Totally Warcraft

Goblin: Level 1-13

I started a Goblin hunter earlier this week and after totally completing the starter zone I have to say I’m pretty happy with what Blizzard has developed for The Horde’s newest allies.  You start out in Kezan, a colorful area which is chaotic as only a goblin zone can be.  Architecture is very similar to what you see in the current Venture Company areas or in the Shimmering Flats, and mishaps by the residents is not an uncommon occurrence.  Goblins start out with two very nice racial skills; Rocket Jump (activates your rocket belt to jump forward) and Rocket Barrage (launches belt rockets at an enemy, dealing fire damage). Those who choose Alchemy as a profession will start with a 15 point skill advantage, and the Time is Money skill gives you a 1% increase in attack and casting speed. Perhaps the best racials though are Best Deals Anywhere, which gives you the best discount regardless of faction, and the parting gift you get as you exit the zone, a “pack hobgoblin” which allows you to call your very own banker, no matter where you are! He’s good for 1 minute and has a 30 minute cooldown.

Progression is managed though a pretty standard series of quests which will seem all too familiar to veteran players. First you get an introduction from the guy standing directly in front of you, who then sends you off to the next quest giver, located very close by. The sequence continues, with quests being a mix of kill, collect, deliver, and report, all designed to allow you to enlarge your realm of familiar territory without getting totally lost. I didn’t find any of it terribly challenging, but neither was it boring. “Cute” is the word that keeps coming to mind.

One very cool thing that makes this experience different than any of the previous starter areas is that after the first half dozen quests you’re given a Hot Rod to jet around in. It makes exploring the starter area much more fun and the comments you get from citizens when you accidentally run over them are classic. The fact that you’re given a quest in which the task at hand is to run over a series of “bad guys” makes it even more fun. You keep the Hot Rod for the rest of the time you’re in the “noob” area, which mean for some two dozen quests. The down side is that when you move to the next zone level, you lose your wheels and are back to walking.

Moving from the starter area to the full Lost Isles experience involves being teleported to the beach at Shipwreck Shore, which is on the second largest island. After a cut-scene plays through you start the first of another two dozen quests which include bomb-throwing monkeys, a gyrochoppa bombing run, and a couple of missions to help Thrall, as well as an escort quest through a cavern. Once done with these you’re sent off to Town-In-A-Box in a most goblin-esque way – launched through the air to land in your next new home, the largest of the three islands. The center of this island is a volcano and there are just over 50 more quests that can be obtained before you’re finally sent by boat to the newly constructed docks outside of Orgrimmar (on the beach, near Skull Rock).

A few things I noticed that are different from all the starter areas in the pre-Cataclysm races:

• There are a lot of phased quests, meaning you can’t get future quests until you’ve done the quests which come before. Anyone who’s completed Icecrown will recognize the pattern, and it works well in such a high level zone. How this will play out with veteran players who’ve already completed other starter zones numerous times, or even those who’ve completed the entire Goblin experience once or twice and don’t want to do it again remains to be seen.
• Rather than quests frequently being clustered, most of them were sequential. There were times when you could pick up three or four quests all together, but for the most part you obtained a quest, completed it, and turned it in before the next quest giver showed that she had quests available. Power players who rush through content by doing quests in clusters will find this frustrating.
• It doesn’t appear to me that you can leave Lost Isles until you’ve completed most of the quests. The NPC who gives you the exit quest is phased and there’s no way off the island except by boat…a boat which won’t leave the dock until you’ve got the exit quest. I’ll play through this at least once more to insure that this is actually a fact.

So, in a nutshell that’s Kezan and the Goblin race. It’s fun, colorful, and zany and should appeal to Horde-minded players who need a bit of change. I’ve tried during the week to think of the downsides to the Goblin race and all I’ve come up with is — they’re short!