Nothing screamed cliff hanger better then starting the ending battle line quest and wondering if you’d make it to the end to face Sylvanas or stuck watching a bunch of angry Gilneans wandering around.
I prefer Exiles reach over any other starting zone.
It’s uses the modern zone design with quest hub consolidation and low travel times. After making countless alts over the last 17 years I just want leveling to be over as fast as possible.
I lasted in Exiles Reach 10 minutes. I wanted to do the whole thing just so I “knew,” but couldn’t do it.
Azuremyst Isle, Elwynn Forest (but one human toon is enough,) and I’ll always like Tiragarde Sound.
My order:
Worgen (back in Cata)
Night Elf (love, love, love the story!)
Undead (love the stories, atmosphere, NPCs, ect)
Draenei (appreciate the story notes)
Dwarf, Gnome (fun)
Human, Orc, Troll (okay, nothing exciting)
Exile’s Reach (too flat and generic)
Tauren (boring)
Blood Elf (super boring)
I do not have any Pandarian characters so I can not comment on their starting area.
If you go into your settings and turn off tutorials, that all goes away and it changes back to the normal UI.
You still have so quests that teach you how to play…but they are quick and easy if you already know
You can even use your chauffeured chopper to make the zone even faster
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Dipped my toes into classic when it first came out…
The first 30 levels are an amazing experience. Been so long you really forget about that.
The joy of a grey item that’s an upgrade, a 8 slot bag. Saving up enough gold to buy a new spell. So well done.
I like Exiles Reach as a pretty streamlined experience when I just want to get an alt started. I love Valley of Trials and Tirisfal Glades because they are where my starting characters came from. I’m also pretty fond of Mulgore, because the little mini-narrative of going on a spiritual journey feels very Tauren.
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I prefer the starting zones. Exiles Reach is ok.
I only did the place once but ironically…I didnt notice a tutorial to turn off the tutorials.
Glad to hear its possible.
In terms of story, Exiles Reach is so bizarre.
“Hey there nobody, let me teach you how to swing a sword”
Hour later
“Hero of Azeroth, your are our only hope”
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Do they go away automatically at some point, so a new player who has viewed them won’t have them persist?
I still like the old starting zones. But mostly I skip ahead by rolling allied races.
That’s pretty annoying.
exile’s reach plays like a low level DnD one shot campaign where after it is over you return home and are treated like a grand hero. Sure you stopped an evil ogre plot but ultimately it would have only been a mild threat if it succeeded.
The way you get referred to after just doesn’t line up. It lines up if you are a character that has gone through the entirety of WoW though.
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I’ve started many pandas over the years, and I would never ever EVER choose Exile’s Bleach over the turtle.
Turtle is love, turtle is life.
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Is the worgen one still bugged? It was like two years ago for me.
Agreed. I do wish we had “Exile’s Reach Part 2”. I think an evergreen campaign intended for an intermediate adventurer fresh off their “origin story” that properly built their legend could be awesome. A three-zone epic that had you saving Azeroth, an “expansion that never existed”, could be really awesome.
BFA is neat but it’s actually quite bizarre going forwards into 10.0 if we’re putting the faction war behind us. And I think new players going into Shadowlands as the default leveling experience would be very, very strange.
Blizzard used to find the budget to create several new leveling zones in expansions. I think if they took that budget and put it into a truly evergreen 10-X leveling experience, that would be pretty sick. Especially if that experience went as far as teaching people more fundamental gameplay mechanics like kicks/dispels etc for each role.
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I only ever completed the human one, it was fun and it’d do it again. NE was so boring I remade it in Exile’s. Blood elf wasn’t bad and Goblin I got to level 5, it was a breath of fresh air and I would have finished it if I didn’t delete the character. Rest I didn’t try sadly.
Same.
I’d add most of the Alliance, especially Teldrassil. This was my first zone and I remember how much I loved how deep the woods felt back then. And the music, everything there actually settled me in the game. Especially because every Moonwell showed you a Kaldorei shade that told you about your race or ending up gathering power from Elune to destroy the corruption.
Best zone for me. I’d do it over Exiles if I were to level another Night Elf.
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The goblin, worgen, and pandaren starting zones are cool the first few times, but I’d rather do Exiles Reach compared to them after multiple runs because they are just a slog at that point.
That was the last time I did it so 2 yrs ago I can say it was bugged. You’d probably actually have to make another thread asking if it’s been fixed.
This would be amazing. What I would do is exile’s reach is “zone 1”. After you return to your capital you go on adventures with you crew from exile’s reach through 2 more zones to take you to level 50.
One would be focused on the legion. A splinter group led by a pit lord. The other zone would be focused on dragons. Why dragons? because they are a somewhat integral component of azeroth’s story that for your legend to make more sense they should know of you and your deeds.
All through these the NPCs get fleshed out along the way and by the end we hopefully have interesting characters we care about that blizzard can use for the story rather than always throwing in the racial leaders.
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