What does the text that appears at the end of the video mean - "tmcdq yzmfzq"? The Jedi mentioned it is a "hidden secret" though a bit too well hidden, to be honest. Am I too short sighted and these are just the initials of his supporters or there is more to it? I've tried looking them on google, read all the comments, even tried to connect it somehow with the outro song, but to no avail. Hope someone sees my comment and try to figure it out together :) Otherwise the video is, as all the others - amazing! This type of content, the one that Jediwarlock and another creator by the name of Verigan make, proves how many hearts and minds this game has won! Thank you! ❤
@@beenmurked4126 I haven't been able to find any clues throughout the video itself, though the cipher solver was a good call! I ran it myself using CHATGPT and it assumed thet it was a Ceaser cipher? It gave me an answer that did not make a lot of sense - "UNDER ZANGAR". What is under Zangarmarsh? And I am not completely sure that this is the correct decipher.
Maybe its a kind of anagram. Rearranging it into two words of five and six letters. Edit: there are no vowels so perhaps not. Edit 2: Tarren Mill Combat Deployment Quota & Yogg-Saron's Zealots: Mighty Forces and Zealous Quests. Surely 😂
glad to see i wasnt the only one who felt this way... what a memorable experience it was though! love the area and it will always have a special place in my heart and memories.
Yeah! There are differences for sure... at the higher levels you're expected to do more traveling and multi-zone stuff which does break the cohesion of having those single-zone narratives going on.
When it first came out, you had to grind mobs or dungeons from 44-52 because they didn't have many quests at that point. It literally took 12 hours of straight grinding to get half a level back then. It was pretty common for people who played at release in November 2004 to not hit 60 until February 2005.
@@mrlost117 lol I played a rogue and solo'd SFK and SM graveyard for stuff to vendor or put on the AH, but man did it feel good to get my raptor even though I was lvl 45.
I remember when I was a kid and started playing WoW I created a human warlock. After leveling through Elwynn, Westfall and Redridge I was supposed to go to Duskwood. I entered the area through Westfall, walked my way along the main road and then reached the first camp in the center of the map. I saw a bunch of night watch soldiers ready to fight in the road. Looking towards where I came from. My curiosity had me waiting and in the distance I saw Stitches appear. Creeped the hell out of me, I tell you. I ran out of the zone and leveled to level 30 in Wetlands and Ashenvale xD.
lol, yes great story thanks for sharing. I was so young when I started playing wow “literally less than a year old” I still remember the day WoTLK came out though, so clearly I had been playing before it. I remember my first character was a night elf male Druid with my real full name lol. I remember doing dungeons trying to get to level 55 trying to make my first DK lol. You might not believe I was playing WoW at less than a year old, but… the account that I made had achievements from 2005. I was born 2004
Stitches never really held much interest to me...I soloed it the first time I ever saw it. It nearly killed me which was the first mob to do so in almost twenty levels, but I got it down. God I miss paladins before the 1.8 nerf, soloing in Burning Steppes/Searing Gorge at level 30 just never stopped being funny. Especially when you're there out-farming max level frost mages in T1-2 gear. Blindly stumbling into the Twilight Grove and seeing a bunch of level 60 elite green dragonkin, on the other hand...now THAT was a sight.
That's because they created it first and spent most time on its design. John Staats in his book The WoW Diary mentions that the Kalimdor starting areas were rushedly finished towards the release date, and it shows.
The power of classic wow's writing was in its simplicity. Now in wow you are fighting a god level threat for a daily quest. The simple act of helping out a local struggling militia that is decently hard, with little spells and resources is a more satisfying experience than killing 8 dragons by pulling 20 and using 10 different cds. Classic wow is the best game ever created no doubt.
My dad got his hands on WoW when I was about 2 years old. I’d just sit in his lap and watch the screen. At some point later also tried pushing some buttons, liking that it changes something on the screen, and other players would get offended that I’m “ignoring” their messages (I had no idea someone texted me and only recently learned to read at all, so my dad would have to explain that it was his very little daughter playing). At like 6 I’d create a human warrior and absolutely fall in love with all of these zones. I’m 22 now, DF was the only add-on I missed. Though I enjoy the recent stuff and still get easily lost in the world despite the fact how different it is now, these zones (and music!!), as they were in classic, have a special place in my heart. Recently logged in as one of my oldest human char and did the “lion’s heritage” quest line - it was so touching, especially to finish it as a char that was around for so many years. Probably no other fiction means as much to me as this specific part of WOW.
Great story :) Thank you for sharing! I too grew up playing on my dad's account (and having no idea what I was doing at first) but we've come a long way since then!
The world building they put together in classic WoW is unbelievably good. So many cool little details make it feel like an actual world. Only in the Elder Scrolls games did I ever experience something like this.
I've made so many human alts at this point in my life and still every time I get the quest to go scout through Fargodeep Mine I say out loud to myself "I bet it's called the Fargodeep Mine because it far go deep" and I genuinely cannot ever not do it.
The Defias questline has lived rent free in my head for the better part of 20 years. The entire story of VanCleef, the Stonemasons, Katrana Prestor, it just immersed you into Stormwind in such a great way. What's fascinating to me about the Human starting zone is virtually all of it is fighting other Humans, with a scattered handful of others in it (aside from the Defias it's primarily Gnolls but also some Orcs in Redridge, some undead in Duskwood, Kobolds, and Murlocs). But the Defias make up the bulk of your enemies. You aren't being forged as a soldier to defend against the wrath of the New Horde, you're slaughtering bandits who could very well be your neighbors and family who have flocked to this charismatic craftsman cast aside by the Kingdom he was once sworn to. It's a low intensity civil war ravaging the outer areas of the Kingdom, all because of the machinations of an insidious political figure purposely trying to usurp power within the Kingdom for herself for her own dark agenda. It's great stuff you get bits at a time over the course of these zones plus questlines in later levels all the way up to level 60. I am biased towards this little piece of Azeroth. I am not someone who came to WoW through WC3, so I wasn't at all familiar with Lordaeron or WC3's story when I first began playing. The Defias were my introduction to Warcraft Humans and Warcraft in general, but Humans are something you can get in virtually every flavor of fantasy. The Defias not quite as much. Their story as a whole is something really special and I believe they hold a special place in a lot of WoW player's hearts, myself definitely included.
That or having 2 turn ins per se: one to marshall McDougal or the other to VC and allow him to escape / different quest rewards would be cool. @@timestimesx7535
Agreed! When I was a kid I always thought the Human 1-60 quests/zones (or even the 1-30 I talked about) would be a great game for consoles or other platforms... totally disregarding the technological limitations of course, but it's still a great example of a cohesive, seamless story that would work by itself :)
@@Jediwarlock Absolutely, imagine if Blizz had developed their adventure game for Thrall, this could've been a sequel of sorts. Imagine a CRPG like Baldur's Gate but with this storyline!
I echo this sentiment. The part of WoW that's passed of earlier Warcraft works is hands down one of the deepest and most immersive fantasy universes ever made into an online game (Cata and onwards is when the game REALLY started feeling more like a game with gamey mechanics and less like a fantasy world to me personally). Even with all the hate Blizzard receive for their decisions (a lot of which I also echo), they still make a damn good MMO; imagine what the likes of Larian or CDPR who've had similar if not more experience in making single player RPGs could do with the same access to and passion for Warcraft IP if they were to make a single player RPG with it.
What's interesting is that the reason why this sequence is so great is that these were the first few zones that they fully fleshed out; it took Blizz 11 months, which is why they cut back for all the other zones because they knew they couldn't spend that amount of time per zone. That's why even the initial Horde zones feel more sparse; there wasn't an Ally bias per say at Blizz, it was just that they worked on the early Ally zones first and spent too much time on them from a development perspective.
The first human zones are the epitome of the WoW classic experience. They're so nicely put together that it genuinely puts a majority of the leveling experience outside of there to shame. Elwynn is the penultimate starting zone. Phenomenal on so many levels and truly the most coherent and best designed part of the game. The pacing is incredible and if you actually read the quests you're treated to a very immersive story that you're actively engaged with. As a kid I actually sat and read these quests and I remember always feeling like something was wrong, but my 13 year old brain hadn't seen enough of these stories to really put it all together yet until the big reveals. Which as a result were really big reveals. Seeing the ship in Deadmines for example was really quite the experience. And I do remember coming back to Lady Prestor far later and having the grand reveal take place.
What I especially love about these four zones,is that it's clearly visible they were part of the same forest. Westfall was clearcut for farmlands,in Redridge the mountains start,but if you look,you can see that they were all one forest some time ago. And the stories somewhat intertwined,too.I just wished they were more connected.
I plated Vanilla wow back when it was relatively new, mid 2005, on the patch where they just released Battlegrounds. My first character was a human mage, and let me tell you, playing through the human zone, on not only a newer server, but when WoW itself was brand new, when every player was playing their first playthrough, when people either choose Alliance OR horde, when people only had 1 class, 1 faction, 1 character. It was a truly magical experience, and doing these zones for the first time, in that environment, was and will always be the absolute peak of gaming. I remember at the time just being completely floored, just dumbfounded at what an amazing experience it was, little did I know that 20 years... two entire decades later, it still would not have been topped. Vanilla questing really starts to fall off in the 45s or so, but man, that 1-30... On Humans... absolute peak..
Yeah even other MMO's like Everquest, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot didn't have that amazing feeling of easy accessability, easy to learn mechanics and the sense of wonder of the open world that WoW did despite much more deeper and more complex than wow. Only part of that era that was very bad was the lack of switch between game servers, it was always annoying meeting new friends in high school and military that also played wow but couldn't play together because different servers. They did add that option much later, but playing WoW Ascension now on Elune and it's just one server thankfully.
For me, the starting zones in classic WoW + TBC are the core of World of Warcraft. They are so different from each other, which makes them special. The music, scenery, and story are all unique. The human starting zone offers the most classic experience in the RPG genre - it doesn't get better than that. Awesome video!
I remember sneaking up to a chest on the riverbank and finding a silver bar inside. It seemed like a massive treasure I had stumbled onto. I was hooked!
0:18 I played Horde my entire life (been playing WoW for 18 years), but I decided to play Alliance on Classic Era when it got popular again a year ago - when I first got to this location my jaw dropped. I don't know exactly why but this location in Duswood has such a thick atmosphere. The small pond besides the monument and statues and the sort of hidden nature of it made me really appreciate that even after 18 years in Azeroth, I still haven't discovered everything.
