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Or better yet, if anyone wants to throw in their opinions in a ‘least to greatest’ kinda way. I’m all for it.
Probably Mulgore
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There was a video about this very exact issue, but I think it was taken down.
Mulgore I’d say. There’s a lot of extra mobs for most quests compared to other starter areas. You can easily bottle-neck on a few kill quests though if you’re stubborn.
For those who like grinding, the Mulgore mine is the most amazing location in the game. Loads of mobs, and no quests take anyone to the deepest parts, so it’s usually empty.
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I think Dun Morogh.
Coldridge Valley is very compact and leads very naturally to Kharanos which is packed with quests. Plus Iron Forge is close by.
Once ready, Loch Modan is a very appropriate next step with a few worthy quests along the way. The Gol’Bolar Quarry is a convenient stop for a couple quests plus repair and merchants to empty bags.
Loch Modan has a fair amount of quests but you’ll likely need to grind out the remainder of a level or two before moving on,…particularly if you didn’t complete most to all of the quests in Dun Morogh. There’s also a few quests that you’ll come back for once you’re a bit higher but the FP is hardly out of the way as you move onto Wetlands which is also conveniently the very next area.
Wetlands up and over to Southshore then back through Arathi Highlands,…it all lends itself to level progression by the areas pragmatically neighboring each other. Resources also scale well from Dun Morogh and up through the following areas.
It’s not entirely absent of gaps but dungeons and grouping for elite quests help fill that in. There’s also the Deeprun Tram from IF to Stormwind and a run to Lakeshire to fill in a couple levels before moving on to Wetlands from Loch Modan.
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Of all the starting areas I’ve tried (most of them) they really do not offer one that is significantly better than another. You should just go with the one that matches the character you want to play and forget starting area advantages (cuz you aren’t going to be there long anyway).
I can’t really speak for Horde. Alliance, the night elf starting area will be the most effective. Just due to popularity. Excluding the initial pop, dwarf/gnome, then human.
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I’d argue Tirisfal glades.
Your literally questing around your capital city which also hosts a zeppelin, allowing you to zoom right over to Org any time you want, which is also a questing area leading into the barrens.
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I’m not going to rush even the starting areas… I’m going to enjoy the journey.
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Honestly, I’d go with whatever zone is going to least populated, if you have any plans on being able to consistently level the first few days. Though that depends on how packed the servers and layers are going to be. Obviously, they shouldn’t be as bad as the stress tests. Even if they aren’t ridiculously packed, the big problem is that mobs had much longer respawn timers in vanilla.
For alliance, night elves and humans are going to have the most swamped zones.
For horde, orcs/trolls and undead are going be packed as well.
In terms of actual zone efficiency, there isn’t a whole lot of variation between them in terms of time. You might spend +/- 15 minutes between starter zones. Some are a little quicker than others, but for the most part, I think they originally designed around this to make them similar in leveling speed. If there is not much competition, you should only be spending around 60 min getting to level 6.
Mulgore by large lead.
Dwarf area is good too, not a very crowded zone.
Classic winds made an interesting video about this topic, I’ll leave it here
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Mulgore for two reasons. Quite a few of the quests are for mobs that are spread out over a large part of the zone so you have options to find more. As my homeboy said above, there are two mines with lots of mobs to grind as long as you want with little competition.
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that sounds like the opposite of efficiency
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Have 3 or 4 areas where you can kill the mobs for a quest or one. Take your pick.
I would list Mulgore last actually.
Red Cloud Mesa has only a few quests and you have to run to several points of the perimeter of the area for several of them. Bloodhoof Village is a bit of a jaunt too.
Bloodhoof is the only quest hub in Mulgore and it’s big. Thunder Bluff is like 2 miles away and your next quest area, Crossroads is a 20 minute run away.
Plus, lol. Tauren are so big they feel like they run slow. I think they might actually run faster than other races but it sure feels like a crawl, especially in Mulgore.
I’m with you. I felt Mulgore, although tranquil and laid back, was just sooo slow with running all over the wide open plains.
1-6 I can get to razor hill as an orc about 2minutes faster than I can get to Brill as an undead, I mostly attribute the discrepancy to the longer distance that undead have to travel to get there, and the fact that I’m chain grinding mobs on the way (also typically doing the doom or gloom weed q from the abom on the way in).
I also found the 1-12 time to slightly favor Orc zones, but in fairness my orc had a green boe 1hander and shaman in general are very strong 1-12…
Come actual live I imagine I’ll get the fastest overall 1-12 time on my warlock, since it will have a wand immediately at level 6 and that alone will outdamage any spell I cast before my mid 20s. In beta I solo farmed the mats for the wand on a lock (which took me to ~10 itself) and had a fairly sloppy quest rotation since it was my first foray in that zone since Northdale.
I can’t comment on the tauren zone… The last time I leveled a tauren anything was a druid in actual vanilla.
Can only speak Alliance side.
At launch? Probably Coldridge, but its tough to say with Classic because of how important it is to min/max apparently to a lot of players. With prior knowledge of which class/race combo’s are now very strong at end game, Coldridge might be packed to the brim as well.
When it all settles down? Nothing beats Northshire. Its far more compact than Shadowglen and Coldridge. It would continue to be true for onwards into Elwynn -> Westfall / Redridge. The Human early zone progression is very good.
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And pretty good respawn rates too