I’ve a weird relationship with this zone. When I first came back to WoW in early winter of 2017, having not played since spring of 2010 or so, my first character was a Worgen Rogue. Perhaps this new start deserved a really fresh take. I had played Alliance before but never to max level and while I did prefer the Horde, I was sure that King Varian character had taken them in a darker direction after starting that war in Northrend. Ignorance truly is bliss.
Unfortunately for the Worgen though, they fight the Forsaken pretty early on. And that felt like what I imagine it must feel like to see a picture of your wife moments before you commit to an affair. I couldn’t go through with it. The heart wants what it wants and truly those cackling cannibal war criminals are the apple of my eye and truest love. But I can see why I was seriously thinking of risking it all for the werewolves of London.
I simply adore the Gilnean architecture and aesthetic. The place is swimming in this foreboding gothic atmosphere and the stylized Victorian construction is absolutely breathtaking. In particular that cathedral you enter at the end of the first act is maybe my favorite building in this game. Plus even the outfits are on point. The well-to-do all wear colorful foppy finery with bright gold trims, whereas the commoners all have drab sensible outfits that look like they’ve had to exist in coal fog. Also I like the tiny hats the womenfolk wear, someone needs to bring those back into fashion.
Also just the layout of the city itself is splendid. I love the narrow winding alleys and different districts. You can see how an EBG was definitely planned here. As I’m familiar with WoW urban warfare I could’ve told them why that’d be a hectic, unplayable mess. Still though it’s a shame we can’t use this place at all*. I’m pretty sure the Alliance and Horde just outright can’t be in the same phase. It is the MMO equivalent of a national tragedy that Gilneas City was scrapped and abandoned. And it’s an ongoing war crime that Gilnean architecture is so sparse when that eyesore Playmobil plastic BS Stormwindian stuff is duck mothering everywhere.
Thing is though, I really remember remember hating this zone. In part I admit because it contradicted, and as of the Sylvanas novel outright canonically invalidates, the vastly superior Forsaken Silverpine storyline. But also because I remember it being just not particularly fun to play. And yeah as it turns out the Gilneas City EBG wasn’t the only thing Blizz got around to playtesting far too late.
First off I’ll start with the positives;
That early quest “Evacuate the Merchant Square” has a neat trick. You knock on people’s doors and they open them and run out of a small room. It’s easy to see it’s an empty tiny square if you try, but gives the nice illusion there’s actual full buildings behind every door. For 2011 that’s pretty nifty.
I love that the Worgen bite is a debuff that steadily gets a worsening description. It starts out as being a minor wound and ends with “Your skin is black and blue around the wound. There also appears to be thick hair growing around the edge of it”. Yet at the same time in the beats of the story, there’s never a calm enough moment where you feel you could alert someone to this problem. The scale of the Worgen threat is well presented and actually reminds me fondly of the Bastion Lakeshire quest.
That’s where my compliments end. The rest is only remarkable for being WORSE THAN GARBAGE.
The actual Act One story is fine and as I said I really like how well the threat of the Worgen escalates into this totally hopeless situation. Even if the signature starting zone first non-hostile mobs being called Rampaging Worgen is funny to me. Some are attacking NPCs but most are just kinda walking around vibing. They probably could’ve come up with an in story explanation for this like Deathknell does for the non hostile zombies. But unfortunately;
They insist, for some stupid reason, to make it a twist that the Worgen are Werewolves. Even do a little flashback in the Act One ending cutscene to that time you got bit by a werewolf, in case you were confused as to why you turned into a werewolf. Crazy how they planned for the extremely niche case of people rolling Worgen just now being introduced to the concept of a wolfman, while NOT PLAYTESTING THESE QUESTS!".
First on my ish list is where you’ve to survive a worgen attack with Darrius Crowley for two whole minutes. Now that sounds daunting, and is framed as desperate because you’re the only one armed with more than knuckle sandwiches and a bit of wood. But the attacking NPCs all go down absurdly easy, and aggro Crowley who’s a skull level boss. So experimentally I just stood still and was fine.
Secondly is the horse riding quest. It does again help show off the scale of the worgen threat though. But if you’re familiar with me you know my loathing for bombing run quests, and they somehow managed to make them even worse because now you’re just throwing BS off a horse. Here I also experimently did nothing and found out the horse is actually invulnerable.
Which of course it’d have to be as I’m on it with Darrius Crowley. If I’m with a main character obviously I can’t lose as that’d kill them too, so this isn’t gameplay as there is no failstate. It’s a cutscene I’m encouraged to tokenly interact with. So basically just a crap version of Disney’s Buzz Lightyear ride.
All in all I do love the atmosphere and the story of Act One is pretty good as these go. But a lot of the quests are like poster children for the worst aspects of Cata’s design philosophy and ruin what otherwise could’ve been a fantastic experience.
To Be Continued