Yep. I do like the Horde feel - Barrens is a great leveling zone (of course), but Elwynn/Westfall/Duskwood/Redridge has the most Fantasy Warcrafty feel
As a life long Horde main, I couldn’t agree more, especially with the option of going to Khaz Modan and seeing Blackrock Mountain loom over you wherever you go, and once you finish all those zones you finally get to see a little closer to the volcano without dying instantly to a fire imp.
the dwarven architecture embedded in the eastern kingdoms mountains is so good. as a kid, i was always so curious to know what was behind them, trying to estimate the vastness of those dwarven fortresses. old school titan architecture gave me similar vibes. the world had a sense of mystery
@@neshie9724 oh man same as a kid I loved those cozy high dwarf windows as I was in the wild at night, like I wish I could go in to rest, made me wonder how big the kingdoms were, I always loved ironforge over stormwind
@@Goldeneye3336 theres quite a difference between 'narrative satisfaction' and 'sweat satisfaction'. Morbet fel is objectively not hard to kill, its just a small group world quest. But there is a whole zone which builds up to finding out what's going on, discovering it's this necromancer, quests taking you around the world to craft an item to weaken him, and the payoff of killing the big bad of the zone (well, one of them, but narratively the chief). Whereas retail M+ is just like oh theres this shit convoluted grandiose story full of retcons and contradictions nobody gives a shit about and is often harmful to the overall warcraft narrative, but heres some raid content to download dozens of weakauras and addons and guides to sweat your balls off doing fights so visually cluttered you have no chance at visually parsing out whats going on without external help to do it for you. One of the main driving forces behind it is this inane goal/focus of blizzard to make content for like 2 or 3 professional guilds to stream for several days once every 4-6 months for a esport-ized 'race'. Literally content tuned and made to be relevant for about 100 players for one week every financial quarter. Its video game brainrot.
Wow! This is great. Please do more of these. The dwarven experience with the Dark Iron thread would be a great one. From Dun Morogh through through Loch Modan and the Wetlands, finishing with one last quest as you enter Arathi, and then it comes back near max level as you get into the BRM area. There was a real sense of continuity that those were all dwarven lands. Another great one would be that eleven experience from Terdrassil through Ashenvale. Or the undead experience Tirisfal and Silverpine. That one feels like it drops off a bit early, you get past those mages at the end of Silverpine and you're out in the world, but the undead have a lot of late-game lore in the plaguelands so it balances out.
Another good one is the Silithid questlines the Horde gets. From first meeting them via quests in Camp Taurajo, to 1k needles, Feralas, Tanaris, Un'Goro and finally Silithus. You learn from these quests about the silithid. In Silithus, with the final quests, you learn about the Qiraji, and finally the Scarab Lord questline + Ahn'Qiraj. Amazing.
@@Jediwarlock Would also love Dun Morogh because it was where me and my friends started when we were around 10 years old and its so much nostalgia about killing the boars with the steps in the snow and going up and seeing ironforge for the first time with big eyes :D Because we were non-english speakers back then we just roam around and killing everything without questing but had a blast anyway, doing quests where simply to hard before finding Thottbot(?) to help with the quests, but had to go back several years later before being able to play the game properly with better english understanding
One of the greatest parts of WoW was going into these zones and having the high level areas nearby.. like seeing duskwood from westfall.. and if you got too close you'd be greated by a high level spider.. was like "Thats cool I cant wait to be able to adventure there".. In redridge walking to the burning steppes and seeing the volcano in the distance and an army of orcs.. Going to duskwood and seeing lethon sleeping in the middle.. The game made you feel like an adventurer and always put "Goals" infront of you.. which they even continued into TBC.. going to hellfirepen and having the felreaver stomping about like "One day.. you're going down".. somewhere down the lines wow just lost that sense of exploration and danger....
The original scythe of Elune and worgen origin, though fragmented, was also a great one. But you had to play Ashenvale and Duskwood Alliance and Silverpine Horde to get the full picture.
Great video! For me in fact, these zones are the first memory that comes up when I think of WoW (along with the Badlands for some reason). One huge reason for that, is the soundtrack. This is by far THE most nostalgic and wonderful soundtrack in any game, that I have played! I really wish someday, that a game is created, that will bring the same feeling when I initially explore it. Peak WoW was Azeroth, filled with noobs, with primitive addons and no centralised knowledgebase (like wowhead). That sense of playing with just as clueless players as I was, and exploring new content together, felt like an actual adventure, done with a group of friends. Edit - typos
This is so great. I started playing in late vanilla and my first character was a huma paladin, so this really brought back memories. And also the missing diplomat is one of my favorite quest chains ever.
So I was recently watching some old interviews with some of the original developers & Mark Kern talked about why these zones were so good, explaining that the developers spent a full year on the Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, Duskwood zones perfecting that region. They tuned it perfectly, but the time spent on it was obviously too high, so while they took the lessons they learned there and attempted to apply them to the rest of the game they couldn't spend a full year on each level band, so while the Horde zones weren't "rushed" they simply couldn't receive the same level of attention because that would simply take too long. This is also why quests in higher level areas were added in post launch.
I just finished The WoW Diary and those claims were echoed in that as well :) If only Blizz could go back and pump out some more quests on the Horde side to make it more complete!
This video resonates with my soul. I played WoW from late 2006 through the end of Cataclysm. Nothing ever felt as good as leveling through Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood. I still remember every single quest in those zones. When Classic Vanilla launched it was a nostalgic, warmly welcomed trip down memory lane.
YES! I always thought that they could have marketed some sort of "Free Trial" edition in 2004 with just these areas opened up... and it STILL would have been an amazing hit!
This has so much rewatch value! JW this is one of your best. Here's a video idea: city tours. Detailed ones. Like going around Stormwind and detailing every shop, what makes it unique, what quests or other tasks would bring you here, NPCs in the shop and who they are, etc. So many districts and stories, the city comes alive. And you can do that for every city.
I can't even imagine how hard it was to put together a video like this, but I need to say, fantastic job! Looking forward to see more about the lore in this format.
The fog of duskwood is so iconic to me. The lack of visibility really ups the aura of horror, and Mor'Ladim can really sneak up on you. Even little details down to the eyes in the bushes.
Duskwood was at its best during the night and when it was pouring. I wish we could get an updated game (Cataclysm 2, WoW 2, or maybe just a weather patch) that would introduce all the high-res clouds, rain, and wind effects into the old world.
I have not watched the video. I literally paused at 0:01 to comment that YES, YES IT IS. I've been musing about these 4 zones and Duskwood especially being PEAK MMO design. Having the quests/lore so well intertwined is just :chefskiss: One of my little hopes for SoD was that they will further the lore of the Scythe of Elune and the Worgen and maybe even play with the idea of reclaiming Stonewatch Keep and the Tower of Ilgalar in Redridge (in the type of world progressing quests like the ones in WOTLK Icecrown zone) Anyway. Already liked and subscribed, peak delulu viewer signing off
I was so enthralled and in love with Warcraft lore from WC3, was playing NE and Humans. Rolling a human mage was such a big and "right" decision as it made WoW so much special to me. To see all those budlings and units from WC3 in "real world" that was WoW, it's a feeling I will remember till I die. The wonder, amazement, the sublime magic of lore meeting life, RTS meeting RPG. And after some 30ish levels, meeting Jaina...in person. With that Theramore/SW Keep music... Thank you, old Blizzard, you have made something that will never be repeated on this world.
I often take for granted the quality of the content you put out, your videos are entertaining and I feel you knit everything together so nicely, even some things about the game I have never been able to put into words. Seeing your channel's name in my notifications always makes me want to come home at night, make a nice meal and relax while getting to explore Azeroth. You are awesome!
My first character was a Dwarf Rogue. Cozy basements in cold Dun Morogh, cooking boar. Hunting for rare treasure on the mountaintops. I did go to Redridge eventually though. I should've pushed on and gotten Vancleef's gearset.
Yeah, I have regularly espoused a similar sentiment & while you didn't bring it up in this video, the fact that this storyline continues in the background as you move on to aiding different groups, culminating in the first raid boss in the history of WoW truly makes this, in my view, the best story ever told in WoW.
I sincerely love these areas, they have a special place in my heart. That's why I've been hoping, and looking for such a video for years, thank you so much for your hard work. It's really appreciated 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
An interesting point to note, is that in all expansions, we only hear the voice of ‘the narrator’ at the point of character creation, yet it is a major driver in the compulsion to ‘level’ our characters and fulfil the destiny set out for our races. I can’t help feeling that each new expansion should have been accompanied by ‘the narrator’ giving a gentle guiding hand as to where our racial destinies lie and inspiring people each expansion, making them feel as purposeful as they did 20 years ago.
Absolute masterclass in storytelling, pacing difficulty and player progression in a MMORPG. Compare that to in your face handheld themepark ride of later years where you can't ever fail or die if you tried and oof, how the mighty has fallen. This is a beautiful reminder of more glorious days and why Vanilla WoW is still a masterpiece that holds up to this day.
These quests were responsible for so many character rerolls. So many of my toons were abandoned at 30 after rounding out these quests. The atmosphere is thick in these zones and it was such a pleasure to adventure in them. I think something this is important to mention is that much of the adventuring is done before one gets their first ground mount, which means walking from place to place. While mounts are a great convenience to the player and a necessity in games this large, I'm glad I got to experience wandering through these lands at a slower pace. Nothing compares to experiencing the sheer size of zone made even larger by conforming oneself to the geometry of the landscape. Adjacent areas can feel far apart when travelling by foot, and this does wonders for the culture of each zone. Local problems of the various settlements and outposts do feel that much more important, and wandering away from dedicated routes feels daring and intimidating. I felt quite late to the party joining back when I did during Cataclysm, which is so long ago now, where I joined a guild and completed heroic raiding content. Before that I played on various WotLK and vanilla private servers, and I never got to a high level. I've played many different iterations of this game and experienced lots of content, but there is nothing quite like the experience of these early zones.
@@I_am_a_cat_ I've played in a few different pre-cata private servers and played during the classic relaunch. So I've had plenty of opportunity to play these zones as they were originally designed. What's with the gatekeeping?
