• Nisu

Hm, the comments on Wowhead do say it works all over the zone - I believed the tooltip and never tried it on beta. Thanks.

 

Lurker37

You get dismounted if you get too far from the Dragon Wastes - that still covers a large section of the map, and you can go a fair distance before you get dismounted - usually (but not always) with a parachute.

There's one for Horde, too.

 

dlanod

I tested this out as I was leveling and while it doesn't work over the complete zone, the area it covers is big enough to make the difference pretty damn small. You can go pretty much anywhere west of the mountain range, and the delay on the dismount means you can reach almost anywhere else before being dismounted. However I caved and handed in the quest, but if you don't mind holding on to a completed quest in your log in exchange for a flying mount (like most normal people) I heartily recommend it.

 

Stopokingme

Only downside I can see to this is that you'll be missing out for a while on one of the best quests available in WotLK, the Wrathgate.

 

footloop

Wrathgate is only a couple quests after that one though, so you'll get to see it pretty much immediately after handing in the quest. It seems like a worthwhile tradeoff.

 

sarf

The issue I had with the quest was that there are usually no indications if completing one quest opens up a couple more. Thus, I completed the horse quest a bit too quickly. It would be beneficial if they mentioned it that there were no big hurry and take your time.

That's a nitpick, though, and now that I got my Cold Weather Flying, I'm sure that the rest of the zones will actually be much easier.

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

Rockstar

I'm a little worried that the negative comments regarding HF (from mainly Alliance, it has to be said) will cause some of the people levelling more slowly (or levelling a DK for example) to skip the zone - as Horde, the zone feels truly epic. After the starting quests in Vengeance Landing, riding up and ascending in the large lift, before riding out into the forest made me feel like leaving Teldrassil and moving into Ashenvale many years ago - like this was where things started anew.

Nostalgia aside, the only issue I have is with some of the placement of the Alliance bases being smack-bang in the middle of large quest routes (Camp Wildevar). I had the same problem in Dragonblight to a much greater degree, with many of the quests leading either directly past or through Star's Rest, which is hidden by trees until you're right upon it. I don't know how many gamers tend to point themselves in the general direction of their next quest while mounted, before enabling autorun and reading quests/fiddling with mods.... but if you do then you may be another casualty of those sneaky Night Elves.

Some other quests have been great successes though, I get the sense that wherever I go, there is almost guaranteed to be a quest for the very mobs I'm riding past. I certainly didn't feel like this in Vanilla, and to a lesser degree in TBC where you've usually moved onto the next zone by the time you get the elite quests enabled in the previous quest hub. The inclusion of a lot of 'elite killer' items is also a masterstroke - no you have soloable quests for named mobs which involve interesting items, where the mobs are very unlikely to be accidentally blown up by a passing affliction warlock triple-dotting everything. The breadcrumbs quests also seem more progressive than TBC, with many zones only moving you on when you've finished with the hub instead of flinging you back and forth.

That's a very good tip indeed, I found New Hearthglen to be a superb source of XP due to the huge amount of quests avaliable, but the travelling time did become a little annoying.

Personally I levelled my priest through Howling Fjord->Dragonblight->Grizzly Hills->Zul'Drak & a little of both Icecrown and Storm Peaks. I'd recommend Dragonblight and Storm Peaks due to quest density (and due to Storm Peaks looking stunning), however Grizzly Hills I found fairly annoying with many of the mobs in awkward places and in small numbers. For my warlock, I'm considering Borean Tundra->Dragonblight->Grizzly Hills->Sholazar Basin since I don't yet have epic flying, and for all intents and purposes, Icecrown and Storm Peaks are just too difficult to navigate without epic flying imo.

 

Akka

Honestly, as Alliance, Fjord is totally epic, immersing and interesting.

I strongly suppose that the bad press about Fjord is from a pure "efficiency" point of view. Fjord sure require quite a bit of travelling, and many quests involve not much killing (and as such, don't give as much XP as the ones which does).
But from a "RP" point of view, it's the Tundra (except for Coldarra) which is boring.
The Fjord, if you pay attention to what happens in the story, read your quest and the like, is very, very good.

If violence doesn't solve your problem...
... you simply haven't been violent enough !

 

Kumar

On the same point, they tie Utgrade Keep into the Fjord story nicely in the Horde starting place. Then as you near the end of the questlines, you go to the Gjalerbron Vrykul camp where and they tie that questline nicely into Utgrade Pinnacle.

 

limbsdeath

I would highly recomend for both those who want to level as fast as possible, and those who enjoy the story lines involved in questing to do both starting areas.

I found that Borean Tundra had several mini-questlines that were just fun to follow in themselves, and overall nicely led you to believe you were going to the coldera instance with a purpose.

The Fjord starting area, while perhaps not as densely packed with quests, provided both a good experience boost when I arrived at lvl 74, and tied very nicely with the dragon blight questlines leading to that epic cut scene.

