These Are a Few of my Favorite Zones

A few pieces of information and screenshots of one of the zones planned for Cataclysm, The Abyssal Maw, is up on the official site. They look pretty amazing with bright colors and soft details. I wasn't thrilled by Northrend's zone landscape. It was all painfully similar, compaired to the Outlands where each zone was beautifully unique. I suppose I couldn't expect much given that Northrend is a Northern continent, but look at Kalmidor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Do the weather patterns in the zones there make any sense?Looking at the images for The Abyssal Maw enticed me to take a trip down nostalgia lane. While there are a couple zones I loathe and have threatened to never return to quest in ever again (namely Strangethorn Vale) there are zones that still take my breath away. I present to you my favorite zones from each continent.

Eastern Kingdoms

Hillsbrad Foothills

None of the zones in the Eastern Kingdoms particularly stand out to me. I chose Hillsbrad Foothills as my favorite because it reminds me most of home with tall lush trees and lakes to the farmland in-between.  For these reasons I chose Southshore as Frijona's hometown. Hillsbrad Foothills is also a fairly lore-centric zone, adding to its appeal. Apparently Southshore will be taken over by the Horde in Cataclysm. This is an event that I have not yet determined how Frijona, who has no beef with the Horde, is going to react.

Kalimdor

Feralas

If Hillsbrad Foothills is similar to where I grew up, Feralas is the zone that most resembles the sort of place my family vacationed to when I was a child: huge, lush trees! gorgeous coastline! highborne relics! Okay, perhaps not the relics. Although my dad was really interested in Native American cave paintings. Feralas is, simply, amazingly beautiful. It's easily my favorite realm in all of Azeroth. 

The Outlands

Zangarmarsh

I don't know who at Blizzard came up with the idea of giant blue mushrooms in a zone, but it was creative genius! There is no zone I love more than Zangarmarsh. It's breathtaking to explore. The quests are fun. The Sporelings are adorable! Some of the mobs can be herbalized! There's lots of naga to kill!

Northrend

Zul'Drak

Picking a favorite zone in Northrend was difficult. I finally decided to go with Zul'Drak because even though it's not the prettiest zone (that would probably be Crystalsong Forest) it has the most interesting quests. I've always found Troll lore incredibly fascinating and Zul'Drak is an entire zone dedicated to it! Zul'Drak is by no means an ugly zone, either. It's unlike any other zone I've seen. It's full of ruins and has a sinister feeling. Stay away from the voodoo!

What are your favorite zones?

Politeness Goes A Long Way: The Valiance Expedition Rep Grind

Here’s the thing: I don’t have very much gold. I’m level 77 and I’d like to be able to take an epic flyer around Northrend. The reputation discount for Artisan flying in 3.2 really excited me. Right now, I’m Revered with Valiance Expedition so I could get the skill for 4250 gold. But since I’m nowhere near that, I’m pushing for Exalted, by doing four PVP daily quests in Grizzly Hills and one PVE daily quest in Howling Fjord.

The Howling Fjord quest is called Breaking the Blockade and involves riding around on a stolen Zeppelin and bombing pirate ships. The best part of the quest is the imprisoned Goblin that yells when the zeppelin arrives and leaves. The first time I did it, it took me about five tries and quite a bit of time.  I can now do it in one run. Stand as far towards the very front of the zeppelin as you can (think “I’m King of the World” in Titanic) and then tilt your camera at the boats. When the boat is behind the zeppelin you can tilt your camera around and get a few shots in. Be sure and hotkey the bombs as well.

The PVP quests are fairly straightforward.  The only issue I’ve had with them is being ganked by Horde players. I don’t PVP. When a Horde player attacks me, and he’s not say 5 levels below me, I’ll just run away. With level 80s this sometimes doesn’t work. Yesterday, I had to hop Hordeside to ask a Belf Priest to stop ganking me. She apologized and said she was having a bad day and went to play on another toon. Later, another level 80 decide to start killing me, until I /plead–ed him to stop. He /sorry–ed and left me alone, so I /thank-ed him and he left me alone. Politeness goes a long way even in skirmishes between factions!

WoW While Working (Sort of)

Enjoy the beauty of Northrend on your desktop with the following screenshot wallpapers. The first two are from Grizzly Hills, the second two from the Howling Fjord:






Perfect for your desktop at work when you can't play!

Coming Soon: Getting tired of looking at snow? Eastern Kingdoms, Kalmidor, and Outlands wallpaper!