Reporting on games as I play them
After the rather unexciting zones of Arathi Highlands and The Hinterlands, the Western Plaguelands helps a little to make up for the deficiencies of the former by adding a little story, some callbacks to past experiences and a few varied experiences to help tie it together. The zone still suffers a little from a lack of cohesiveness, especially on the Horde-side questline, due to some of tenuous alliances that are made, given the nature of the Forsaken in the area. However, the conflict between the Horde, Alliance as well as the Scourge make this zone a bit more interesting, even if not as impressive as the Silverpine Forest experience or as affecting as the Hillsbrad Foothills one.
You arrive in the middle of Andorhal, a fortress in the middle of the area that is currently in the middle of a three way fight between the Alliance, Horde, and Scourge and as a Horde, you assist your side. The zone returns to phasing allowing your experience to differ from Alliance players who would undertake the other side. Along the way, you discover that your commander is old war buddies with the Alliance's death knight commander and the Battle for Andorhal remains the central (and most interesting) storyline in the zone.
However, you also assist the Forsaken is beating away the remnants of the Alliance and are curiously then tasked to aid the Argent Crusade and Cenarion Circle by the Forsaken controlling the area, which is strange given the opposing aims of the Forsaken and the two neutral parties. That does lead to a little more varied gameplay, bringing back memories of the variety in Hillsbrad Foothills, but it doesn't quite have the same kind of continued storyline or urgency that the aforementioned zone does. However, there is a moment at a destroyed Scarlet Crusade camp that echoes back to your experience in Tirisfal Glades and that's a welcome experience. If only that story element were deeper woven into the story of the Eastern Kingdoms, at least as far as the Scarlet Crusade is concerned.
Western Plaguelands isn't quite compelling, I'd say, but it is a noticeable step up from the previous two zones, especially in that it reveals a thing or two about who the Forsaken are, continuing with some of the story elements introduced in Silverpine Forest and that gives the zone a bit of greater story weight that adds a little bit more to the epic feel of the zone, like participating in a real grand story.
That doesn't mean that the zone couldn't have been better tied together in terms of story and avoiding the strange experience of having the Forsaken in such cozy cahoots with the Argent Crusade, but it still remains an improvement in experience from the past couple zones. The zone also hosts the dungeon Scholomance, but like in most of the previous zones, the dungeons no longer seem tied to the quest leveling experience, which is a little bit of a shame, considering that it leaves a piece of the map unexplored. And when it's all done, you're asked to visit the Eastern Plaguelands.
Links:
- Game website
Zone Index: