This is what completely ruined battlegrounds for me for the time being. I hung out at 49 for awhile playing battlegrounds and having a great time, but the lure of 50 (and then 60) tempted me away. I tried playing some BGs and even at 59 it was just way too annoying dealing with the DKs. Aren’t they given a full blue armor set? I’m hoping that by the high 60s I will have caught up and BGs will be fun again.
Yes, DKs get a full blue armor set by the time they exit their starting quest chain. What makes it even worse in many cases is that since up until recently you had to have a 70 on the same server where you created your DK, they are often well funded by the “main” who funnels them gear, enchants, and other things to make them competitive. One of my fellow guild officers has a twink DK who has been coming along on our raiding guild’s LOLruns of things like Blackwing Lair and Molten Core, and since none of the 80s care about the gear (they’re just there for achievements and elementium ore and such) he’s pretty insanely decked out. His biggest worry is leveling out of his bracket from all the XP he gets on the runs.
Yeah, it’s a full blue Outlands-caliber armor set. Kind of fun, but I’m sure it’s frustrating for people who’ve levelled up their 50-somethings the hard way.
I just want to do that with other newbs! I have an 80 warlock, 79 priest, 77 druid, 71 hunter - if I could level my other characters that way I’d do it in a heartbeat. (63 DK, too, btw, and my others are 35 and lower.)
I took the tram for the first time last night - clever buggers those gnomes.
If you keep an eye out from one side of the “underwater” portion of the tram ride (can’t remember which side now), you’ll see a threshadon named “Nessy”.
Dinged 30 on my troll hunter a couple nights ago. 
On to saving up the moolah for a mount! I’m low level enough that the hunter changes haven’t really been nailing me so far, although I suspect my song will change once I get more experience, both levelwise and gameplay-wise.
I also rerolled a draenei shaman to see how that does, and I must say, I’m getting a lot of enjoyment out of the draenei story – they got a whole background and what do trolls get? Witch doctors. I will also add that I found Exodar to be confusing as heck to navigate without being sneaky and resorting to Cartographer. Still had to check with the NPCs for directions more than once.
Beautiful though, I spent plenty of time just wandering and staring. I took a screencap for posterity of the Hall of Light or whatever it’s called, with the big pink central display.
Some of the draenei quests have hilarious names. And the characters had very cool injoke names as well. Actaeon anyone?
The Exodar is evil. Pretty, but evil. Getting around there is a nightmare. The spouse calls it an architectural collaboration between M. C. Escher and Satan, and I think he’s about right on the mark.
But then again, he can’t find his way around Undercity, and that’s easy as pie for me. Thunder Bluff is the one that gives me trouble. You can tell I only play blood elves and the occasional undead. 
“Red Snapper … Very Tasty!” is the one that had me LMAO. What they should have done with that quest, though, is while you’re doing the quest you should fish up a Watertight Chest full of … “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”
I thought the Death Knight starting area was well-designed and lots of fun, but as you said it wasn’t a challenge at all. Once you take your DK out in the “real world,” just start taking higher-level quests, soloing quests designed for two players, or just practice aggroing and taking down groups of mobs your own level or higher. You can make the game as challenging as you want it to be.
I also found much more challenge when I outgrew the “starting blue” gear. Since I’ve never taken my DK into an instance, he’s wearing all greens now, which cuts down a bit on the overpowering.
The only thing they did right in the Exodar is to put a mailbox right outside the auction house, so you don’t have to run back and forth to a mailbox around the corner (Stormwind), across the bridge (Ironforge), or over the lake (Darnassus).
It only really bottoms out once you hit 70, my first DK is around 68 and with my only group gear being from the Ring of Blood (the axe) I’m still pretty overpowered. At 70 if you have some spare change you can (mostly) counteract some of the decline by getting the Cobalt “set” (some Blacksmithing gear that’s not part of a set but goes well together, I don’t know the pieces offhand though) and while there are SOME things that instances are best at you can keep up with mostly quest rewards. I’ve heard they hit “balance” at around 75, I think the initial overpoweredness was intentional because Blizzard wanted the level 55 starters to be able to at least somewhat keep up with the 70s. Except Shadow of Death, that talent is still ludicrous.
Also, don’t forget they nerfed Outland to hell right before WoTLK came out, the DK is still overpowered but Outland in general became about 6 times easier.
The Exodar is a nightmare to get around in. Vendors and trainers seem to be located randomly on different levels and there are no clear paths from one place to another. If it wasn’t for the jewelcrafting trainer I’d never go there.
I usually hearth in Ironforge. It’s easy to navigate and distances are short.
Here are my capital preferences in order:
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Ironforge – If you wave at the guards they wave back. Now that’s a friendly city!
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Thunder Bluff – Short run distances and there’s a forge right next to the auction house!
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Stormwind – Pretty easy to find your way around. The main drawback is that forge is hidden away back in the dwarf quarter. And it’s wicked crowded.
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Undercity – Nice and compact but too symmetrical. That’s confusing. Plus it’s depressing. And the auction house and bank are too far apart.
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Orgrimmar – Sprawling and crowded. Lots of useful stuff tucked WAY in the back. I avoid it unless absolutely necessary.
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Darnassus – Not bad in and of itself, but having to teleport to get to the flight paths is a deal-breaker for me. Plus it’s a long run from the auction house to the bank. And there’s no forge at all! My wife loves hearthing there because it’s so calm and peaceful. Yeah, it’s calm and peaceful because most people avoid it like the plague!
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Silvermoon City – Even more of a backwater than Darnassus. To get anywhere you have to run all the way to the back corner, teleport to the Undercity, and then run some more. And it’s as sprawling as Orgrimmar. If it wasn’t for the ERPing Blood Elves it would be a ghost town.
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Exodar – The absolute worst. Remote, jumbled and confusing. Now that I’m levelling my jewelcrafter I go there regularly and I still get lost every time I try to find the forge. Even the draenei don’t hearth there.
My name is jayjay, and I’m an idiot.
I just started a Hordie DK tonight, and decided to pick up the starter quests for Horde races once I got “freed”. So I go to Mulgore (my supposed home zone) and pick up fishing in Bloodhoof Village. Equip the fishing pole and go to buy lures.
Well, didn’t I sell my sword…the really nice blue one that you get at the end of the DK starter quests? And then log out to go pick up supervenusfreak at work? And not realize I’d done it until I get back home, log in, and wonder why Fishing Buddy is still showing?
:smack:
Actually, there is a forge in Darnassus. On the bridge between the bank and the Warrior’s Terrace, there’s a platform to either side of the bridge. The south side of the platform (on your right as you face the Warrior’s Terrace from the bank) there’s a single small forge. There’s no anvil, however; Auberdine is better for metalworking than Darnassus when it comes to northern Kalimdor. But for quick smelting it does all right.
Ironforge is simply the best city I’ve seen in game (I have yet to see Shattrath or Dalaran). Nothing’s terribly far from anything else. Definitely the best place to get stuff done.
I’m surprised there’s even a forge in Darnassus. There are no ore nodes on Teldrassil at all.
I find my way around SW and TB very easily, probably because my two mains are human and tauren.
Org and IF always confuse me, though I’m getting better in IF. Org is bad because of the way the “roads” loop over and under each other. I can be in the vicinity of the place I want to be but get frustrated because I just can’t find it, and it will turn out I’m either over it or under it. In IF, I always seem to go the wrong direction around the circles. It may be a 100-yard run clockwise to the bank, but I’ll inevitably head off counter-clockwise. And what do dwarves have against putting their shops at street level? The whole city is already underground! Why do I need to go down more steps to get into a shop? Or even more mind-numbingly nonsensical, what’s up with shops that make me go up a flight of stairs from the street, through a door, and then down two flights of stairs to reach the actual shop? Makes no sense at all.
ETA: I avoid Undercity as much as possible, simply because my bigass tauren finds negotiating that place incredibly difficult.
I think The Exodar is the way it is simply because it’s supposed to have been improvised rather than designed by the inhabitants.
Maybe it’s just me, but why is the locksmith in SW always indicated by a red-with-yellow-exclamation-point location flag on the minimap? I don’t see that in any other capital city. SW can’t be the only one with a locksmith, can it? I think I asked for directions to the locksmith one time — mistakenly assuming he could pop a lockbox for me (and really, why can’t he?) — and the flag has never gone away since. (Or maybe it was always there.) It makes it confusing when I’ve asked for directions to some other location in the Dwarven District — I always seem to home in on the locksmith instead.
The individual shops and homes in Ironforge are that way (I surmise) precisely because the dwarves are used to living underground. It’s more natural for them to have the entrance above the primary dwelling. They likely don’t feel comfortable just having human-style houses, even if IF is underground. Although that them raises the question of why the shops were constructed as houses, rather than dug down from the main terrace.
The first time I went to the Undercity, I couldn’t figure out how to get into the city from the ruins above ground. I would go down the hallways, and there would be two of those construct guys guarding an (apparent) dead end. It was while my toon was standing there (and me swearing out loud at the game ) that the elevator door popped open and someone else ran out.
“Oh ho!” I said.
After that it was pretty easy – although it still took me a while to figure out where the Auction House was (turns out that there’s no single auction house - just auctioneers scattered around one of the city rings.)
No kidding. I was swapping between NPCs, Cartographer, and the in-game map to get ANYWHERE. For a bit I couldn’t remember how to escape! :eek: I’m determined to bash the map into my head eventually…
I still haven’t found Nobundo, though. The map claims he’s right where I’m standing, but the map is a lie.
To Mister Rik, does the fact that the icons are slightly shaded if you’re over or under them altitude-wise help? It does for me, but it’s fairly subtle if you haven’t figured out what to look for.
I’m learning where things are in Thunder Bluff, mainly because it costs so gol-darned much to fly back and forth between Ashenvale and Orgrimmar. Ouch. Surprisingly, I didn’t have too much trouble with Org, possibly because it was my first city.
Look around the area that you see the flag for a ramp. He’s up above you on one of those balcony things.