As I near the end of the long slog to 60 I find myself wondering if there are whole swaths of vanilla quests that didn’t make it to Classic. There are a few zones where I go in expecting lots of quests and find almost none. Badlands (Alliance) and Winterspring come to mind, as did Azshara (Alliance) today.
Is this just an optical illusion? Some guildies expressed the same thought.
They are just bare.
The only actual quests not in game yet I believe are Silithus.
I don’t think azshara was fully quested until cata when they redid the zone. Silithus will have more quests when AQ releases. Right now its just a grinding and farming zone basically with a few class/raid quests that take you there for a few minutes.
I think 55-60 you were suppose to do dungeons for XP. BRS and BRD have a lot of quests in them that can easily take you through 3-4 levels with how many clears are required to complete them all.
The sad truth is that as the game (original Vanilla) got closer and closer to launch, it was widely speculated that some corners had to be cut-- or else it might never be finished. Or, perhaps finished so late that it might already be out of style.
So we see Azshara, such a large and beautiful zone, but with very very few quests for either faction.
And Badlands, which has some quests, but no flight point for the Alliance.
Regarding Winterspring, there are quests for both factions, but WS is largely a “max level” zone so you will see quite a few quests that send you far to other zones to complete and/or pick up. (there is a darnassus quest that sends you to WS to gather feathers, and there are some quests inside Everlook that begin quest chains back in the Plaguelands.)
Also, notice even around Darkshore. Its a well-built zone with many many quests, but notice as you get around the Blackfathom Depths dungeon, it seems they didn’t even finish the artwork and landscape around it.
The Biggest Thing: If you have ever done the quests from both Alliance and Horde Side, you will see that the Alliance quests have a general theme that follows from zone to zone, and it creates a much more complete “adventure” than the Horde counterparts.
SPOILER: You see from the Alliance side that Onyxia has managed to sneak/disguise her way into the human high society/nobility, under the direction of Nefarian. From there she manages to sow seeds of discontent and disorder among the nobles, which leads to things like the Stonemasons not being paid for their beautiful work in Stormwind, which of course they become bandits and start hiding out in the Deadmines etc.
Onyxia also manages to have King Varian Wrynn kidnapped, and again while he’s presumed dead, we find very little leadership coming from the Crown at all.
[I’m a bit more fuzzy on the Horde questlines, as I haven’t done them in years, but it was certainly not as fluid containing a very centrally-themed good v evil etc. I believe these differences (in the end) come down to a gaming company that had to meet deadlines and get the game launched.]
Badlands and Azshara had very few quests in Vanilla.
Christmas will mark 15 years playing the game. I may just hang it up, finally.
[NOTE: I have permanently quit a few times.]