Breakfast Topic: Azuremyst or Eversong?
by Eliah Hecht 
Jan 30th 2007 at 8:00AM
By this point, even inveterate Alliance players like me have gotten a chance to check out the Blood Elf areas, and presumably Horde players have looked at Draenei too. There's no question that both Azuremyst Isle and Eversong Woods, as well as their associated next zones, are very well designed. In fact, they may be a little too good: the quests and quest rewards make the old-world starting zones look a little shoddy. I'll be highly tempted to roll Draenei whenever possible for my new characters in the future. (The excellent racials don't hurt, of course.) How do you think the starting zones stack up, both with respect to each other and as compared to the old-world zones? I have to say, I like Azuremyst a little better than Eversong, but then again, I did play it first, and I do have a bit of an Alliance bias.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Expansions, Draenei, Blood Elves, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
dresden Jan 30th 2007 8:09AM
I just went through the Draenie quests, and it was real refreshing. Everything was much better thought out, and questing usually let you work on 2-3 quests in the same area to minimize running around.
Much better than the boring Night Elf starting area.
Worst starting area, ever.
Rothoscand Jan 30th 2007 8:10AM
I've been digging the Azuremyst area (barely scratched the Blood Elf area) quite a bit. There are some interesting quest lines (the furlbog one is functional and gets you around the island quickly). There's also a variety of enemies for you to take on. Low hunters are better against beasts, pallies are good against demons etc. There's a good mix of humanoids for cloth and animals for food ingredients. I know of some Drae who got summoned to SW so the could start in Goldshire quickly, but I think they missed out.
Zuuler Jan 30th 2007 8:10AM
I haven't played a dranei (I perfer horde anyway, but I have tried out all the other races except for dranei), but Eversong has its ups and downs. There are so many little towns you can take safe harbor in and find quests in. And its kind of nice to start out in a zone that is well decorated.
What bothers me about Eversong is the dispertion of quest givers. All other starting zones I have tried have had a starting town, a middle town, then the capitol, with more than 90% of the quests for that zone in the major towns (Durotar has an extra town with Sen'jin, but again, quest givers are lumped inside this town as well). In Eversong, quest givers are everywhere. There is no grouping of quest givers, and this makes me wonder how many quests I missed. I found one wuest giver last night that I had never seen before and now the quest was gray, so it was pointless for me to do.
Ghostlands so far has been nice with quest grouping, most of them being in Tranquillien. But why should I have to gain rep with this town before I can do their quests? Sure it only took about half an hour to get to honored with Tranq, But what other lvl 10-20 zone requires you to gain rep before you can do quests (excluding ratchet, as there are other horde towns in the area that you don't need rep for). Just seems like a weird way of doing things. Are there any rep rewards for tranq anyway? Is it worth building rep with them?
Matt Park Jan 30th 2007 8:18AM
@2 - they do have rep rewards. A couple greens and a blue cloak.
I actually thought that the rep structure for tranquillian was really interesting, and I'd love to see it done more for towns. The gradual unlocking of quests was pretty cool.
multikast Jan 30th 2007 8:27AM
i have a lvl 10 belf lock and a lvl 4 draenei priest. i really like the belf area, maybe because i hate alliance, but maybe because eversong is just awesome. i like how everything refers back to the blood elves thirst for arcane energy, like the brooms that sweep the floors by themselves and everything that floats.
either way, both were a nice change from the same thing i've known for the last 2 years.
slybri Jan 30th 2007 5:07PM
I haven't rolled a Drae or BE yet, but if the starting zones are anything like the new Outland zones, the XP is almost too easy to get. More quick quests with shorter travel time and more multi-quests that can be done at the same time. It's hard not to level and you get more reward items for doing it.
I had heard Blizz say that the grind from 60-70 will be as hard as the grind from 1-60, but it's been easier than 50-60 for me. I've gotten revered with 2 or 3 different factions already without even trying. Like my friend said the other night, "Blizz nerfed WOW."
Coriander Jan 30th 2007 9:09AM
I've played through both new starting areas and love how--unlike previous beginner areas--they give the new player a sense of closure, upon completion of the highest-level quests. Nice rewards, too!
The Azuremyst conclusion, in particular, after completing the Demolitionist Legoso quest, actually caught me off-guard and made me tear up more than a little.
Kristian Jan 30th 2007 9:26AM
I haven't found a favorite between the new areas, but they're both so phenomenally well done that I really wish Blizzard would take a good look at the preexisting areas and maybe tune them up in the future.
ramanan Jan 30th 2007 11:40AM
The rep rewards at Tranquelline are pretty good, and it's *very* easy to get to exhausted there. You just need to do all the quests. That's how I ended up leveling my Blood Elf up. The Blood Elf starting zone seems very well thought out. It feels like the various quests tie in together better, and it all sort of culminates with a few key quests. It's *much* better than the undead start.
Seper Jan 30th 2007 9:37AM
I thought the BE starter area was (seemed) alot bigger and it looked alot nicer.. like it had a history. Only problem with the BE starting area is (like someone mentioned above) the quests are allll over the place. I went looking for a quest the other day and ended up on the other side of the map in ghostlands i believe.
