Five zones I love because I spent most of my “5 quests that I love” post trying (and failing!) really hard not to say, “Well, it’s really that I love the whole zone.”

1. Howling Fjord

Now, I’ll be honest here, I love it because it’s so pretty. It’s the first place I went once Wrath came out and I fell in love right away. The towering cliffs, the waterfalls, the trees – it was distinctly like home, or the best parts of home anyway. Look, what I am trying to say is that it’s nothing like the Midwest with their lousy excuses for mountains and pitiful attempts at points of interest. Grizzly Hills also reminded me of better geographical locations, but something about it is just less than Howling Fjord.

There are a few quest lines I really like in Howling Fjord, but by and large, I am there for the scenery. And for the inspiration to break into the Dead Parrot sketch because who doesn’t love Monty Python? I mean other than my unenlightened parents who don’t “get” British humor and who also aren’t in love with Douglas Adams. /cry

2. Duskwood

This isn’t surprising because I already mentioned it last week. I love this zone so much and am sad every time I think I’m taking my last character through it. So far, I haven’t actually reached the point where it’s been my last one through, largely because I keep deleting characters, I don’t know why. I do think that getting a Worgen Rogue through there will be the last time I see it – on my home server at any rate. I’ll be all out of character slots at that point – and will have one of everything. And with more and more of my characters hitting 80, I’m not likely to delete any of them.

That whole paragraph turned into something like a smug “Oh, look at me, I have lots of high level toons,” thing. (As an aside, I am still laughing at the guy in <SAN> who said that people with 6 80′s have no life…) Anyhow, where I first hated the gloom and the graveyards and all the back and forth and back and forth (back in Vanilla when we had no ponies at 20 and everything was uphill in the snow both ways), I began to like the zone as I figured out how to best group quests up. It’s gotten to the point now that At asks me what he should do first if he happens to be soloing a character through there. The zone is some of the most efficient leveling I get in at early levels and I love it.

3. Dustwallow Marsh

Another non-surprise, given that I largely failed at reigning myself in last week, Dustwallow Marsh makes the list. Blizzard honestly got a much better grasp on laying quests out by the time they released BC and the overhaul of that zone was sorely needed. I have been able to quest through there on both my many Alliance characters and on my one Horde-side character that I’ve managed to get past 20. I thoroughly enjoyed both experiences. While the zone is contested, it had so much more variety in quests than, say, STV does. There is some overlap thanks to the Goblins, of course. But by and large, each side gets a unique experience and it’s relatively painless to go from one quest to the next. I am all about a painless leveling experience.

4. Searing Gorge

A zone that I feel is chock-full of win. There’s essentially only the one place to get any quests from and once you have them all collected, you run down the hill and kill everything in sight. Everything. For someone who enjoys a little pew pew, this zone is a dream. I personally love target rich environments! As with Duskwood, there is a little bit of a learning curve as far as getting quests laid out in a certain order so that you’re never killing anything unnecessarily only to find out that you’re going to have to come back 15 minutes later and kill it all again. I’m about to take the baby huntard through the zone and I am way more excited for that than what is probably healthy.

5. Sholazar Basin

Nagrand is pretty, but it’s not one of my favorite zones. I just felt like I should acknowledge the existence of Outlands before I admit that I am charmed by Sholazar Basin. It’s a good mix of “Kill everything in sight!” and “But do it in this order for maximum effect.” More than that, though, I enjoy getting to dig around in the Titan’s fancy digs and getting to learn more about their lore. I’m also something of a sucker for perching on the Etymidian’s shoulder and kicking the crap out of the little undead guys. It’s also a great zone for anyone with a gathering profession – there’s all the ore and herbs and dead animals you could ever hope to shake a stick at.

I admit I don’t understand the existence of a jungle up at the North Pole, but hey, if WoW ever made sense I think it would lose a lot of its charm.

WoW and I are very similar in that regard.