The Gaming Lizard

With the most recent beta patch, Blizzard has sadly removed city portals from both Shattrath and Dalaran with is entirely not surprisingly seeing that one of Cataclysm's goals is to bring us back to Azeroth instead of mucking around in Northrend during admin times.

So comes the era of Mages going Donald Trump on us by selling cities portals for 100g each. It is now time to start choosing where your new hearthstone will be linked to.

Is it the noble, overcrowded Stormwind?
Is it the dark danky Ironforge?
Is it the God forsaken-ed Exodar?
Is it the purpley Darnassas?
Or is it the newest Worgen district in..... oh wait.

With plans for a Worgen district in Stormwind scrapped (the proposed area conveniently destroyed by Deathwing), Blizzard has kindly relocated the worgens to good ole Darnassas, my favourite faction city. As a future worgen I should be over the moon (pun unintended) right? No, not really.

What we have instead is a tall tree with none of the Gothic, British-y style buildings of Gilneas. Ok, so the Howling Oak (name of the worgen district) looks pretty BUT it just doesn't feel Gilnean enough.

Taking a look inside, we see a bunch of Night Elves and Worgen/Gilneans prancing about. With only class trainers present, the district feels hollow and extremely lacking. Comparing to the goblin "slums" in new Orgrimmar where they have vendors, innkeepers AND an outdoor auction house, one cannot but feel that somehow Blizzard loves goblins more than Worgen by a whole lot.

Don't get me wrong, the fact that worgen models took ages to be implemented (and the females aren't even ready yet!) shows that the Overlords do care about us, not to mention the ultra-cool, worgen exclusive ability to be its own mount. But worgen zones do need to be beefed up. Goblins get to dominate Azshara while worgen are thrusted into Night Elf territory without a single Worgen storyline in Darkshore.

In Eastern Kingdom, where Worgen quest hubs exist, they account for only about 50% of the quest such as the ones in Duskwoods.

However, it's certainly a bit late to shake things up with regards to the Worgen zones. Hopefully Running Wild (the Worgen mount racial) will be awesome enough to make up for the lackluster zones.

Meanwhile, dear old Stormwind is going to get really really crowded. Why? Cause of the magnificent portals to all the Level 80-85 zones. It also confirms that Blizzard is not giving us 2 zones per level but that is a complain for another day.

So folks, set your hearthstone to Stormwind!