I’ve actually been 74 for some time … but as I mentioned yesterday, it’s been a bit of a challenge to get in game-and-writing time. I dinged 74 finishing off the content for Borean Tundra proper, which left me just the last few quests on Coldarra/Nexus proper to finish off. I’m now in Dragonblight, and I’ll talk more about my experiences in that (awesome, amazing) zone in a bit.

I want to finish up my ‘Lich King starter zone’ impressions by talking a bit more about the epic feeling Blizzard has instilled in these adventuring areas. It’s actually kind of ludicrous, the sheer number of powerful moments they pack into one area. Even finishing up the kind-of-gimmicky D.E.H.T.A. quest line had some fun times. The last guy I had to kill before Harold Lane was Ned, the Lord of Rhinos. He’s riding a bloody great Kodo, and slaying both of them is required to get the quest completion.

The quests around the Nexus were a lot of fun, even if they were very straightforward. Far less epic than I’d come to expect from Borean Tundra. Still, any questing involving dragons and their kin has some definite fun inherent to the scene. I honestly wish that that questing hub had been more built up, though. If you consider Amber Ledge to be a part of that ‘hub’, there was a lot to do, but I was left wanting a lot more … especially compared with the lackluster quests out of Bor’gorok Outpost.

The above-pictured ‘murloc suit’ and this field of Tundra Penguins are all near the very end of that quest chain, and surround one of my least favorite part of Borean Tundra. I’ll be honest, these final stretches made me glad to be leaving the zone for more Dragon-y pastures.

Now that I’ve fully done them both, my final thoughts on Lich King’s starting zones:

Howling Fjord –

• A bit more ‘traditional’ than BT in quest type.
• Better storytelling than almost anywhere else in the game I’ve been.
• My favorite questing area to date (Gjalerbron).
• Awesome theme of directly opposing a single enemy throughout the zone (the Vrykul).

Borean Tundra –

• Far more epic questing. Like an amusement park, essentially.
• Scattered-to-nonexistant storytelling. The only place I really felt like I was hooking into WoW’s overarching plot was in Amber Ledge with the Kirin Tor.
• Fracturing, strangely disjointed enemy types. Everything from mecha-gnomes to murlocs.
• Second-best part of the zone was definitely the far eastern area, with the Taunka’le village and the Temple City of En’kilah, but Amber Ledge/Nexus region really clinched it for me.

Next time … on to Dragonblight!

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