Cataclysm Leveling

Last night, I began a new adventure - leveling a goblin shaman all the way from level 1 to level 85. This may seem daunting, but I wanted to experience the new goblin starting area and all of the new level 1-60 quests and content.

The Goblin Starting Area - Kezan

Kezan is, without doubt, the coolest area in all of WoW. It is completely different from anything else in the game. I think someone at Blizzard wanted to make a Grand Theft Auto-esque game, and developed that idea into the new Goblin starting area. I didn't read a whole lot of the quest text because I was in such a hurry to see all of the content, but it appears as though you are part of a gang.

You run around doing quests for the ringleader of your gang that include everything from entertaining party goers to battleing giant robots and running over rival gang members in your newly aquired goblin hot rod. There are streets that snake around Kezan that may take a little getting used to, but the entire experience is extremely fun. At some point, you kick a ball through a "field goal" (really a couple of smoke stacks) and into a volcano, and the next thing you know Deathwing comes flying out of the volcano. It's all really very epic.

After Deathwing appears, you run around trying to save as many people as you can while collecting parts for various things. You even get to blow up the headquarters of your gang. Deathwing's appearance made the volcano very unstable, and you are forced to leave Kezan as quickly as possible. You give your life savings to the guy with the boat and set off for safety.

The Forgotten Isles

You end up shipwrecked on the Forgotten Isles after an Alliance ship blows you out of the water, and you set about trying to gather up as many things as needed so that your people can survive. Here, WoW gets a little closer to the formula that we all know from the past 6 years. The designers have learned a good bit about making quests interesting, though.

On several occasions you are either put on a mount or in a helicopter or canon or some other crazy device to help you move from one point to another very quickly. This eliminates a lot of the backtracking and endless walking that was seen pre-Cataclysm. It almost makes leveling fun.

Final Thoughts

I would recommend that you pick up two professions as soon as possible. These become available from a machine in one of the buildings in the town in a box (really funny). Overall, I thing the leveling experience has been improved upon almost to the point of being painless. The way the world changes based on your actions (a la the death knight starting area in WotLK) makes the game almost feel like a single player experience with a bunch of other people around to help when you need it. If you haven't gotten Cataclysm, get it - as soon as possible.

To help make the leveling process even easier, you can download an in-game Cataclysm Leveling Guide.