Zone sequence

[KarlMalone]

Ahoy all,

Yes, I've been a member here for a year and a half and this is my first post. Up to now, I've been quite content to just take in what other people have had to say, figuring that any question that needed asking would be asked by someone other than me. After some fairly exhaustive searching though, I've found very little to answer this burning question I have.

Like many others in this particular forum, I've been away from WoW for a while but am coming back shortly. Before fleeing to rural South India for a year, I had a Dwarf Hunter main that I had taken into his mid-40's and several widely representative alts. With my diversity of toons I've seen a pretty good chunk of Azeroth's geography and I know that there are a reasonable number of amazing places to quest and/or grind at any given level. Early quests quite obviously lead you from one logical zone to the next (ie. Dun Morogh to Loch Modan to the Wetlands, Elwynn to Westfall to Redridge, and so on). But is there any compelling reason to follow this logical flow of zones, other than story continuity?

For instance, when I reroll my main, will it be more worthwhile to do my 20-30 questing/grinding in the Wetlands, where the prior quests are designed to take me? Or would it be just as worthwhile to arbitrarily head over to Redridge for those levels because I like the scenery better and enjoy playing there more? (which may not be true... I actually really like the Wetlands. I just use this as a convenient example. You can substitute any two [or three or four] zones of comparable levels). Basically, is it better to go where the game leads me, or can I wander and level wherever my little heart pleases?

Thanks in advance,
Karl

[bwirum]

Both.

I usually find it best to follow the flow, and then wander off to other zones if I run out of quests in my range. As you say you have numerous zones in each level bracket, so you'll actually never find yourself completely running out if you do this. Which is very nice if you find grinding for the next levels tedious.

[Ashenshugra]

I dont think it matters all that much. There are more efficient approaches if your only ambition is to lvl as fast as you can. 1-12 you should be able to stay in your basic starting area. After that you have choices. You can stick with what you know. Or head off to other lvl appropriate areas. Darkshore is probably the better 12-17 area imo. I think most people come up with what Ill call leveling routes. They know the quests and can knock them out fast, they know which quests to skip and where all the npcs are located.
But not all people want to run all over the lands and tend to stick closer to their starting area and work out from there.
I think its well worth it to try out new areas. I always keep Darkshire, wetlands, duskwood and redridge in my starting routes. Im only alliance though.

[Zendarin]

I did the straight lvling routes with my first toon just to learn where the main stuff is - with l8r toons I am finding it more fun to explore and find new quests that I may have missed the first time around - so while I have still done my usual duskwood/redridge/wetlands routine I also picked up a few new quests that I have never seen b4. Also I had a few quests from drops this time that I never got b4 which have been pretty entertaining.

I tried Darkshore with my first toon and pretty much hated it so I avoid that area now and do Loch Modan and Westfall instead.

[dancingstarr]

When I first started playing, I decided I needed to do every single quest in every single area I was in (and learn every single alchemy/cooking recipe/first aid skill/etc), regardless of whether I was interested in the reward. I don't know how I decided that was the way to go about things. /shrug

That got boring after about 30 levels. For the last 20 levels or so, I have been more picky with which quests I bother to do and the second I start to feel bored with an area, I find another one with a similar level. I'm probably missing out on a lot of decent chain quest rewards that way, but at least I'm not losing my interest in playing. That is working out better than my initial approach. I seem to be leveling much faster than I had been -- perhaps because I am not getting bored and spending all of my time fishing. =)

So, I'm in favor of wandering. If you're worried about missing something, go look up the quest giver NPCs when you venture into a new zone.

[poopsmcgee]

i pretty much quest out all the zones lol. not much of a grinder. but the maps in the cartography section of this website can help you out alot in deciding cuz the maps give the level ranges of each zone.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Wherever you want, but know this, I kind of did that with my Huunter and throughout the leveling process I would have any given number of quests from a same level zone on the other side of the world. This increased the time it took me to level and to just generally get around. My quest log was always full with quests (too full) that were spread all over the place. So I started doing all the quests in a given zone which made it a bit faster IMO.
So I would say to do all the quests in a given zone that you've decided to go to that is level appropriate - just don't do some in Eastern Kingdoms and then go to Kalimdor w/ 6 quests in your log from E.K. still . . . unless you want to, but it will slow your progression down.

Once you get to Outland this may be helpful (someone posted a link to this the other day and it seems pretty darn good)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=113843508&sid=1&pageNo=1

GL! :smiley: