you playing. After you do it a few times you only do the ones you need to get out of the zone. Grind mobs from quest to quest. You’ll get out quicker. Then be sent back a few levels later.
From what I can tell you haven’t actually taken the time to read through the quests; there is plenty of story and lore. The atmosphere is amazing; it’s like a mix between the American Plains, and the African Plains. There is enough quests to get you to 25 easily as well.
Why do you think the chat is so interesting in this zone? People are bored and passing time while they quest. I used to love the Barrens chat in real vanilla. All the Chuck Norris jokes.
When classic started up Barrens had its hilarious Barrens chat back. Not sure how it is now though with classic being out for a bit.
What did you expect, uldum? where you go in a boring linear quest chain where there are 90 versions of the zone based on which part of the quest you’re on? It’s barrens.
And it’s great
Because you need to know which quests are worth doing and which aren’t. This is the case in many zones in classic. It’s extremely frustrating, but it’s exactly what I want to to be.
Lots of trap quests, with low drop rates, it’s true, but it’s not unique to this zone. Centaur bracers is a cruel joke, but it’s good that it exists.