You got it absolutely right! I have played the game mostly from vanilla to cataclysm, then quit, and now i am peeking back in. However, most of the remarkable memories of playing the game are precisely of questing in those areas, exploring, playing solo or with others, and then banding up to go to the deadmines, and helping each other with tips of where to go next to follow up on these quests that you mention. Those days the game was about the WORLD, not about the heroes of Azeroth, and it all felt a lot more grounded, likely and real, and progression was really felt. As shown in this video, you start off dealing with simple foes and issues and seamlessly develope to face off against the greater threats to the world. It was a lot more about EXPLORATION and ADVENTURE, not about numbers and speed, I say this while accepting that the game evolves as our skills and tools do as well. Great memories!
@@sensaiko there are 3 times more players playing the Classic version of the game, that was even admitted by Blizzard so Retail sucks and Classic is better, seethe and cope harder.
As soon as I saw this thumbnail, I was pumped to click on this video. I've talked about how perfect the WoW human starting region experience is for 20 years now, and you summarized why perfectly! Very well made video, sir!
Give it a shot on Classic. There's a specific atmosphere to both the Human and Night Elf starting zones/quests that is unrivaled. The closest Horde got - as someone who played since Vanilla on both sides - was that first incursion into Ragefire Chasm. Hell, just roll a Tauren and Orc, and a Human and Night Elf on Classic and take one of them through at a leisurely pace, a couple hours a week. It's such a well written experience for both sides. There was no "OMG GOTTA GET TO MAX LEVEL SO I CAN ENDGAME GRIND". It was about the experience, absorbing the world, etc. Me, my brother, and my dad all played Warcraft 3, and all three bought WoW at launch, and when we finally got to stuff like Stratholme, and LBRS/UBRS, it was mind-blowing getting to experience those places in game for the first time, knowing all the additional lore that WC1-3 setup, plus all the lore the game drip fed you through the levels. A lot of what made WoW so great was that experience, and the push towards endgame and cinematic set-pieces over the years has stolen a lot of that immersive storytelling from the game. No hate towards retail, just that the olden days were a different beast, in how story was presented and "gifted" to you.
@Jediwarlock as someone who's only played Horde since the release in '04, this was an absolute awesome deep dive into storylines I only read about, but never played myself. Thanks for all the great content you've been releasing!
Started playing Wow at release, and played for many years. All races and classes, and this video is spot on. Nothing captured the Vanilla WoW experience like the human starting zones. It's embedded into my pysche probably even more than my actual childhood.
Man this was such a great video. All the nostalgia... Sooo many things I almost forgot about.. Hogger, the defias messanger, duskwood completely (I usually went to arathi highlands) but I think my absolute favorite part of WoW in 2004/2005 was taking the boat to Kalimdor for the first time, and then running around the continent to collect FP's, and just taking in not only the beauty of each zone, but the sheer massiveness of it all. It took a LONG time to run around Kalimdor. Like a few hours haha. I'll NEVER forget that experience.
It's nearly 20 years since I started Vanilla WoW but most of the memories feel like I quested there with my paladin like yesterday. No game since ever managed to make me feel so immersed in a world. The sense of discovering was breathless.
The reason for the pirate theme being used so much in vanilla was that Pirates of the Caribbean was super popular at the time. And the entire game is basically one cultural reference after another.
Zenk u! Next vid: “the dark side of wow quests storylines” Plzzz! Really enjoying your content, and would LOVE to hear about those bitter-sweet or sometimes sad and dark moments of wow
I’m glad someone played classic who actually reads the quest log. You never know what fabulous secrets you find by simply exploring outside a chosen path.
to this day I have no fucking clue how they expected anyone to find the Sulley Baloo Memorial questline. I mean they MIGHT have intended people to find it like I did, but that was pure chance of missing a jump, just happening to put my cursor over the scroll case and notice it before moving it again, and then re-checking to make sure I wasn't imaging it. (you know, i've never checked to see if Treasure-Tracking would show it.....I think it's considered a container.....so that MIGHT have been the vector of discovery).
Honestly, by the time I first played human I had played wow long enough that I just skipped quest text so seeing a video like this brings so much context to the things I did. Thank-you. I miss Wow and hope that one that I can call it home again.
Of all the areas they have shown, the one that caught my attention the most was undoubtedly the Twilight Grove. Hidden in that circle of mountains and with a Night Elf theme until at the end you find yourself face to face with the majestic lieutenants of Ysera and the portal to the emerald dream at the foot of the great tree
I miss this kind of quest writing. There was a time where I thought I had just outgrown WoW's writing (past Cataclysm), but I tried Classic for a day once when it came out just to see what it felt like, going into the Forsaken starter zone. The flavour and tone of the quest writing was just different and way more engaging, just like when I was younger. Then I realised that while the quest blurbs never were works of art, they did try to make an effort in the beginning instead of the step-by-step recipes they are today where they are meant to be condensed instructions first and foremost.
And even then, it was really only some of the starting experiences that was done so well. Compare the writing here to the random quests in, say, Burning Steppes and you'll see that the later content of classic was nowhere near as developed as the early content.
@@General12th I guess they ran out of steam, but at least there was an intent. But then again, I remember enjoying Burning Steppes as a child so maybe I just really didn't have any standards after all. X)
The Everyman (literally) experience of WoW was just so timeless. You knew the world out there was bigger and more “epic” but the density of action around you locked you in on the lore bit by bit. Absolutely thrilling.
I just re-started to play wow 1 week ago and I choose, casually, the human png. This time I said to me that I would love to read all the questline and skip nothing. Now that I'm level 30 and I just finish to explore all the zones that you said I know you are probably right with the caption of this video. I love everything: the story, all the png and ambient. That's the true wow experience.
You can clearly tell that there was so much detail put into these first zones. If I'm not mistaken, they originally did the friends & family alpha on those first four zones and clearly polished it multiple times over. They really thought it through with having certain buildings be used for later levels (e.g. Tower of Azora, returning to Northshire for the iron, asking each town for help, etc.). They still tried to do that to a certain level afterwards, but you could clearly tell that they ran out of time a bit. The dwarven area still has some of this polish, but as you get to Kalimdor and other late game zones (except Blackrock), it becomes clear that the process was a bit more standardized: environments created, mobs/quests placed to fit and less of an "all encompassing" view, except for a few quests. Even in the late game, the most polished quests tended to be those that they thought of from the start like the Onyxia chain. Great video !
If I am not mistaken they had to overhaul everything at some stage because the original idea was not feasible. Then they were left with half of the deadline. I also believe they meant to recapture the original idea with project titan but that too was abandoned and many things planned were implemented in later expansions and many were scrapped.
As a teenager back in 2006-2010 I didn't have money nor parents that would allow me to play WoW retail but I must've created over a hundred characters (in various broken ass private server) most of which never went above level 30, but every time I would create a new toon in a new zone with a new class/spec I would feel immersed and hours would go by while questing, chatting with random people, listening to nu metal bangers on Winamp, etc. To this day human, undead as well as troll/orc pre-cata questing zones hold such a dear spot in my heart. Peak comfy nostalgia.
cata-era redridge has always had a place in my heart. the bravo company questline really stayed with me and getting to see keeshan again throughout the future expansions (but especially BFA) always brings me right back to the start of it all. such an incredible intro to the game
20:12 If I remember correctly there is a night elf tracker that is investigating why black dragon whelps are in redridge and he flips out when you report back that those gates are destroyed.
@@Jediwarlock I may have mixed it up a bit, but there is a Nelf tracker in Burning Steppes that starts the Onyxia chain, he has you deliver a letter to Magistrate Solomon that informs about the black dragons and I think Solomon is the one that flips out that the gates are broken, this is Vanilla/Classic.
The Horde got shafted when it came to the starting zones. The bulk of the Horde would enter the Barrens from either Mulgore or Durotar at level 10, and they'd be in that large zone for quite some time. A zone very heavy in generic kill quests and collect x amount of y item quests and light on immersive storyline quests. The Forsaken had it a bit better. They had a pretty good storyline taking you through Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest, and then Hillsbrad Foothills, where you have to fight off the Scourge and Scarlet Crusade, and then Arugal's Worgen, and then Arugal himself in Shadowfang Keep (pretty much Horde's equivalent of the Deadmines), and then finally doing battle against the Alliance in Hillsbrad. And in all three zones, you help the Royal Apothecary devise a "New Plague," showing that the Forsaken have some pretty scary plans for Azeroth in the future. It's the most immersive of the Horde side starting zones, but even it pales in comparison to the Human starting zones on the Alliance. From the Defias storyline, (which starts before you even leave Northshire, provides the bulk of enemies across both Elywnn Forest and Westfal, takes you through TWO dungeons, and doesn't end until the "Missing Diplomat" quest chain, which takes you across the Great Sea to Theramore), to the Blackrock Orcs storyline in Redridge Mountains, to the many immersive side adventures of Duskwood (the Mor'Ladim quest line, the Sven Yorgen quest line in which you learn about the Scythe of Elune, the Abercrombie questine which ends with a huge abomination named Stitches spawning and making his way towards Darkshire, and my favorite, the long, epic Legend of Stalvan Mistmantle questline), the Human zones in Classic WoW are a masterpiece of immersive storytelling. Much of the nostalgia for Classic WoW comes from the experience of leveling in these zones. Some of these quest chains are long and take you through multiple zones, some even take you halfway around the world, but that was part of the appeal. You really felt like you were exploring a huge world at your own leisure, rather than being guided through a single zone in a strictly linear fashion, which is what leveling in WoW has been from Cataclysm onward. That and as the game went on, they started giving you the ability to just fly or teleport to far off zones easily, without needing to explore them first, which severely diluted the immersion factor in my opinion.
The Horde in general were shafted compared to the Alliance... with the exception of being able to travel between cities. Compared to getting to Undercity, Darnassus might as well have been on another planet.
Even back when the game launched you could tell this area got most of the love & attention, prompting my Night Elf Warrior to make the run & start my journey with the humans. Also I've just realized what is missing from WOW as it grew with expansions that drew me in. It was a relaxing adventure with moments of intensity vs the raid & dungeon heavy focus of more current gameplay. Also it's just occurred to me that my backyard is 1000% Duskwood, spiders in the trees & bushes keeping insects in check. Man I love Duskwood.
Absolutely agree 100% This is what I have replayed on dozens of characters. Perfecting a questing path. Refining it. I have played since 2/2/2005 and I still love it to this day. Great Video
Awh this is so nostalgic! For the last 20 years Ive been wishing for another questing/leveling experience like this! Nothing comes close to what 1-30 human leveling zones offer.
From what I’ve gathered watching old videos, westfall was one of the first zones “done” with quests and gameplay. So I could see why the human start was the best intro experience overall
This was indeed the case as you can read in John Stats WoW diary. These zones were developed first to test the whole gameplay experience and have a demo to showcase internally and externally, to investors etc. They spent more time in these zones as any others.
Yup, that is very close to what happened. Another fun fact, was that Molten Core almost didn't make it to the game, the entire raid was made in just a week.
You have to do the final... The secret of Lady Katrana Prestoer. The really big Marshall Quest, and her "death" by Bolvar Fordragon. That is why I knew him, when he, years later, appears at the Wrath Gate and Ice Thrown. Maybe with a look an the short raid on her with 60.
Great video. These are some of the best designed zones in the game. I still remember logging into WoW for the first time in 2009 and running around Elwynn Forest, marveling at how big and interconnected the world felt.
Being the only time I ever really played WoW, I only had the chance to play through these zones in WoW classic as I did not play in Vanilla. But I already feel such nostalgia for these simple yet gripping story lines. I think this video does an amazing job highlighting exactly how I felt while levelling through these zones and exploring through Stormwind.
A lot of people will say rolling a Human is the dumbest thing you can do in a fantasy game, but as someone who chose Human for my first character, I've never regretted it as an introduction to WoW. The series of quests here, and the exploration of the greater world as a human was honestly the best way to become immersed in this new world. We are, after all, humans visiting this world. I remember the first time I went around a corner with my "noob" view camera angle (zoomed in really close on my character) and came across two night elves for the first time. HUGE giants stood before me, and I think I stopped to gawk at them for a moment before moving on towards the dwarven district to learn more about smithing. It was amazing at the time, and probably directly responsible to making a Night Elf as my second character. Regardless, it was a moment that has stuck with me all these years later.
I had similar moment coming across Tauren on my Undead, the size difference is enormous and the undead feel quite out of place in the Horde, almost intentional considering they start out neutral and always have secret private plans for forsaken dominance.
I've just done ALL OF THIS on Turtle WoW and then saw this video. I was saying all of this during my play through too! Incredible video. When I first played this 20 years ago, my 11 year old brain wasn't adept enough at really understanding the politics behind it, but now it hits so differently!
Great video! You compiled and captured with keen insight to why so many people enjoy the Human questline. When I first started playing WoW, I played only Gnomes because I was a teenager; however, as an adult, I have so much appreciation for the human questline and find so much comfort in these start zones. I have rolled 6 humans now and I thoroughly enjoy the beginning quests dearly. Thank you!
According to some dev intervew those 4 zones were the those with the most passes/polish in classic WoW. I personally loved them! However It is so sad that there is nothing like that after that point. And the missing Diplomat quest ended in a dead end without a true resolution.
I agree! The Burning Crusade Patch 2.3 did actually add some quests to the Missing Diplomat but they were essentially paved over in Wrath once the King returned... Blackrock Mountain definitely revealed the true ending for the human story, though :)
“But that’s a story for another time.” But god the whole thing was so epic. The entire Human story really does stretch all the way from 1 to 60, from battling ragtag Defias at Northshire to the epic confrontations with Deathwing’s deranged children, and I absolutely love it.
Thank you for making this. I stopped playing WoW when WoLK came out and still have huge nostalgia about it. Your video really hit the spot. If you haven't already, please make more for the other races!
Westfall-to-Darkshire letter delivery quest is hilarious if taken as soon as it's available, can't leave the road or you die. But then there's a chance Stitches gets behind you.
I have a deep feeling of nostalgia of nearly all the starting areas, their stories, and music. Especially the human, tuaren, orc, and dwarven starting areas.
I played way back in 2004 when it first launched. You have to remember that not only was this the first time most people had ever been in a game with more than half a dozen people (callout to ashron), but it was also the first game with an entire world of seemingly unbroken territory that you could travel. 99% of games at that point would always have a loading screen between interiors and exteriors, and I remember vividly descending inside of a tree in the dark elf zone and thinking it was insane how they had managed to join indoors and outdoors. That's how early we were in gaming when wow came out. It was magic.
Ah, great memories! :D Even Lord of the Rings Online in 2007 (one of my other faves!) couldn't muster the No Loading Screen obstacle... WoW was something special :)
What does the text that appears at the end of the video mean - "tmcdq yzmfzq"? The Jedi mentioned it is a "hidden secret" though a bit too well hidden, to be honest. Am I too short sighted and these are just the initials of his supporters or there is more to it? I've tried looking them on google, read all the comments, even tried to connect it somehow with the outro song, but to no avail. Hope someone sees my comment and try to figure it out together :) Otherwise the video is, as all the others - amazing! This type of content, the one that Jediwarlock and another creator by the name of Verigan make, proves how many hearts and minds this game has won! Thank you! ❤
I was thinking a cipher but I ran it through a solver and didn't get results that made sense on my end. Now I'm intrigued as well.
@@beenmurked4126 I haven't been able to find any clues throughout the video itself, though the cipher solver was a good call! I ran it myself using CHATGPT and it assumed thet it was a Ceaser cipher? It gave me an answer that did not make a lot of sense - "UNDER ZANGAR". What is under Zangarmarsh? And I am not completely sure that this is the correct decipher.
@@cekopeko It looks like some kind of ROT13, I also got UNDER ZANGAR with it
Maybe its a kind of anagram. Rearranging it into two words of five and six letters.
Edit: there are no vowels so perhaps not.
Edit 2: Tarren Mill Combat Deployment Quota & Yogg-Saron's Zealots: Mighty Forces and Zealous Quests. Surely 😂
@@ritterspots89 bro, you went full 5Head on this! xD
As a kid, I was unironically scared of Duskwood. I will only stare at it across the river from Elwynn and ponder, what monsters roam there.
Skull-level wolves and spiders! O_O
Sorry, it was probably my undead rogue, but I've changed
Lol i did the same
glad to see i wasnt the only one who felt this way... what a memorable experience it was though! love the area and it will always have a special place in my heart and memories.
Stitches! he likes to take long walks in the forest.
It really shows the devs ran out of time when developing the higher leveling zones. The 1-30 zones are so much better as questing experience.
Yeah! There are differences for sure... at the higher levels you're expected to do more traveling and multi-zone stuff which does break the cohesion of having those single-zone narratives going on.
When it first came out, you had to grind mobs or dungeons from 44-52 because they didn't have many quests at that point. It literally took 12 hours of straight grinding to get half a level back then. It was pretty common for people who played at release in November 2004 to not hit 60 until February 2005.
@@edluke3415 I remember skinning turtles along the beaches of dustwallow marsh for like 6 levels to get to 40 and afford my first mount
@@mrlost117 lol I played a rogue and solo'd SFK and SM graveyard for stuff to vendor or put on the AH, but man did it feel good to get my raptor even though I was lvl 45.
@@edluke3415I was 60 before Xmas grinding dungeons was the way I was a resto druid so getting parties was easy
I remember when I was a kid and started playing WoW I created a human warlock.
After leveling through Elwynn, Westfall and Redridge I was supposed to go to Duskwood.
I entered the area through Westfall, walked my way along the main road and then reached the first camp in the center of the map.
I saw a bunch of night watch soldiers ready to fight in the road. Looking towards where I came from.
My curiosity had me waiting and in the distance I saw Stitches appear.
Creeped the hell out of me, I tell you. I ran out of the zone and leveled to level 30 in Wetlands and Ashenvale xD.
That's a great story!! Thank you for sharing :)
lol, yes great story thanks for sharing. I was so young when I started playing wow “literally less than a year old” I still remember the day WoTLK came out though, so clearly I had been playing before it. I remember my first character was a night elf male Druid with my real full name lol. I remember doing dungeons trying to get to level 55 trying to make my first DK lol. You might not believe I was playing WoW at less than a year old, but… the account that I made had achievements from 2005. I was born 2004
Stitches never really held much interest to me...I soloed it the first time I ever saw it. It nearly killed me which was the first mob to do so in almost twenty levels, but I got it down. God I miss paladins before the 1.8 nerf, soloing in Burning Steppes/Searing Gorge at level 30 just never stopped being funny. Especially when you're there out-farming max level frost mages in T1-2 gear.
Blindly stumbling into the Twilight Grove and seeing a bunch of level 60 elite green dragonkin, on the other hand...now THAT was a sight.
@@Ginamy72bro been playing wow before he can walk or talk
@@tony9099 literally. I had to figure out how to read just so I could figure out wtf to do during the DK storyline lmao
Honestly there is no better leveling experience then the human starting zones. Is absolutely perfect the story is incredible and it's fun
In classic that's absolutely true, big agree.
Barren better
IF y ou are a pluviophile like me, Teldrassil is the real shit :D..
That's because they created it first and spent most time on its design. John Staats in his book The WoW Diary mentions that the Kalimdor starting areas were rushedly finished towards the release date, and it shows.
Played for many years and have never done it once. For the Horde!
The power of classic wow's writing was in its simplicity. Now in wow you are fighting a god level threat for a daily quest. The simple act of helping out a local struggling militia that is decently hard, with little spells and resources is a more satisfying experience than killing 8 dragons by pulling 20 and using 10 different cds. Classic wow is the best game ever created no doubt.
Sadly, you can't keep fighting local threats on the same character for twenty years.
@General12th very true, but it'd the sad reality. Lots of people dislike retail for reasons it cannot control.
Great point! This could be an argument in favor of a big reset for WoW and starting us over with the simple things again. :)
Very well put
@@General12th I am doing it right now! Can't get enough of classic vanilla. Although I would love for a tbc server to exist
My dad got his hands on WoW when I was about 2 years old. I’d just sit in his lap and watch the screen. At some point later also tried pushing some buttons, liking that it changes something on the screen, and other players would get offended that I’m “ignoring” their messages (I had no idea someone texted me and only recently learned to read at all, so my dad would have to explain that it was his very little daughter playing). At like 6 I’d create a human warrior and absolutely fall in love with all of these zones. I’m 22 now, DF was the only add-on I missed. Though I enjoy the recent stuff and still get easily lost in the world despite the fact how different it is now, these zones (and music!!), as they were in classic, have a special place in my heart. Recently logged in as one of my oldest human char and did the “lion’s heritage” quest line - it was so touching, especially to finish it as a char that was around for so many years. Probably no other fiction means as much to me as this specific part of WOW.
Great story :) Thank you for sharing! I too grew up playing on my dad's account (and having no idea what I was doing at first) but we've come a long way since then!
That’s a beautiful story 😄
The world building they put together in classic WoW is unbelievably good. So many cool little details make it feel like an actual world. Only in the Elder Scrolls games did I ever experience something like this.
True! :)
I've made so many human alts at this point in my life and still every time I get the quest to go scout through Fargodeep Mine I say out loud to myself "I bet it's called the Fargodeep Mine because it far go deep" and I genuinely cannot ever not do it.
It's a required event XD
we gotta go far and we gotta go deep
The Defias questline has lived rent free in my head for the better part of 20 years. The entire story of VanCleef, the Stonemasons, Katrana Prestor, it just immersed you into Stormwind in such a great way. What's fascinating to me about the Human starting zone is virtually all of it is fighting other Humans, with a scattered handful of others in it (aside from the Defias it's primarily Gnolls but also some Orcs in Redridge, some undead in Duskwood, Kobolds, and Murlocs). But the Defias make up the bulk of your enemies. You aren't being forged as a soldier to defend against the wrath of the New Horde, you're slaughtering bandits who could very well be your neighbors and family who have flocked to this charismatic craftsman cast aside by the Kingdom he was once sworn to. It's a low intensity civil war ravaging the outer areas of the Kingdom, all because of the machinations of an insidious political figure purposely trying to usurp power within the Kingdom for herself for her own dark agenda. It's great stuff you get bits at a time over the course of these zones plus questlines in later levels all the way up to level 60.
I am biased towards this little piece of Azeroth. I am not someone who came to WoW through WC3, so I wasn't at all familiar with Lordaeron or WC3's story when I first began playing. The Defias were my introduction to Warcraft Humans and Warcraft in general, but Humans are something you can get in virtually every flavor of fantasy. The Defias not quite as much. Their story as a whole is something really special and I believe they hold a special place in a lot of WoW player's hearts, myself definitely included.
slowly realizing theyre not the bad guys afterall
@@solidusraiden2502Well they are quite bad. Play the followup in Cataclysm. EVC didn't die of old age.
An option to side with Van Cleef and go after those nobles would have been a nice touch.
That or having 2 turn ins per se: one to marshall McDougal or the other to VC and allow him to escape / different quest rewards would be cool. @@timestimesx7535
Down with the Stormwind monarchy! Up with a democratic republic!
Honestly, this sequence - plus the Missing Diplomat and the Onyxia raid - could've been an entire game in its own right.
Agreed! When I was a kid I always thought the Human 1-60 quests/zones (or even the 1-30 I talked about) would be a great game for consoles or other platforms... totally disregarding the technological limitations of course, but it's still a great example of a cohesive, seamless story that would work by itself :)
@@Jediwarlock Absolutely, imagine if Blizz had developed their adventure game for Thrall, this could've been a sequel of sorts. Imagine a CRPG like Baldur's Gate but with this storyline!
I echo this sentiment. The part of WoW that's passed of earlier Warcraft works is hands down one of the deepest and most immersive fantasy universes ever made into an online game (Cata and onwards is when the game REALLY started feeling more like a game with gamey mechanics and less like a fantasy world to me personally). Even with all the hate Blizzard receive for their decisions (a lot of which I also echo), they still make a damn good MMO; imagine what the likes of Larian or CDPR who've had similar if not more experience in making single player RPGs could do with the same access to and passion for Warcraft IP if they were to make a single player RPG with it.
What's interesting is that the reason why this sequence is so great is that these were the first few zones that they fully fleshed out; it took Blizz 11 months, which is why they cut back for all the other zones because they knew they couldn't spend that amount of time per zone.
That's why even the initial Horde zones feel more sparse; there wasn't an Ally bias per say at Blizz, it was just that they worked on the early Ally zones first and spent too much time on them from a development perspective.
@@Ryan_hey It's sad, but in one way there was a bias since they imagined that most people would play as humans and thus began with their zones.
The first 30 levels were pure perfection. The zones, the leveling speed. Everything was awesome.
Indeed! :D
The first human zones are the epitome of the WoW classic experience. They're so nicely put together that it genuinely puts a majority of the leveling experience outside of there to shame. Elwynn is the penultimate starting zone. Phenomenal on so many levels and truly the most coherent and best designed part of the game. The pacing is incredible and if you actually read the quests you're treated to a very immersive story that you're actively engaged with. As a kid I actually sat and read these quests and I remember always feeling like something was wrong, but my 13 year old brain hadn't seen enough of these stories to really put it all together yet until the big reveals. Which as a result were really big reveals. Seeing the ship in Deadmines for example was really quite the experience. And I do remember coming back to Lady Prestor far later and having the grand reveal take place.
Thank you for sharing! I love your details :D
What I especially love about these four zones,is that it's clearly visible they were part of the same forest. Westfall was clearcut for farmlands,in Redridge the mountains start,but if you look,you can see that they were all one forest some time ago. And the stories somewhat intertwined,too.I just wished they were more connected.
They are already connected. Are you dumb ?
Love that thought! :)
Quite literally an unforgettable experience. I have no other heart-stopping nostalgia like anything related to leveling my first Human Paladin.
Truly a one-of-a-kind adventure :)
I plated Vanilla wow back when it was relatively new, mid 2005, on the patch where they just released Battlegrounds.
My first character was a human mage, and let me tell you, playing through the human zone, on not only a newer server, but when WoW itself was brand new, when every player was playing their first playthrough, when people either choose Alliance OR horde, when people only had 1 class, 1 faction, 1 character. It was a truly magical experience, and doing these zones for the first time, in that environment, was and will always be the absolute peak of gaming.
I remember at the time just being completely floored, just dumbfounded at what an amazing experience it was, little did I know that 20 years... two entire decades later, it still would not have been topped.
Vanilla questing really starts to fall off in the 45s or so, but man, that 1-30... On Humans... absolute peak..
Great memories... thank you for sharing! :)
Yeah even other MMO's like Everquest, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot didn't have that amazing feeling of easy accessability, easy to learn mechanics and the sense of wonder of the open world that WoW did despite much more deeper and more complex than wow. Only part of that era that was very bad was the lack of switch between game servers, it was always annoying meeting new friends in high school and military that also played wow but couldn't play together because different servers. They did add that option much later, but playing WoW Ascension now on Elune and it's just one server thankfully.
I want to go back for just a day. I miss it so bad guys.
For me, the starting zones in classic WoW + TBC are the core of World of Warcraft. They are so different from each other, which makes them special. The music, scenery, and story are all unique. The human starting zone offers the most classic experience in the RPG genre - it doesn't get better than that. Awesome video!
Thanks! I agree with your points... the original trilogy was the best! :D
I remember sneaking up to a chest on the riverbank and finding a silver bar inside. It seemed like a massive treasure I had stumbled onto. I was hooked!
What a great memory!! :)
0:18 I played Horde my entire life (been playing WoW for 18 years), but I decided to play Alliance on Classic Era when it got popular again a year ago - when I first got to this location my jaw dropped. I don't know exactly why but this location in Duswood has such a thick atmosphere. The small pond besides the monument and statues and the sort of hidden nature of it made me really appreciate that even after 18 years in Azeroth, I still haven't discovered everything.
Yep. I do like the Horde feel - Barrens is a great leveling zone (of course), but Elwynn/Westfall/Duskwood/Redridge has the most Fantasy Warcrafty feel
@@Merknilash silverpine is the best leveling zone for atmosphere
@@drogendieter.420iq silverpine is amazing but a little underdeveloped
It's such a great spot! :D
why would you only play horde for 18 fucking years
As a life long Horde main, I couldn’t agree more, especially with the option of going to Khaz Modan and seeing Blackrock Mountain loom over you wherever you go, and once you finish all those zones you finally get to see a little closer to the volcano without dying instantly to a fire imp.
Those darn fire imps man XD
the dwarven architecture embedded in the eastern kingdoms mountains is so good. as a kid, i was always so curious to know what was behind them, trying to estimate the vastness of those dwarven fortresses. old school titan architecture gave me similar vibes. the world had a sense of mystery
@@neshie9724 oh man same as a kid I loved those cozy high dwarf windows as I was in the wild at night, like I wish I could go in to rest, made me wonder how big the kingdoms were, I always loved ironforge over stormwind
@@MichZilla90yeah man! Both Dun Morogh and Loch Modan at night had strong classic fantasy LotR vibes going on! Loved questing those zones ❤️
@@miscellania4263 yep!
Defeating Morbent Fel was x1000 times more satisfying than anything in Shadowlands
Tbf shadowland is a low bar to begin with.
Oh no. Shadowlands M+ was lit. You must have been bad at the game.
@@Goldeneye3336 theres quite a difference between 'narrative satisfaction' and 'sweat satisfaction'. Morbet fel is objectively not hard to kill, its just a small group world quest. But there is a whole zone which builds up to finding out what's going on, discovering it's this necromancer, quests taking you around the world to craft an item to weaken him, and the payoff of killing the big bad of the zone (well, one of them, but narratively the chief).
Whereas retail M+ is just like oh theres this shit convoluted grandiose story full of retcons and contradictions nobody gives a shit about and is often harmful to the overall warcraft narrative, but heres some raid content to download dozens of weakauras and addons and guides to sweat your balls off doing fights so visually cluttered you have no chance at visually parsing out whats going on without external help to do it for you. One of the main driving forces behind it is this inane goal/focus of blizzard to make content for like 2 or 3 professional guilds to stream for several days once every 4-6 months for a esport-ized 'race'. Literally content tuned and made to be relevant for about 100 players for one week every financial quarter. Its video game brainrot.