The draenai area was weird.. they already had a capital city and they were already set up with business and supplies etc. But if you rp'd that it would sound ok at best. If you get rid of all of that though you are left with easy quests and quick (dont get lost) quests. Was nice.
Vogen The D0rf Hunter Jan 30th 2007 10:07AM
There's no doubt that the zones for the new races are MUCH more polished than the old ones. If you as me, part of it is for improvement's sake, the other half for marketing's. More people see shiny new zones and racial talents, more people buy the expansion.
Night Rider Jan 30th 2007 10:29AM
The Draenei starting area is the best that i've seen so far. The Blood elf starting area is kind of boring and a bit confusing. oh, and Exodar = worst capital city ever.
Kyle Jan 30th 2007 5:58PM
I love Azuremyst and Bloodmyst. Eversong is a visual treat, to be sure, but the quests are all over the place, and unless you pay attention and intentionally group quests together, you'll be running back and forth and back and forth. In the beta, there were a few quests that I just went "Forget it" and dropped, and moved on to Ghostlands.
Speaking of which, the Ghostlands is pretty cool too, and a bit better. But I hated the troll crypts. Silvermoon is meh, it just feels like Stormwind v.2.
Azuremyst, on the other hand, feels at turns calming and kind of creepy. You get the feeling that this was a pristine area (I love the gysers), and the crystals both add to this and take away. Yes, the time-flow is a bit odd, but really, World of Warcraft exists in a weird time-flux thing. So that really is nothing new.
Bloodmyst, imo, easily trumps the Ghostlands in pure creepiness. I remember just standing in awe when I came into that zone. That shows just how badly the draenei messed things up. The crystal trees, the bright red rivers, the wreckages. Plus, Ending Their World is one of the best quests ever.
And speaking of quests, I found Azuremyst and Bloodmyst to have more memorable ones.
And I love the Exodar. Maybe it's just because I like crystals, though, heh.
optical Jan 30th 2007 3:38PM
Azuremyst is kinda nice. I agree, 2-3 quests are usually in close proximity.
priest Jan 30th 2007 11:12AM
New areas are great, what I really like is that you can feasibly level to 20 or 21 in them. You can't do Dun Morogh & Loch Modan only, or Elwynn and Westfall only.
Sylythn Jan 30th 2007 11:14AM
I love both the starting zones - especially that there's so much content packed in there. I'm rarely at lvl 20 by the time I move on to non-newb zones for other races. And I like how we got access to the capital cities early on.
There also seemed to be much more coherent storylines, and lore intertwined between quests very nicely. The Pally quests are wonderfully done too - yes the polearm lvl 20 quest is a pain in the ass, for something that's questionably better than the Sin'dorei Warblade - but it's cool, fun, great lore, and what other quest has actually given you a *reason* to hit all those low level instances besides gear farming.
FadedReality Jan 30th 2007 11:13PM
Call me a freak, but I wanted that caged Death Ravager on my BE hunter so badly that I rolled a Draenei warrior on my roommate's account and levelled him to 10 as fast as I could. It took a few hours, but it's definitely a nice compliment to my Dun Morogh white bear.
Besides my e-peen flexing (and the reveal that I truly have no life), I do have something on topic to say :P Levelling that Draenei I noticed that Azuremyst definitely was the superior starting area. Besides the obnoxious root trapper quest, the quests were pretty easy. Some of the quests had some NPC chatter to stand and observe and the furlbog quest was easily one of the most fun quests I've ever done. I won't spoil it, but roll a Draenei alt if you haven't just for this quest. You get some really fun 3 minute buffs to play around with.
The Blood Elf area, while very nice looking, is fairly standard stuff once you leave the starter island. The only two quests that stand out in my mind from that area are the party quest and the apprentice punishing. Other than that it's all pretty standard "kill x mobs" and "bring me x things from x mobs".
Mekias Jan 30th 2007 12:28PM
I can't really comment on the BE area since my BE pally is only level 8. I did, however, just finish the final Draenei quest with my little priest. I absolutely loved it. The furbolg quest was unique with plenty of unique and fun travel spells to help you along. The elekk ride was fun. The tree costume quest was interesting. The Blood Elf camouflage quest was fun to play around with.
As said before, the Demolitionist Legoso quest was exciting and epic and it lead to a fantastic conclusion. I was so proud and honored by it all that I'm actually a little depressed now that it's all done.
friedriches Jan 30th 2007 12:53PM
I think that the Dranny area is fantastic- I have several teen-level drannys, a shammy, a priest, and a pally. Everything is easy to find and it's well laid out. I have a 6 BE pally and I'm sad to say I didn't like it. Doesn't help I hate BE pallys (as a true pally myself).
Atie Jan 30th 2007 1:07PM
I must say after starting a BE, that the Undead area is my favorite by far. I always thought it was designed better than the others areas (played all except for Draenei and Gnomes). I like the LOTR's feel to the BE area, especially the way they set up the quests...but the Undead area, IMHO, is the best!