by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

In this article series, I’ll be exploring all of the new Draenor zones, and detailing my experience leveling and questing through each zone. As a result, I’ll be revealing some story details about the zones. If you are trying to stay away from any spoilers on the quests and lore from Warlords of Draenor

, then let me offer this spoiler-free summary:

Frostfire Ridge is a great starting zone for the expansion; it has a good mix between mundane questing and epic storylines. The zone never feels very empty because of the proximity of quest hubs and extra objectives, and each quest hub flows nicely into the next. As a long-time Alliance player, I was able to enjoy the overall experience of Frostfire Ridge and it was a good change of setting from past starting zones.

With that out of the way, please be advised that the rest of the article may contain story spoilers. You have been warned!

Before I get into more detail on Frostfire Ridge, I would like to say that I have played Alliance throughout the eight years I have been playing WoW. I always had the intention of making a Horde toon just to experience the quests and storylines on the Horde side, but never got past level 30-something. When I got access to the WoD beta, I saw this as a great opportunity to test out both sides without the need to mindlessly level a character. This is also the reason why I started out playing in this zone and not Shadowmoon Valley, as I wanted a little change from what I am used to.

The first thing that happens when you get into the zone is starting up your garrison. It is mostly meaningless tasks that lead to this but it is short and does not feel tedious. The garrison location is very good here in my opinion, as it is on top of a hill and the entrance path to it is very clear. After you have this all set up you can start the main story line by following Durotan and Thrall into retaking Bladespire Fortress.

(Riding into Bladespire.)

Right from the start of the main story quest line you are thrown into the action. You are going up the fortress and fighting alongside both Durotan and Thrall through a big battle between orcs and ogres. Everything about this part is completely epic and I enjoyed it very much. It is rare to find such good quest lines at the start of a zone, as most of the time you find these epic experience right when you are finishing up a zone.

A good comparison to this would be The Jade Forest. It was also an expansion starting zone which has a good story line. The problem I found with this zone was that to get to the epic conclusion you had a very long build up which included many meaningless quests. I got very bored with the zone right around the part where they have you making paintings of your emotions and meditating. I later came back to complete the zone but my initial experience with it was not good. This does not happen with Frostfire Ridge, and I give props to Blizzard for trying its best to engage you in the story from the get-go, and in my opinion, they achieved it.

(There are many dangers to avoid inside the fortress.)

After conquering the fortress you are left with more quest lines that involve rescuing other Frostwolf villages and discovering the rest of the zone. It does decline a bit in excitement as you progress through the rest of the quest hubs but it keeps you interested with some key moments of fighting off big boss mobs and fun quests. Overall, this makes it a very good starting place for the Horde in the expansion.

(Sometimes it takes help to fight off the big bad guys.)

Something I would like to highlight that I appreciated was the efficiency in which it is designed. With Warlords introducing extra objectives that give you incentives to explore the zone, wandering off and doing just that happens a lot. I’m especially the type of player that likes exploring and doing my own thing, but because of how the quest hubs were set up in the zone, I never found myself wandering aimlessly with no direction, only to cross the entire map to get to a quest. It felt that with every quest, I could find other objectives nearby. Compared to the Alliance starting zone, everything felt close together and was more coherent in the order you explored the different regions.

(Some extra objectives take you to places outside time.)

Next up, I will be looking at Shadowmoon Valley and how it compares to Frostfire Ridge. If you have any opinions on Frostfire Ridge and would like to share them, I would encourage you to write them on the comments.