Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor Zone Progression

Hello,

Newer player. I want to quest and explore all of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. I put together a rough order of progression for a night elf druid but wanted to see if anyone had some suggestions or refinements to my list. I want to quest through in a fairly natural manner. Any tips would be greatly appreciated thanks.

Kalimdor

1 Darkshore
2 Azuremyst/Bloodmyst
3 Ashenvale
4 Stonetalon Mountains
5 Barrens
6 Desolace
7 Dustwallow Marsh
8 Thousand Needles
9 Tanaris
10 Feralas
11 Un’Goro Crater
12 Silithus
13 Durotar
14 Mulgore
15 Felwood
16 Winterspring
17 Moonglade

Eastern Kingdoms

1 Elwynn Forest
2 Westfall
3 Duskwood
4 Deadwind Pass
5 Redridge Mountains
6 Swamp of Sorrows
7 Blased Lands
8 Stranglethorn Vale
9 Dun Morogh
10 Loch Modan
11 Wetlands
12 Badlands
13 Burning Steppes
14 Searing Gorge
15 Arathi Highlands
16 Hillsbrad Foothills
17 Silverpine Forest
18 Tirisfal Glades
19 Alterac Mountains
20 The Hinterlands
21 Western Plaguelands
22 Eastern Plaguelands
23 Ghostlands
24 Eversong Woods

Welcome to Azeroth!

I really admire your careful planning.

But I think you are missing a couple of factors, so please bear with me while I explain.

1. There is far too much XP and questing for one character.

Even before the Chromie Time changes (that will be point 3 below) Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms zones had far more content than you needed to level a character. That is, if you did all the quests in these zones, you would outlevel each zone.

“Outlevelling a zone” means two things:

  • You would stop getting XP and levelling up
  • You would become too powerful for your enemies, destroying them in one hit
    This is a very unfulfilling way to play.

 

2. Questing, Zones, and Factions

Some zones are Alliance-only, and some are Horde-only. So in your Kalimdor list above, there are no quests for Alliance in Durotar or Mulgore. Similarly, in EK, there are no Alliance quests in Silverpine, Tirisfal, Ghostlands, Eversong,

Moonglade is a Druid zone, and while you will be called there for a special class quest, you will not be questing there. Deadwind Pass has no levelling quests either.

This page from the wiki

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Zones_by_level_(Cataclysm)

shows the levels you used to be expected to start and end each zone at, and therefore provides an effective guide to which zones to do in which order.

 

3. Chromie Time and the New Levelling System

Because there are so many expansions now, Chromie Time was introduced with the idea that each character can chose one/any expansion to level from 10 to 70.

When that happened, all zones in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms were re-tooled to cater for characters from level 1 to 30. (It may not be obvious to you now, but this does make a kind of sense.)

So while the list of zones I linkied above WAS a guide to the natural order from levels 1-60 in Ye Olde Waye, a character can now take the zones in any orde, but only up to 30. Outside CHromie Time, you can level to about 35 in them eventually, verrrrrrry verrrrry slowly from 31-35 if you keep going long enough, but after 30 yoiur XP falls off a cliff.


SO what I’m saying is that, if you want to explore all the quests in all of the Kalimdor and EK zones, you should look to create many alts.

Al “alt” is an “alternate character”. We all have them. Many of them. (Looks at my alts list.) Many, many of them. :rofl:

You can have up to 60 separate characters. No extra charge.

Alts are great! If you are Alliance, you can make Horde alts to see the other side of the story. And playing through the game with a new class is almost like playing through a new game. And different races get different starting experiences.

I would say: make your NE Druid! Play through Teldrassil and Darkshore and Ashenvale. You will be 30 by then, I imagine (maybe sooner) and stop getting XP.

Fine. Now make a Draenei Beast Mastery Hunter, for example, and play through the homelands of the Draenei Azuremyst and Bloodmyst, and, if your Druid finished Ashenvale, skip to Stonetalon and on until your Hunter hits its limit.

Now, for a change, make an Undead Warlock, for example, and feel the ambiance of Tirisfal and learn to understand their enmity with the Worgen in Silverpine.

Then maybe make a Worgen and see the story from their side.

In the process, you will discover favorite races - and especially classes! Each class is really worth discovering. You won’t like all of them, but you rill find a few you love to play.


That’s my recommendation. You don’t have to take it, ofc, but I promise it will be more interesting and enjoyable than any attempt to do everything on one character could ever be.


As a Beginner Bonus, let me recommend these resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnzdeoSMkvM

This is a MASSIVE YouTube guide, but it is broken up into 1-2 minute chapters covering different subjects, with a Table of Contents in the Description if you show all of it. It will tell you things you didn’t know you needed to know.

wowhead,com is your source for everything about quests and items

icy-veins.com will explain how to build and play each class and spec


If you have any more questions, PLEASE ask! :+1:

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Just as an example, I’ve been leveling a new gnome the last week or so. I played through Dun Morogh, Loch Modan and Wetlands, then I was too high level to continue earning XP in the Classic zones so I went on to Deepholm and Twilight Highlands and I hit 70 near the end of TH. So 1-70 in 5 Eastern Kingdom zones, and never went to Kalimdor at all.

I really miss the days when you could make more out of t he old world and hit more zones. I have not done any leveling there in a very long time. If the goal is to experience everything then a level-lock might work. You could level up to no higher than 20-25 (maybe less) then go to SW keep and get locked. It might also be a good idea to do this a few times at lower levels to make sure you do not go too far.

With the exception of a few zones added in Cata which are for 30-35, you should be able to hit everything in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms & Northrend without one-shotting everything.

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