Two weeks ago, I finally reached level 60 and entered the Outland. The Burning Crusade expansion pack's content mainly focuses on this new area (that exists beyond the Dark Portal) , and when I finally reached the Outland, it drops you onto Hellfire Peninsula, in the middle of a war zone with the main portal gate under siege by demons. The zone itself is a red rocky zone, filled with undead spirits, demonic birds and pigs, and red orcs. Hellfire Peninsula is filled with annoying creatures that I am more than happy to kill -- these include the demonic birds that sense that you've killed a monster and attack you, but the main problem with this area was that at Level 60, you felt like a newbie again, killing pigs and birds, and occasionally getting killed in 3 hits by a level 70 Elite Fel Reaper. So when I leveled to 63 and completed the quests in the zone, I was all too happy to leave the area for a new place to explore.
My explorations took me to Zangarmarsh, which I disliked almost immediately for a reason I could not figure out at first. The zone saps all desire to play, and I spent the next week avoiding the zone and playing the previous instance dungeon (Hellfire Citadel - Ramparts) nearly everyday. While I did wind up with some exceptional equipment, my level progression slowed down greatly, as quests in Zangarmarsh were not being done. Every time I entered the zone, I'd play for an hour and then quit. I didn't realize why this was happening until this past weekend, when I realized that the area wasn't entirely painted in a depression blue hue.
If I thought the monsters in Hellfire Peninsula were terrible, Zangarmarsh upped the ante in unexciting, unheroic monsters. In Zangarmarsh, you fight a couple different types of monsters.
- Hydra: 3 headed poison spitters. You'd think with three heads they'd attack three times as fast, but they don't.
- Fel Eels: Eels that AoE shock and have a large agro radius.
- Mirefin Frenzy: These are little piranha-like fishes that have flock AI. If one comes, the whole school comes. Low hitpoints, so they die fast, but I don't know what players without AoE do.
- Marshfangs -- these manta ray like things drain mana. Annoying, and the quest with them is equally annoying, due to the number of items one must pick up. Certain varieties do a knockback.
- Sporebats: non-agro manta ray things that buff you when you kill them. They also do an annoying mana drain thing similar to the Marshfangs.
- Fen Striders: 20 foot tall wandering Jellyfish.
- Daggerfen: De-Evolved Draenei. Humanoid, they come in five varieties -- Assasin, Druid, Hunter, Mystic and Muckdweller.
- Naga -- two sects here -- the Darkscale and the Bloodscale. The interesting thing about these guys are the slavedriver varieties which call for a slave to aid them. When the Slavedriver dies, the slave runs away. Their slaves also have a weird Tomax/Xamot relationship where if you hurt one, both take the damage.
- Ogres. Both the one headed variety and the the Two-Headed version.
- Fungal Giants. These are the huge monstrosities that terrorize the Sporeggar. They summon evil exploding mushrooms.
Fighting these things just doesn't feel heroic to me (not to mention the loot drops from these things are terrible, so I'm hoping the next zone (Terrokar Forest) is better. So far, I'm killing Wolves and Moths, and collecting pinecones. On the plus side, Shattarath City is here, and looks like it has some promising questlines, including some that include killing the Dark Crystal-inspired bird people.
It's apparent to me that much of time was spent on making the dungeons interesting (as these are areas that people will revisit again and again) rather than the non-dungeon areas (as people like me play them once and never go back).
This past week, I delved into Stratholme to finish the quest for my Blood Elf Paladin Mount, which involved going into a chapel in Stratholme and setting the place ablaze, while fighting off the paladins housed in the chapel.
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