Doing the other starting area even 5 levels higher then intended still yeilds 20k + experience and fills in or suppliments the lore of the earlier areas.

 

nataku

I think I enjoyed Howling Fjord more than Borean Tundra after finishing both zones in my questing. The ambient music is much better in the Fjord (if you keep your music on) and the zone has a more uniform and beautiful theme to it when compared to Borean Tundra. I do think the zone quest hubs were a little tighter in the Tundra (at least for Alliance), and the quest in Valliance Keep Inn that ports you to Dalaran available at lvl 74 is nice if you haven't gotten a port there already.

 

Oth

Well, I don't see it (having done it twice now), but I think I can suggest a couple of places where people might get the *impression* that a zone lags or isn't well-connected.

For the Fjord, there are two areas that stink early on (for Alliance)--one is the vast southwestern portion that stretches between Westguard and Shield Hill (with the lift in the middle), and the other is the stretch across the southeastern portion where the Explorer's League sends you to kill

one

hawk

at

a

tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime.

...well, okay, that's not travel per se. But they do send you to Ivald's Ruin, make you romp all over the vyrkul settlements, so on. It *is* a lot of ground-pounding. If you came in from Menethil, you'll probably first do the Utgarde-area stuff, then unlock the one-way flights to Westguard and the Explorer's League Outpost; if you came via turtle, you'll do the islands, then probably reach Westguard first (and get diverted to Shield EBF Hill). The sense of extra travel or delay mainly comes from the situation where you want to log off in the middle of the EL chains and wonder how the hell you're going to ride all the way around and down.

What people tend to not remember, or realize levels later when they check their keyring, is that they got to keep this:

[Icehammer's Harpoon Controller]

and that if they're on the east side, they don't have to ride all the way around--they can just surf down! It's not made clear that you get to keep that thing, and it saves a lot of riding time.

Once you get into the top half of the map, though, I think the quests do become more focused. I don't have much sympathy for anyone saying that the Gjalerbron series were badly designed, though--they are a perfect example of the hub design. You shouldn't have to go there more than...hm, twice if you've been progressing normally, three times if you're unlucky:

1) Do Skorn, get the Scroll of Ascension drop and kill the Thane.

2) Back to Westguard, get the kill quest (Adams) and prisoner-freeing (priest) quest, and head up.

3) While doing these, the Attack Plans (Glacion quest) will probably drop.

4) Return to Westguard with the plans and get the undead-killing (from priest), sleep-ganking (from mage), Glacion (from plans), and Mezhen (from Adams) quests.

5) Head back up and finish them off in one swoop. If you were unlucky, perhaps the plans drop here.

 

Malleus

Except in the Q description, where it explicitly states that you get to keep the harpoon controller.

A note on experience gains: I'm about 20 Qs away from finishing Borean Tundra and have cleared Howling Fjord (130 for the achievement plus half a dozen spares), and am three bubbles from 74. I ran two instances - The Nexus at 71 and Ahn-Kahet at 72. I started with 16 bubbles of rested, which has only just run out. A bit of napkin maths tells me that the ratio of quest XP to unrested kill XP is 90:10 if you run one instance per zone. Since quest XP remains constant so long as you're within a few levels of the zone, the optimal path for levelling speed is indeed to attack the lowest level content you haven't done yet and clear every quest.

 

Jaete

This also happens to be the best thing to do if you like gold: upon reaching 80, you'll have the highest-level stuff left and that's both awesome plot-wise and a very nice money source. I'd even recommend doing lots of instance runs if you can get a good group, as long as you have rested XP, because that's quite effective when rested while quests don't benefit from rested as much.

 

Mideci

The "if you like gold" thing seems highly obsolete in a world of near infinite daily quests. Sure, you can do quests at 80 for gold, but it will never be time efficient. It can be >fun<, it can be >immersive<, it can be >part of the game<, but there are already a dozen + discovered dailies that take minutes each and award in excess of a dozen gold. Very, very few standard quests will come close to that kind of efficiency -- "if you like gold".

 

Fqubed

If you like gold having two or three zones empty is having 5k gold waiting for you. You do dailys in an hour, and spend another hour clearing up a zone. 20 dailys per day is not incompatible with leaving late zones open.

 

Oth

Granted, but even in a land where people don't like to read, this:

...falls in the throwaway text category.

Instead of QuestHelper, somebody should make a mod that tells you when you're doing something that you'll get angry for not knowing about later. Puts up a raid warning like:

'HEY! DON'T TURN THIS IN YET! YOU LIKE FREE PORTS TO SHATTRATH DON'T YOU?'

'HEY! CHECK YOUR KEYRING!'

(Maybe I should call it 'Navi'.)

HEY! LISTEN!

 

Trifle

Doing the mind numbing grind that is sons of hodir, I can't help but feel envious of humans on this one... the initial quests that open up the hodir faction (2 of them, grant 22000 rep each) give you rep, they don't set it... meaning humans start off with a 4400 rep head start. Couple that headstart with new dailies opening up sooner for them results in larger and larger gains. I think I missed maybe 1 or 2 days, but my human friend is hitting revered while I'm hitting honoured.

And has anyone actually seen everfrost chips on live? I spent hours flying around looking for them with no luck. However for some reason things like to load in, then disappear again, then not load back in for a good 10 seconds (particularly noticeble with metal veins) so its quite possible I missed some this way... I wonder if its to do with the phasing.

 

Darian_TruBlade

I experienced this looking for herbs in BC after getting epic flying. The best that I can tell there are two facets to the issue. The first is that the game gives you information based on where it projects you are going, and changing direction or abruptly stopping screws that up somewhat. The second is that the game only polls for new objects every few seconds (probably to reduce server impact). As a result you're zooming around and abruptly stop you'll occaisionally see everything below you disappear because the game polled for objects a ways in the distance expecting you to be there. They reappear when the next poll occurs and it figured out where you really are.

"A man's IQ, yearly income, sexual prowess, ingenuity, physical appearance and generally every other aspect of his character can be condensed down to four digits: his Arena rating." - Zechsy [70 Rogue - Skullcrusher (EU) - 10/23/2007]

 

woo-haa

I found my first this morning. I got to exalted in beta and 6000/21000 in live before finding one. However, I never actively searched for one. Also, it seems like the Everfrost Chip quest item itself is a random drop from the Everfrost Chip object. Doesn't seem like something you should depend upon when repping with the SoH.

 

Mideci

The item is a 100% drop from the object. If you are lucky enough to find one and loot it, it's a certain 350 rep.

 

Stopokingme

It actually just doesn't seem to drop until you're either friendly, or have some quests done with the Sons. I found my first one while still neutral, and in the middle of the chain, but didn't get a chip from it. After I reached friendly, they started dropping like normal.

I've found them reasonably easy to find though, about half my rep is from Everfrost Chips now. Depending on server population this may or may not be harder though, since there seem to be a max of 4 up in an hour.

 

basto

I just wanted to point out that the quest that ports you to Dalaran is a breadcrumb and I know that its available from multiple places. There is a Kirin Tor mage in Valgarde, Wintergarde Keep, Borean Tundra, I believe there is one in Grizzly hills also that willl all give you this same quest and port you to Dalaran.

I believe the quest is called The Magical Kingdom of Dalaran but I cannot check at the moment since I cannot access WoWHead from work.

I also really enjoyed questing in Howling Fjord, I started there and then moved to Borean Tundra after I cleared the Fjord. Overall I like the quests better in HF but it did take me longer to clear than BT.

Personally as far as the zone layout and design is concerned I thought HF was by far the better of the two. I just think BT lends itself better to people who just want to rush to 80 and aren't interested in the actual content to get there.

 

Mideci

No, I don't mean to suggest they are incompatible. But clearing Icecrown and running into countless 5-man group quest walls in pursuit of gold is hardly going to feel very time efficient. If someone want to pursue some kind of "leave zones for gold" strategy", they are very well served using Icecrown as a leveling zone. It's going to be nearly impossible to clear efficiently in the future without a ton of help. The phasing technology and the countless 5-man quests will ensure it's very annoying down the road. Hit Icecrown the moment you hit 78.

And if you are a raider, hit Peaks the moment you hit 77 and do the Sons line.

You can easily come to Northrend and 68 and use the other zones to get there are >still< have a lot left over if you instance at all. If you came at 70, you'll have tons left over. And, regardless, there are a billion dailies that will be more time efficient at 80 anyway, which was the larger point I was trying to get across. The TBC notion of "saving zones" was kind of thrown out the window once they opened Netherwind/Skettis/Ogri'la. And was smashed to pieces when Quel'Danas came into the game.

I'd hardly go out of my way to save zones for gold when there is a game to be played and countless -- better -- ways to get the gold at 80. Never mind that 5k gold is hardly what it used to be.

 

DeusEx

Your're right concerning the gold efficiency factor of course, but keep in mind, that dailies get old rather quick and having a batch of unfinished quests to farm gold besides dailies might be a good relieve for "post 80 boredom". But yeah, there's no way to min/max which zones to do first. I guess that people adhere to strict leveling schemes because of the loremaster achievements and not wanting to miss out on reputation gains, but there's probably no compelling reason to always choose the lowest zone available.

I'm level 77 at the moment, with only a third level left to 78, and have still almost not touched Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak (so far done only the amphitheater quests), Sholazar, Storm Peaks and Icecrown. Wouldn't it be for reputation gains and the achievements I would have left zones only half finished much earlier, instead of trying to complete even the annoying quests there.

Another thing is that quests provide you with a lot of green crap, that is essential if you want to level enchanting *sigh*

I'm not an addict ... maybe that's a lie.