@@samwise1790 Amen! I couldn't have said it better myself
@@Goldeneye3336what kinda nonsensical logic is that lol
Wow! This is great. Please do more of these. The dwarven experience with the Dark Iron thread would be a great one. From Dun Morogh through through Loch Modan and the Wetlands, finishing with one last quest as you enter Arathi, and then it comes back near max level as you get into the BRM area. There was a real sense of continuity that those were all dwarven lands. Another great one would be that eleven experience from Terdrassil through Ashenvale. Or the undead experience Tirisfal and Silverpine. That one feels like it drops off a bit early, you get past those mages at the end of Silverpine and you're out in the world, but the undead have a lot of late-game lore in the plaguelands so it balances out.
Another good one is the Silithid questlines the Horde gets.
From first meeting them via quests in Camp Taurajo, to 1k needles, Feralas, Tanaris, Un'Goro and finally Silithus.
You learn from these quests about the silithid. In Silithus, with the final quests, you learn about the Qiraji, and finally the Scarab Lord questline + Ahn'Qiraj.
Amazing.
Very good points! I may make another one someday. :)
@@Jediwarlock Would also love Dun Morogh because it was where me and my friends started when we were around 10 years old and its so much nostalgia about killing the boars with the steps in the snow and going up and seeing ironforge for the first time with big eyes :D
Because we were non-english speakers back then we just roam around and killing everything without questing but had a blast anyway, doing quests where simply to hard before finding Thottbot(?) to help with the quests, but had to go back several years later before being able to play the game properly with better english understanding
One of the greatest parts of WoW was going into these zones and having the high level areas nearby.. like seeing duskwood from westfall.. and if you got too close you'd be greated by a high level spider.. was like "Thats cool I cant wait to be able to adventure there".. In redridge walking to the burning steppes and seeing the volcano in the distance and an army of orcs.. Going to duskwood and seeing lethon sleeping in the middle.. The game made you feel like an adventurer and always put "Goals" infront of you.. which they even continued into TBC.. going to hellfirepen and having the felreaver stomping about like "One day.. you're going down".. somewhere down the lines wow just lost that sense of exploration and danger....
That's a great point! I love that aspect of the world design. :)
I was just thinking recently how good the story is around the first Alliance zones around the Defias Brotherhood, so good
Idk you personally but I always remember reading your twitter posts and comments back in the day! Good to see you sir hahaha
@@HighTide.Sunset thanks cheers mate
The original scythe of Elune and worgen origin, though fragmented, was also a great one. But you had to play Ashenvale and Duskwood Alliance and Silverpine Horde to get the full picture.
W voice acting in “The Average Asmongold Enjoyer”
@@hyruler036 thanks!
Great video!
For me in fact, these zones are the first memory that comes up when I think of WoW (along with the Badlands for some reason). One huge reason for that, is the soundtrack. This is by far THE most nostalgic and wonderful soundtrack in any game, that I have played!
I really wish someday, that a game is created, that will bring the same feeling when I initially explore it.
Peak WoW was Azeroth, filled with noobs, with primitive addons and no centralised knowledgebase (like wowhead). That sense of playing with just as clueless players as I was, and exploring new content together, felt like an actual adventure, done with a group of friends.
Edit - typos
Love your thoughts... and I totally agree! :)
no. Jeremy Soule's Morrowind OST is far superior. WoW's is good but not legendary.
@@fanaticist Nah. WoW's soundtrack is so much better.
Good point about Badlands. I’ve always loved that zone.
This is so great. I started playing in late vanilla and my first character was a huma paladin, so this really brought back memories. And also the missing diplomat is one of my favorite quest chains ever.
My first character was a human paladin too on my friends account when I was like 9 in 2004. I got him to level 27 before I got my own account 😅
I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D
My first char too a human paladin in January 2006 and yes the missing diplomat is my fav questline as well!
This was the greatest adventure. It was back in 2005 for me, a group of 6 of us picked up WOW and started playing. Thank you for the nostalgia!
That sounds incredible!!! You are welcome :)
So I was recently watching some old interviews with some of the original developers & Mark Kern talked about why these zones were so good, explaining that the developers spent a full year on the Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, Duskwood zones perfecting that region. They tuned it perfectly, but the time spent on it was obviously too high, so while they took the lessons they learned there and attempted to apply them to the rest of the game they couldn't spend a full year on each level band, so while the Horde zones weren't "rushed" they simply couldn't receive the same level of attention because that would simply take too long. This is also why quests in higher level areas were added in post launch.
I just finished The WoW Diary and those claims were echoed in that as well :) If only Blizz could go back and pump out some more quests on the Horde side to make it more complete!
When first playing a human, the first encounter with murlocs is unforgettable.
Indeed XD ...even nowadays Crystal Lake really messes me up sometimes!
First time I got zerged by the lakeside...
Oh, waht a nice little lake, then you hear "A Little bottle of wo'a!" and ur dead xD
This video resonates with my soul. I played WoW from late 2006 through the end of Cataclysm. Nothing ever felt as good as leveling through Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood. I still remember every single quest in those zones. When Classic Vanilla launched it was a nostalgic, warmly welcomed trip down memory lane.
Yeah, I'm so happy Classic lets us re-experience all these awesome quests :)
1-25 as a human is peak gaming
YES! I always thought that they could have marketed some sort of "Free Trial" edition in 2004 with just these areas opened up... and it STILL would have been an amazing hit!
This has so much rewatch value! JW this is one of your best.
Here's a video idea: city tours. Detailed ones. Like going around Stormwind and detailing every shop, what makes it unique, what quests or other tasks would bring you here, NPCs in the shop and who they are, etc. So many districts and stories, the city comes alive. And you can do that for every city.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this! :) City tours would be fun!
I can't even imagine how hard it was to put together a video like this, but I need to say, fantastic job! Looking forward to see more about the lore in this format.
It took a while, haha, I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
The fog of duskwood is so iconic to me. The lack of visibility really ups the aura of horror, and Mor'Ladim can really sneak up on you. Even little details down to the eyes in the bushes.
yeah, I loved duskwood too. This is a magical place.
Duskwood was at its best during the night and when it was pouring. I wish we could get an updated game (Cataclysm 2, WoW 2, or maybe just a weather patch) that would introduce all the high-res clouds, rain, and wind effects into the old world.
And stitches too lol
I remember being too afraid as a kid to go to Duskwood would legit avoid the place
YES! :D
I have not watched the video. I literally paused at 0:01 to comment that YES, YES IT IS. I've been musing about these 4 zones and Duskwood especially being PEAK MMO design. Having the quests/lore so well intertwined is just :chefskiss: One of my little hopes for SoD was that they will further the lore of the Scythe of Elune and the Worgen and maybe even play with the idea of reclaiming Stonewatch Keep and the Tower of Ilgalar in Redridge (in the type of world progressing quests like the ones in WOTLK Icecrown zone) Anyway. Already liked and subscribed, peak delulu viewer signing off
Thanks so much for those thoughts! I wish SoD had done some stuff like that too!
I was so enthralled and in love with Warcraft lore from WC3, was playing NE and Humans. Rolling a human mage was such a big and "right" decision as it made WoW so much special to me. To see all those budlings and units from WC3 in "real world" that was WoW, it's a feeling I will remember till I die. The wonder, amazement, the sublime magic of lore meeting life, RTS meeting RPG. And after some 30ish levels, meeting Jaina...in person. With that Theramore/SW Keep music... Thank you, old Blizzard, you have made something that will never be repeated on this world.
Great memories! Thank you for sharing :)
Great presentation. I've lived and re-lived this tale on many characters but still really enjoyed this. This was a golden time.
I'm so glad you've enjoyed it! :)
I often take for granted the quality of the content you put out, your videos are entertaining and I feel you knit everything together so nicely, even some things about the game I have never been able to put into words. Seeing your channel's name in my notifications always makes me want to come home at night, make a nice meal and relax while getting to explore Azeroth. You are awesome!
That makes me so happy to hear... thank you so much! :)
My first character was a Dwarf Rogue.
Cozy basements in cold Dun Morogh, cooking boar.
Hunting for rare treasure on the mountaintops.
I did go to Redridge eventually though.
I should've pushed on and gotten Vancleef's gearset.
Ah, good memories :)
There's so much nostalgia in this video. Just listening to the zone music brings me back nearly 20 years.
Lots of great memories :)
17:35 ah yes, if your a long time player you know the BEER RUN quest. Running to Darkshire at lvl 15
Spiders, Wolves, Worgen, Undead waiting all along the way "It's free real estate"
@@TheJbjfan The one where you go from Westfall to Darkshire is even worse, since stitches can spawn on that road.
@@DIEGhostfish oh, that little rascal just wants to play
A true classic XD
That quest was so scary as a hardcore player xD. When I was attacked by a wolf in Duskwood almost ten lvls above me I nearly died of a heart attack :D
Yeah, I have regularly espoused a similar sentiment & while you didn't bring it up in this video, the fact that this storyline continues in the background as you move on to aiding different groups, culminating in the first raid boss in the history of WoW truly makes this, in my view, the best story ever told in WoW.
Great point! :D
I sincerely love these areas, they have a special place in my heart. That's why I've been hoping, and looking for such a video for years, thank you so much for your hard work. It's really appreciated 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I'm so glad you enjoyed this... one of my most worthwhile projects! :)
One of the few channels where every upload is a must-watch for me. Love the videos, man.
Thanks so much! That makes me happy to hear :)
An interesting point to note, is that in all expansions, we only hear the voice of ‘the narrator’ at the point of character creation, yet it is a major driver in the compulsion to ‘level’ our characters and fulfil the destiny set out for our races. I can’t help feeling that each new expansion should have been accompanied by ‘the narrator’ giving a gentle guiding hand as to where our racial destinies lie and inspiring people each expansion, making them feel as purposeful as they did 20 years ago.
Very true!! I like that idea :)
Absolute masterclass in storytelling, pacing difficulty and player progression in a MMORPG. Compare that to in your face handheld themepark ride of later years where you can't ever fail or die if you tried and oof, how the mighty has fallen. This is a beautiful reminder of more glorious days and why Vanilla WoW is still a masterpiece that holds up to this day.
Classic Forever! :)
Cataclysm was just one huge enshittification because of this.
@@patsy02 This is beyond untrue. People on Cata Classic are learning this firsthand right now.
@@DisastrousIntentionally man I remember they turned all redridge into a shit pop culture reference, you can't gaslight me
@@patsy02 Yeah i loved cataclysm 5 mans and the raids, but the reworked azeroth feels like a fever dream whenever i try to play anything past wotlk.
These quests were responsible for so many character rerolls. So many of my toons were abandoned at 30 after rounding out these quests. The atmosphere is thick in these zones and it was such a pleasure to adventure in them. I think something this is important to mention is that much of the adventuring is done before one gets their first ground mount, which means walking from place to place. While mounts are a great convenience to the player and a necessity in games this large, I'm glad I got to experience wandering through these lands at a slower pace. Nothing compares to experiencing the sheer size of zone made even larger by conforming oneself to the geometry of the landscape. Adjacent areas can feel far apart when travelling by foot, and this does wonders for the culture of each zone. Local problems of the various settlements and outposts do feel that much more important, and wandering away from dedicated routes feels daring and intimidating.
I felt quite late to the party joining back when I did during Cataclysm, which is so long ago now, where I joined a guild and completed heroic raiding content. Before that I played on various WotLK and vanilla private servers, and I never got to a high level. I've played many different iterations of this game and experienced lots of content, but there is nothing quite like the experience of these early zones.
Thanks for sharing! I agree with your thoughts :)
If you started in cata then you don't really know what these zones were truly like
@@I_am_a_cat_ I've played in a few different pre-cata private servers and played during the classic relaunch. So I've had plenty of opportunity to play these zones as they were originally designed. What's with the gatekeeping?
You got it absolutely right! I have played the game mostly from vanilla to cataclysm, then quit, and now i am peeking back in. However, most of the remarkable memories of playing the game are precisely of questing in those areas, exploring, playing solo or with others, and then banding up to go to the deadmines, and helping each other with tips of where to go next to follow up on these quests that you mention.
Those days the game was about the WORLD, not about the heroes of Azeroth, and it all felt a lot more grounded, likely and real, and progression was really felt. As shown in this video, you start off dealing with simple foes and issues and seamlessly develope to face off against the greater threats to the world. It was a lot more about EXPLORATION and ADVENTURE, not about numbers and speed, I say this while accepting that the game evolves as our skills and tools do as well.
Great memories!
Or you just have nostalgia
@@sensaiko there are 3 times more players playing the Classic version of the game, that was even admitted by Blizzard so Retail sucks and Classic is better, seethe and cope harder.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I agree with your thoughts... the exploration and questing really was peak!
@@JackMarcuson? but this doesn’t tell that nostalgia has nothing to do with this, at all
The Paladin class quest to protect the widow in Westfall was fun.
Shes not a widow her husband is in ironforge
@@thedanishsocialmonarchist7286 he just left to get some pipeweed and milk, surely he will come back :p
@@samwise1790 he makes you cool 2h mace later
@@wisniamw worst quest line in the game. u can literally lvl 10 lvls by the time u get the mace made. also its replaced by 30 anyways
@@dolamrothknight Worst ?
I’m so glad you covered this phase of the game. My brother and I still talk about it years and years later!
It's an unforgettable part of the game :)
As soon as I saw this thumbnail, I was pumped to click on this video. I've talked about how perfect the WoW human starting region experience is for 20 years now, and you summarized why perfectly! Very well made video, sir!
Thanks so much! :D
As a Horde player that has never played an Alliance char, I'm jealous of how awesome this story line is
Try it out!!
Give it a shot on Classic. There's a specific atmosphere to both the Human and Night Elf starting zones/quests that is unrivaled. The closest Horde got - as someone who played since Vanilla on both sides - was that first incursion into Ragefire Chasm.
Hell, just roll a Tauren and Orc, and a Human and Night Elf on Classic and take one of them through at a leisurely pace, a couple hours a week. It's such a well written experience for both sides. There was no "OMG GOTTA GET TO MAX LEVEL SO I CAN ENDGAME GRIND". It was about the experience, absorbing the world, etc. Me, my brother, and my dad all played Warcraft 3, and all three bought WoW at launch, and when we finally got to stuff like Stratholme, and LBRS/UBRS, it was mind-blowing getting to experience those places in game for the first time, knowing all the additional lore that WC1-3 setup, plus all the lore the game drip fed you through the levels. A lot of what made WoW so great was that experience, and the push towards endgame and cinematic set-pieces over the years has stolen a lot of that immersive storytelling from the game.
No hate towards retail, just that the olden days were a different beast, in how story was presented and "gifted" to you.
@@IrisCorven I play a troll priest on vanilla classic, I've just never leveled Alliance since I'd rather level an alt i can raid with on my guild
It is definitely worth checking out! :)
I recall that in my first quarter of wow I started jogging everywhere instead of walking! Pally me was invading IRL.
Nice! XD
@Jediwarlock as someone who's only played Horde since the release in '04, this was an absolute awesome deep dive into storylines I only read about, but never played myself. Thanks for all the great content you've been releasing!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy these vids. :)
Started playing Wow at release, and played for many years. All races and classes, and this video is spot on. Nothing captured the Vanilla WoW experience like the human starting zones. It's embedded into my pysche probably even more than my actual childhood.
Man this was such a great video. All the nostalgia... Sooo many things I almost forgot about.. Hogger, the defias messanger, duskwood completely (I usually went to arathi highlands) but I think my absolute favorite part of WoW in 2004/2005 was taking the boat to Kalimdor for the first time, and then running around the continent to collect FP's, and just taking in not only the beauty of each zone, but the sheer massiveness of it all. It took a LONG time to run around Kalimdor. Like a few hours haha. I'll NEVER forget that experience.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!! :)
It's nearly 20 years since I started Vanilla WoW but most of the memories feel like I quested there with my paladin like yesterday. No game since ever managed to make me feel so immersed in a world. The sense of discovering was breathless.
It's simply the best! :D
I've brought characters of other races here just because I really like the questing, it really is such a neat adventure.
Yeah! One of the big reasons why the "Wetlands Run" became so popular ;)
The reason for the pirate theme being used so much in vanilla was that Pirates of the Caribbean was super popular at the time. And the entire game is basically one cultural reference after another.
That's fair! I hadn't thought about that before :)
not the reason but ok lol
@@Hipsterfoximy mom is a virgin and my dad is gay
Zenk u!
Next vid: “the dark side of wow quests storylines”
Plzzz!
Really enjoying your content, and would LOVE to hear about those bitter-sweet or sometimes sad and dark moments of wow
Good idea!! I'll put it on my list of future topics. :)
I’m glad someone played classic who actually reads the quest log. You never know what fabulous secrets you find by simply exploring outside a chosen path.
It's so true! :)
to this day I have no fucking clue how they expected anyone to find the Sulley Baloo Memorial questline.
I mean they MIGHT have intended people to find it like I did, but that was pure chance of missing a jump, just happening to put my cursor over the scroll case and notice it before moving it again, and then re-checking to make sure I wasn't imaging it. (you know, i've never checked to see if Treasure-Tracking would show it.....I think it's considered a container.....so that MIGHT have been the vector of discovery).
Honestly, by the time I first played human I had played wow long enough that I just skipped quest text so seeing a video like this brings so much context to the things I did. Thank-you. I miss Wow and hope that one that I can call it home again.
You are welcome! WoW is a game we can never truly leave behind. :)
Of all the areas they have shown, the one that caught my attention the most was undoubtedly the Twilight Grove. Hidden in that circle of mountains and with a Night Elf theme until at the end you find yourself face to face with the majestic lieutenants of Ysera and the portal to the emerald dream at the foot of the great tree
I'd love to have them elaborate on that area in the future in SoD! :D
I miss this kind of quest writing. There was a time where I thought I had just outgrown WoW's writing (past Cataclysm), but I tried Classic for a day once when it came out just to see what it felt like, going into the Forsaken starter zone. The flavour and tone of the quest writing was just different and way more engaging, just like when I was younger. Then I realised that while the quest blurbs never were works of art, they did try to make an effort in the beginning instead of the step-by-step recipes they are today where they are meant to be condensed instructions first and foremost.
And even then, it was really only some of the starting experiences that was done so well. Compare the writing here to the random quests in, say, Burning Steppes and you'll see that the later content of classic was nowhere near as developed as the early content.
@@General12th I guess they ran out of steam, but at least there was an intent. But then again, I remember enjoying Burning Steppes as a child so maybe I just really didn't have any standards after all. X)
@@Wayclarke They ran out of time.
@@General12th You know what they say, time is steam.
Very true!!
No better feeling than roaming westfall at night at like 2 am.
So true! :)
The Everyman (literally) experience of WoW was just so timeless. You knew the world out there was bigger and more “epic” but the density of action around you locked you in on the lore bit by bit. Absolutely thrilling.
So true! :)
@@Jediwarlock oh to be young and low leveled…and fearing Murloc aggro again
I just re-started to play wow 1 week ago and I choose, casually, the human png. This time I said to me that I would love to read all the questline and skip nothing. Now that I'm level 30 and I just finish to explore all the zones that you said I know you are probably right with the caption of this video. I love everything: the story, all the png and ambient. That's the true wow experience.
It simply is the best :D
You can clearly tell that there was so much detail put into these first zones. If I'm not mistaken, they originally did the friends & family alpha on those first four zones and clearly polished it multiple times over. They really thought it through with having certain buildings be used for later levels (e.g. Tower of Azora, returning to Northshire for the iron, asking each town for help, etc.).
They still tried to do that to a certain level afterwards, but you could clearly tell that they ran out of time a bit. The dwarven area still has some of this polish, but as you get to Kalimdor and other late game zones (except Blackrock), it becomes clear that the process was a bit more standardized: environments created, mobs/quests placed to fit and less of an "all encompassing" view, except for a few quests.
Even in the late game, the most polished quests tended to be those that they thought of from the start like the Onyxia chain.
Great video !
If I am not mistaken they had to overhaul everything at some stage because the original idea was not feasible. Then they were left with half of the deadline. I also believe they meant to recapture the original idea with project titan but that too was abandoned and many things planned were implemented in later expansions and many were scrapped.
Great points! Thank you! :)
Damn, i just thought the same when finishing duskwood in SoD yesterday and now I get this recommendation 😄
Such a great couple of zones! :D
This was excellent mate. Really hits home why these zones are special.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
As a teenager back in 2006-2010 I didn't have money nor parents that would allow me to play WoW retail but I must've created over a hundred characters (in various broken ass private server) most of which never went above level 30, but every time I would create a new toon in a new zone with a new class/spec I would feel immersed and hours would go by while questing, chatting with random people, listening to nu metal bangers on Winamp, etc. To this day human, undead as well as troll/orc pre-cata questing zones hold such a dear spot in my heart. Peak comfy nostalgia.
