<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nThe Blasted Lands is not a fun zone. Its defining feature is orange<\/em>, which is never a good start. It’s basically the last questing zone in original World of Warcraft. Before the Burning Crusade expansion came out, this drab, ugly expanse of cracked earth was the end-game zone. This was your reward for chewing through the previous 55 levels of content. This was the carrot at the end of that very long stick. Once you were done here, you were at the level cap (then 60) and there was nothing left to do but go back to Goldshire and dance naked on the mailbox. Or raiding. Whichever.<\/p>\n (EDIT: Some people pointed out in the comments that Blasted Lands is not the only place to go for this level content. If I level another character to 60, I’ll be sure to give these alternate zones a look.)<\/p>\n I did not enjoy my time in the Blasted Lands. Most zones have a bit of variation to them. Elwynn Forest is a forest, yes. But it has local variety: Lakes. Rivers. Clearings. Patches of dense grass. Spots of farmland. Low hills. Tall hills. Most zones are variations on a single theme, not one long note. But once you’ve seen one cracked fissure in Blasted Lands, you’ve pretty much taken the whole tour and you’re ready to go buy your t-shirt. <\/p>\n Blasted Lands is made somewhat worse by following a couple of similar zones. Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes were very similar to the Blasted Lands, except one was red and the other was ash-colored. It’s reasonable to expect that players would be really, really sick of the wastelands style zone before they set foot in the Blasted Lands. <\/p>\n When I dinged level 60, I was thrilled. It was finally time to go through the dark portal and see what fantastic new worlds awaited me. What exotic visual delights were hidden beyond that foreboding door?<\/p>\n Hellfire Peninsula. A giant wasteland. Its two distinguishing features are:<\/p>\n 1) Orange I spent a couple of hours questing in this horrific eyesore and realized that I suddenly hated every human being who ever worked for Blizzard Entertainment. The Blasted Lands was such an amazing chore, and the prospect of spending twice as long<\/em> getting through Hellfire Peninsula filled me with despair. I shelved my character for a couple of weeks. <\/p>\n I thought Hellfire Peninsula was going to cover levels 60-64 or something, based purely on its extreme size and sheer number of quest hubs. I was very relieved when I snuck into the next zone (Zangarmarsh) and found I was high enough level to begin questing there. I abandoned all of my Hellfire Peninsula quests and never looked back. Screw story and continuity. Get me out of this orange-based torment. <\/p>\n And the next zone… check out the next zone:<\/p>\n See, that’s something crazy and different. Variety, changes of hue, contrast. What was Blizzard thinking when they added Hellfire Peninsula? What would posses them to lead off the expansion with a zone identical to the one everyone had just played? If they needed an orange wasteland for the sake of lore and continuity (not that this has been a big priority for them lately) there was no need to make it this massive. <\/p>\n Now, a bit about city layouts:<\/p>\n I remember being annoyed with how tedious it was to get around in Stormwind. The maze of walls. The long hike over the bridge and the longer hike to the docks. The annoying wall between the main entrance and the flight master. The general inconvenience of some city services. (Having the forge on the opposite side of the city from the auction and vault always drove me crazy.)<\/p>\n Then I got to know the game a bit better and discovered that nearly every other city in the game was worse. The only superior city was Ironforge, which was the most convenient and easy-to-navigate city in the game. (This was before Cataclysm came out. Now Stormwind has that honor. All of the problems with Stormwind can be mitigated by flying over all of the low interior walls.) <\/p>\n Horde-side cities seem to be far worse than Alliance, to the point where it seems like it can’t possibly be an accident. Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity all have multi-level layouts with elevators. Of these, Undercity is the worst. Let me tell you about Undercity. <\/p>\n It has three large, empty chambers to pass through before you’re actually inside. Okay, this one is pretty cool:<\/p>\n This location comes from one of the key turning points in Warcraft 3:<\/p>\n
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\n2) Four times as large as the Blasted Lands. <\/p>\n
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