Lvl 50!

Well me and Kimi hit 50 on our Worgen warrior and mage, respectively. So far, my favorite zones have been Gilneas and Thousand Needles, with Desolace being my least favorite. I figure I'll mention some highs and lows from each zone here though.

Gilneas

Where it all starts. I haven't done the goblin starting area yet, but so far I believe this to be the best starting experience Blizzard has ever produced. Previously the Death Knight area was amazing, but this is trumps that. Gilneas was a nation that, after the Second War, walled itself off from the rest of Azeroth to not be bothered when anything else was afoot, such as the Third War, the Burning Legion, or the Lich King. But behind these walls, the Gilneans have suffered through civil war and now the curse of the worgen is spreading rapidly throughout the land. The player starts out as human still, right at the beginning of the worgen attack and work their way through being bitten until they become a full fledged worgen. The quests are all fun and tell a very good story. Many of the quests are quite funny, while others are moving and sad. The flow is akin to the DK area in that you must progress along with one to two quests at a time and the whole place phases around you. If you are an Alliance player that is still up in the air about the forsaken, this should definitely change your opinion of them. IMO - they need to stay dead.

Darnassus

Once Gilneas is completed you are moved to Darnassus which is the home of the worgen. I have never been a fan of Darnassus. Pretty? Absolutely. Useful? Absolutely not. I'm still personally of the opinion that goblins and worgen should have had their own city. I would have loved to see Gilneas as a new city option, like what they did with draenei and blood elves. But alas, what's done is done. I think my number one problem with Darnassus is the fact that they STILL DO NOT HAVE ALL THE PROFESSION TRAINERS. There is not a blacksmthing or engineering trainer in the entire city. This is the only city like this. Let's say that they were going for some kind of lore reason. Ok sure, engineering - bad for the environment yeah yeah they don't want it. Gotcha. But no blacksmithing? Really? Where do night elf and worgen warriors get their weapons and armor from? Where do all the sentinels' glaives come from? Since my two chosen professions are blacksmithing and engineering, I will NEVER come here again. I have no need, it has nothing for me. Blizzard, in my opinion, kinda dropped the ball there.

Darkshore

From Darnassus you can go to Stormwind and level in the human lands if you so desire. Of all of my toons, 8 of 10 have been leveled in the Eastern Kingdoms. I figured it would be a good chance to see this continent. Also, TotalBiscuit from CynicalBrit.com did a leveling in Stonetalon segment on his youtube channel. I watched all of those and wanted to see what the Alliance quests were like. They didn't disappoint.

So anyways, Auberdine got wiped out when meany Deathwing came and rocked Azeroth's socks and you start out in a more northern town, Lor'Danel. This place DOES have a BS and Engi trainer, however they only train up to 150. The Horde are making more incursions into Darkshore than before the Shattering and can be found to the north; a few quests take you up there to deal with them. This zone has had some major changes done to it, including being broken in the middle and having Malfurion Stromrage holding back a gargantuan tornado. A neat thing about this zone, and many zones, is that after some quests you gain access to a zone specific mechanic. In this case, you choose an animal (cat, bear, stag) and gain special properties as well as being friendly with all of the animals of the chosen type. The bear, which I chose, reduces all damage by 10% while in Darkshore and makes all bears friendly to me. The stag, which Kimi chose, increases run speed and makes all stags friendly. I can only imagine that the cat increases your damage while in the zone. World PvP in the zone ought to be fun since I have an inert 10% damage reduction now.

I have to say this zone flew by way too fast, and we ended up leaving about halfway through it due to heirlooms. I think with my next toon I'm not gonna bother with heirlooms. But it wasn't only the heirlooms. When I did this zone in beta without any exp boosts all of the quests were still green to me when I came fresh out of Gilneas. If you want to enjoy this zone to the fullest, then get as little xp as possible while doing the worgen starting zone.

We experienced our first PvP in this zone too. 5 horde of the guild Worgen Neuter Squad came on a little expedition into Darkshore. Me and Kimi were content to leave them alone. Until they started to log out. Pro tip for world pvp - never be the last one to log out. It will get you killed. That poor orc mage... he didn't stand a chance.

Ashevnale

This zone has remained unchanged except for all the lava in the middle. Once again, we didn't do much more than the first half of the quests before we were done with the zone and moved on to Stonetalon. It was a nice place though with the Horde once again pushing further in. Using a glave thrower to take down windriders is always fun!

Stonetalon Mountains

This is where I noticed the Cata changes starting to take true hold. Cut scenes, German gnome scientists, huge explosions and rocket packs. It told a truly awesome story, all within one zone and the span of 5 or 10 levels. I do think though that the horde side of this zone is better, and much more emotional. This zone's mechanic, though shortlived, is that you get a rocket jump pack taht you can use in a certain area whenever you have it. It's very short, but quite fun to constantly hop around with it.

Also of note, there is a guild achievement called Critter Killer squad. This requires your guild to kill 50,000 critters. There is a place called Webwinder Hollow which has TONS of spiders running around, usually in packs of 5-10, that are ripe for the mass critter slaying.

Desolace

Ahh Desolace... when you hit this desert, you may have wished you had went on to an Eastern Kingdoms leveling zone. This is by far the worst zone that we have been in. It's especially jarring because before this everything is running very smoothly, quests are smooth and linked together, and then you get to Desolace and the first set of quests it feels like you come to a grinding halt. Random drops for some collection quests and hard to see items to pick up plague the beginning of this zone making its introduction rocky. It's enough to turn some people to pure instances or other zones, which is a shame because the second half of the zone is not bad.

One neat thing though is that, after a series of mind numbingly tedious quests with terrible drop rates and bad spawn ratios for the items you need to collect. (You need 5 of these? Here's 40 mobs. Oh you need 20 of those? Here's 3 mobs.) After a quest chain involving the naga you actually gain a trinket allowing you, while in Desolace, to transform into a naga and be on friendly terms with them, as well as breathe and swim fast underwater. That was the highlight of the zone really. I could have easily spent 20 minutes just swimming around underwater and enjoying the scenery.

The second half of the zone has undergone a massive change. The Cenarion Circle is hard at work turning the desert into a lush forest full of vegetation. They apparently don't respect nature all that much, as they are destroying one ecosystem to create another in its place. But that's their call.

Feralas

Due to loads of instance runs we completely skipped this place sadly. It still remains my favorite looking zone though.

Thousand Needles

This zone is my favorite quest wise. There are some interesting mechanics too! Since the Shattering, Thousand Needles has been completely flooded. While here you'll get some scuba gear which will let you breathe and move faster underwater, as well as your own boat! I mean, come on, who doesn't want a boat? This zone also contains both my new favorite and new least favorite quests, as well as my most hated person in WoW right now.

There is a quest where you basically try to trick the local centaur population to give up their land for its oil, then when they figure you out you resort to just killing all of them and taking it by force. I really didn't like that quest. Not because it was a bad quest, quite the contrary. It amazed and appalled me that I could be doing this. It's like the Native Americans all over again. Score another one to Blizzard for making us feel emotion in the quest. The thought of the quest appalled me so much that I almost didn't do it. Wanting to finish the zone took over though so I carried out the little rat bastard gnome's plans and took from them to give to the Speedbarge. I'm not real happy with that.

The quest that was my favorite so far was a quest involving assassinating Twilight Hammer leaders. The best line I have seen in WoW thusfar: You walk up to a blood elf cultist leader. You need to get his back to you so you can kill him. You say, "Look, behind you! A mirror!" To which he says, "A mirror? How wonderful!". Best line ever. After more quests you meet Magatha Grimtotem. I hate that cow.

Magatha Grimtotem is the reason that Cairne Bloodhoof is dead. I don't care for horde, but I do like tuaren. And I liked Cairne. He was an awesome fellow, but Magatha basically poisoned him, then tried to take over as leader of the tauren. Thankfully Cairne's son didn't let that happen. You end up helping her in a quest which does save Thousand Needles from the cult, but you also help her out. I wish I could have completed the quest and the assassinated HER too. Sad day.

Tanaris

We are maybe halfway through Tanaris and we have hit 50. This is due to heirloom gear and instance runs. So far though, the quests are following the same way that they did before: pirates, and lots of them. One mission that's quite amusing is flying in a hot air balloon and bombing the crap out of them, which sends them flying. It's hilarious to watch.

I've been meaning to record my instance runs, but until now had forgotten about it. I think the next one I do (later today) I will try to record. I'm not sure if I'll voice it though, seeing as I sound like a hick and all.