Those are great memories :) Thanks for sharing! :)
cata-era redridge has always had a place in my heart. the bravo company questline really stayed with me and getting to see keeshan again throughout the future expansions (but especially BFA) always brings me right back to the start of it all. such an incredible intro to the game
Yeah! They added a lot of cool questlines to Redridge in Cataclysm, from what I've heard :)
And who could forget the memorable experience of "Huh I wonder what's up with this gigantic ring of mountains taking up the middle third of the zone."
TRUE! XD I remember walking in and seeing the dragon as a kid like :o
@@Jediwarlock The first dragon many players would see in the game!. Greatest moment!
No matter what race I play, his adventures always start in Elwynn forest since 2010
Of course :)
The quest descriptions are intricately designed they knew what they were doing
For sure! :)
These are definitely the best parts. It gets so dull when you arrive at Stranglethorn. I always loved the 1-30 levelling so much in classic
It's the peak of Classic! :D
This video is so full of nostalgia for me. I've played humans a lot and went through all those locations many times.
I as well! They cannot be beat :)
This is incredible! Thanks for putting this together
You are very welcome! :D
20:12 If I remember correctly there is a night elf tracker that is investigating why black dragon whelps are in redridge and he flips out when you report back that those gates are destroyed.
Is this in Retail? That sounds like an interesting quest line!
@@Jediwarlock I may have mixed it up a bit, but there is a Nelf tracker in Burning Steppes that starts the Onyxia chain, he has you deliver a letter to Magistrate Solomon that informs about the black dragons and I think Solomon is the one that flips out that the gates are broken, this is Vanilla/Classic.
The Horde got shafted when it came to the starting zones. The bulk of the Horde would enter the Barrens from either Mulgore or Durotar at level 10, and they'd be in that large zone for quite some time. A zone very heavy in generic kill quests and collect x amount of y item quests and light on immersive storyline quests.
The Forsaken had it a bit better. They had a pretty good storyline taking you through Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest, and then Hillsbrad Foothills, where you have to fight off the Scourge and Scarlet Crusade, and then Arugal's Worgen, and then Arugal himself in Shadowfang Keep (pretty much Horde's equivalent of the Deadmines), and then finally doing battle against the Alliance in Hillsbrad. And in all three zones, you help the Royal Apothecary devise a "New Plague," showing that the Forsaken have some pretty scary plans for Azeroth in the future.
It's the most immersive of the Horde side starting zones, but even it pales in comparison to the Human starting zones on the Alliance. From the Defias storyline, (which starts before you even leave Northshire, provides the bulk of enemies across both Elywnn Forest and Westfal, takes you through TWO dungeons, and doesn't end until the "Missing Diplomat" quest chain, which takes you across the Great Sea to Theramore), to the Blackrock Orcs storyline in Redridge Mountains, to the many immersive side adventures of Duskwood (the Mor'Ladim quest line, the Sven Yorgen quest line in which you learn about the Scythe of Elune, the Abercrombie questine which ends with a huge abomination named Stitches spawning and making his way towards Darkshire, and my favorite, the long, epic Legend of Stalvan Mistmantle questline), the Human zones in Classic WoW are a masterpiece of immersive storytelling. Much of the nostalgia for Classic WoW comes from the experience of leveling in these zones.
Some of these quest chains are long and take you through multiple zones, some even take you halfway around the world, but that was part of the appeal. You really felt like you were exploring a huge world at your own leisure, rather than being guided through a single zone in a strictly linear fashion, which is what leveling in WoW has been from Cataclysm onward. That and as the game went on, they started giving you the ability to just fly or teleport to far off zones easily, without needing to explore them first, which severely diluted the immersion factor in my opinion.
The Horde in general were shafted compared to the Alliance... with the exception of being able to travel between cities. Compared to getting to Undercity, Darnassus might as well have been on another planet.
@@General12th the tram was originally supposed to go to darn i think. would have made the trip so much easier lol
Great thoughts! Thank you for putting all this together. :)
The popularity of the human starting zones helped make the first phase of sod pretty lit
The horde leveling zones are complete garbage compared to dwarf and humans.
Even back when the game launched you could tell this area got most of the love & attention, prompting my Night Elf Warrior to make the run & start my journey with the humans.
Also I've just realized what is missing from WOW as it grew with expansions that drew me in. It was a relaxing adventure with moments of intensity vs the raid & dungeon heavy focus of more current gameplay.
Also it's just occurred to me that my backyard is 1000% Duskwood, spiders in the trees & bushes keeping insects in check. Man I love Duskwood.
Haha, great thoughts! :)
Absolutely agree 100%
This is what I have replayed on dozens of characters. Perfecting a questing path. Refining it.
I have played since 2/2/2005 and I still love it to this day.
Great Video
Thank you! Coming up on 20 years here soon! :D
Awh this is so nostalgic! For the last 20 years Ive been wishing for another questing/leveling experience like this! Nothing comes close to what 1-30 human leveling zones offer.
Agreed!
From what I’ve gathered watching old videos, westfall was one of the first zones “done” with quests and gameplay. So I could see why the human start was the best intro experience overall
This was indeed the case as you can read in John Stats WoW diary. These zones were developed first to test the whole gameplay experience and have a demo to showcase internally and externally, to investors etc. They spent more time in these zones as any others.
Yup, that is very close to what happened. Another fun fact, was that Molten Core almost didn't make it to the game, the entire raid was made in just a week.
@@Jonasgp123 yeah and it dropped t2 epics for a bit. and that weird artifact.
@@Jonasgp123not true. Molten Core took 2 months to develop.
@@aredub1847 I bet Jedi is a cheater too.
You have to do the final... The secret of Lady Katrana Prestoer. The really big Marshall Quest, and her "death" by Bolvar Fordragon. That is why I knew him, when he, years later, appears at the Wrath Gate and Ice Thrown. Maybe with a look an the short raid on her with 60.
I will definitely consider it! ;)
Great video. These are some of the best designed zones in the game. I still remember logging into WoW for the first time in 2009 and running around Elwynn Forest, marveling at how big and interconnected the world felt.
Thanks! I totally agree! :)
This was such an experience and even now, this is one of the best mmorpg adventures ever.
It really has stood the test of time! :)
Being the only time I ever really played WoW, I only had the chance to play through these zones in WoW classic as I did not play in Vanilla. But I already feel such nostalgia for these simple yet gripping story lines. I think this video does an amazing job highlighting exactly how I felt while levelling through these zones and exploring through Stormwind.
I agree! :)
Classic will always be special. A true MMORPG.
Agreed :D
A lot of people will say rolling a Human is the dumbest thing you can do in a fantasy game, but as someone who chose Human for my first character, I've never regretted it as an introduction to WoW. The series of quests here, and the exploration of the greater world as a human was honestly the best way to become immersed in this new world. We are, after all, humans visiting this world.
I remember the first time I went around a corner with my "noob" view camera angle (zoomed in really close on my character) and came across two night elves for the first time. HUGE giants stood before me, and I think I stopped to gawk at them for a moment before moving on towards the dwarven district to learn more about smithing. It was amazing at the time, and probably directly responsible to making a Night Elf as my second character. Regardless, it was a moment that has stuck with me all these years later.
I had similar moment coming across Tauren on my Undead, the size difference is enormous and the undead feel quite out of place in the Horde, almost intentional considering they start out neutral and always have secret private plans for forsaken dominance.
That's a great story XD
I've just done ALL OF THIS on Turtle WoW and then saw this video. I was saying all of this during my play through too! Incredible video. When I first played this 20 years ago, my 11 year old brain wasn't adept enough at really understanding the politics behind it, but now it hits so differently!
Thanks so much! I totally agree it takes on whole new meanings as you get older. :)
Great video! You compiled and captured with keen insight to why so many people enjoy the Human questline. When I first started playing WoW, I played only Gnomes because I was a teenager; however, as an adult, I have so much appreciation for the human questline and find so much comfort in these start zones. I have rolled 6 humans now and I thoroughly enjoy the beginning quests dearly. Thank you!
You are very welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
The corporal KEeshan quest reward is amazing for clothies. You get a high def stam intel chest.
Yeah! One of the best rewards for that level :)
According to some dev intervew those 4 zones were the those with the most passes/polish in classic WoW.
I personally loved them! However It is so sad that there is nothing like that after that point. And the missing Diplomat quest ended in a dead end without a true resolution.
I agree! The Burning Crusade Patch 2.3 did actually add some quests to the Missing Diplomat but they were essentially paved over in Wrath once the King returned... Blackrock Mountain definitely revealed the true ending for the human story, though :)
“But that’s a story for another time.”
But god the whole thing was so epic. The entire Human story really does stretch all the way from 1 to 60, from battling ragtag Defias at Northshire to the epic confrontations with Deathwing’s deranged children, and I absolutely love it.
Thank you for making this. I stopped playing WoW when WoLK came out and still have huge nostalgia about it. Your video really hit the spot. If you haven't already, please make more for the other races!
Thank you for watching! I am considering making more in the future :)
The only problem is there's no way you leave westfold being lvl 20, and you can't really quest there at lvl 10 either
It's true, you gotta mix in some other zones at some point :)
Westfall-to-Darkshire letter delivery quest is hilarious if taken as soon as it's available, can't leave the road or you die. But then there's a chance Stitches gets behind you.
Yep, or a spider wanders across your path! XD
Remember - all roads lead to VanCleef.
"Lapdogs, all of you!"
I have a deep feeling of nostalgia of nearly all the starting areas, their stories, and music. Especially the human, tuaren, orc, and dwarven starting areas.
Oh yeah, all the starting zones are so cool! :D
I played way back in 2004 when it first launched. You have to remember that not only was this the first time most people had ever been in a game with more than half a dozen people (callout to ashron), but it was also the first game with an entire world of seemingly unbroken territory that you could travel. 99% of games at that point would always have a loading screen between interiors and exteriors, and I remember vividly descending inside of a tree in the dark elf zone and thinking it was insane how they had managed to join indoors and outdoors. That's how early we were in gaming when wow came out. It was magic.
Ah, great memories! :D Even Lord of the Rings Online in 2007 (one of my other faves!) couldn't muster the No Loading Screen obstacle... WoW was something special :)