Reporting on games as I play them
The Hinterlands lies just north of the Arathi Highlands and is the next area that Eastern Kingdoms questers will encounter. The Hinterlands was particularly less visited before the Shattering as those questing in the Eastern Kingdoms would get breadcrumb quests down to Stranglethorn Vale after completing Arathi Highlands, so it's a zone that I had little experience with, except during holidays when I would run up there to take care of whatever meaningless tasks I needed for the achievements. Although the revamp of the zone does improve its accessibility and flow, like the Highlands before it, it doesn't really have an interesting story or memorable moments and proves to be a rather dry experience.
The basic story in the Hinterlands is about trolls, especially if you're Horde as you align yourself with the Revantusk trolls as well as a group of Forsaken who are both battling the Vilebranch trolls. Along the way you do a lot of random killing and fetching for the locals and that's about it. There is a bit of story sprinkled into the region as the trolls in their huge temples are trying to call down the spider goddess, Shadra, and that's about the most interesting the region gets.
The problem with this is, that like the Horde presence in the Highlands, there's just nothing really compelling about what's going on in the Hinterlands, nor any connection between what questers experienced in the Highlands and what they experience in the Hinterlands, making it all seem even more like a bunch of randomly assembled quests. At least the conflict between the Horde and Alliance in the region (via their Wildhammer dwarf and Revantusk troll proxies) is actually seen a little, but for a contested zone, the Alliance and Horde are surprisingly at peace.
At least the zone doesn't feature any group quests as those made the rather dead zones of Hillsbrad Foothills and Arathi Highlands difficult to complete. However the Hinterlands does contain a rare world-drop quest that completionists might tear their hair out while trying to acquire, killing everything in the zone perhaps five times over to find. Although the final fight of the zone is mildly interesting, overall, the Hinterlands is much like the Arathi Highlands in terms of lacking flavor and story and is not a compelling experience. On the plus side, when you're done, you get sent right into a much more dynamic experience in the Western Plaguelands.
Links:
- Game website
Zone Index: