I'm the complete opposite. I was hugely disappointed by the Worgen starting area, primarily because of the phasing, which caused multiple problems. For one, you can't leave the island until you've done most of the quests, and two, as you would progress through the area, previous camps would become unavailable and a lot of the newer camps didn't have mailboxes, which was very annoying when trying to retrieve heirlooms/gold/bags, etc. Also, as you phased through the area it would automatically change your hearthstone location without telling you, and when you get toward the end of the area, there is a NE NPC on a boat who, when you talk to him, ports you to Darnassus with no warning and absolutely no way of getting back to Gilneas. And because so many of the quests involved vehicles and NPCs, a lot of them were bugged early on. I've never been a big fan of phasing to begin with, but to make an entire starting area phased is just bad design in my opinion. I don't understand why blizz thought it was ok to make the worgen/goblin starting areas work so completely different than every other starting area in the game.

The worgen starting zone had one of the most powerful stories I've ever played through in this game - very well crafted and emotional, with characters I grew really fond of and wish I could see more of (Lorna Crowley, Gwen Armstead, even Genn Greymane himself). I wish I hadn't had to divert my leveling experience on my worgen (who is now my first and currently only 85) to roll a Forsaken to see the continuation of that story.

Also I came in a bit later, after the bugs had largely been worked out, so fortunately it was smooth running for me.

Yep, worgen starting area for me. Far more interesting story, better quests, and much better emotional pull than any other starting zone.

I am not happy you can't* skip it- it should read. So much for posting before caffeine. Hopefully they make the ability to forgo both new starter zones after you have done them once.

I was really disappointed with the Worgen zone. I remember in interviews blizz devs talking about how much time they spent on it. Hearing that I was pretty hyped to try it out, but after playing through it, with some of the disjointed camera bug-outs in the in-game cut scenes, the disjointed phasing, the lack of mailboxes, the forced hearthstone changes... ugh. It has a great story, but that doesn't make up for its glaring technical and immersion breaking glitches. I -DREAD- having to play through it anytime I decide to make a new toon because of how annoying it feels.

I feel like people like the zone because they WANT to like it, in the way that people like LOTRO, despite it being a feckin' awful game, because it's LOTR related and people LOVE LOTR. personally I WANTED to like the worgen zone. I mean look how rad gilneas is? But it's so buggy that it removes nearly all enjoyment I gain from it and ends up feeling like a chore.

Also seriously, could they just not find some actual British voice actors for the npcs? It's like they pulled in their office buddy Tom from accounting who does a passable impression of theatrical/dickensonian kings-english.

"WELL AINCHOO A CHIPPA LOOKIN ONE? GET GABBIN OR GET GOIN".

Arrgh!

Definately Worgen on top. The Goblin one was confusing at first (I took over after my wife had a go at the first set of questions) but made a lot more sense the second time around.