Archive for July, 2008

R.I.P. Azeroth

My 63 orc rogue has just entered her last old world Azeroth zone, Silithus, having completed all but instance quests in all the other pre-TBC zones. This is part of my experiment to complete as many of the old-world quests as I could finish, short of instance and raid quests. I still may be able to finish some of the raid and instance quests, as several of my guildmates have expressed some interest in revisiting the old stomping grounds of Scholomance, Stratholme, UBRS, and the like, although so far nobody has been chomping at the bit to, say, take a whack at Onyxia or revisit Molten Core.

Entering Silithus last goes counter to my usual method of saving something good for last, but I just could never bring myself to go into Bugland until forced. It’s never been a favorite zone, for a variety of reasons: too many mobs, too many tedious “kill 20″ quests that always bring unwanted adds, too little interesting loot, too much sand, too many bugs. At my current rate I may or may not hit 64 before I’ll have run out of old-world content, minus the instances.

It’s been lonely at the top.

The last several zones I have done have been pretty much deserted. I only saw one gnome in Burning Steppes, and only because he was level 42 and had come to desecrate the Horde fire during the Midsummer Festival. In Winterspring, I had the unusual experience of having the furlbog camps almost completely to myself, only encountering a single dwarf hunter who killed one and ran off. There was a little traffic around Everlook, again due to the festival, which dried up as soon as July 6th rolled around. While I saw a few high 50s in Western Plaguelands, I saw exactly three people the entire time I was in Eastern Plaguelands: a night elf who watched as Cryler and I did the Darrowshire event, a lost single-digit-level blood elf who didn’t know he could use the teleporter to leave blood elf lands and was trying in vain to run across EPL, and one human warlock ten levels below me who poked her head in one of the towers while I was flipping it and decided not to challenge me for it.

I’ve gotten some random whispers from people wondering why, in my early 60s, I’m “wasting my time” in these zones. My guildies think I’m a little nuts for remaining, when at 63 I should be finishing up with Zangermarsh and about to tackled Terrokar Forest (they understand what I am doing, and why, but they still think I’m a little touched in the head).

On the one hand, it’s quiet and peaceful, and I get all the thorium to myself.

On the other hand, it’s a little sad to see the desolation. Zones that once bustled with people, activity, calls for groups, and chatter in General are now virtual wastelands. People are only using zones up until 58, and immediately drop whatever they’re doing and hightail it to Hellfire. I can’t say I really blame them. I’ve been buying auction greens out of the AH and everything puts even the old world blues appropriate for a 60 to shame. If it wasn’t for disenchanting, I’d have no use for them either. The experience is cold-molasses slow. If it wasn’t for the high price of gatherables like thorium and mithril, the money would really suck.

Blizzard has said that the gear reset on WOTLK will not be as high. I hope not. The incredible leap in gear quality and money rewards you get right from the onset questing at 58 in Outlands are the two death knells of the high level, old world zones. If it wasn’t for an artificial reason to do as many old world quests as I could, I’d have no reason to be out here either. The quests aren’t a great deal more fun (and in the case of Silithus, a great deal less so). The scenery isn’t that much better (repeat Silithus comment here), and it’s not like the zones are laid out more conveniently or have better reputation rewards (can you tell I really, really hate Silithus?).

I fear that, by this time next year, I’ll be writing the obituary on some of the upper level zones in Outlands, unless Blizzard makes some effort to tie these two expansions together a little better. Why bother with Blades’ Edge when you can leap up to the new Northrend zones and get better loot for less effort? Perhaps in a year, I’ll be grinding away at 73 in Netherstorm and I’ll get some random /whisper, “dude why u wastin ur time in there??!?”