Level 43: Thursday, March 23, 2011

Located in the Barrens, across the main path from Razorfen Kraul, is its much harder big brother of an instance, Razorfen Downs. This area used to be the graveyard for the quillboar inhabitants of the Barrens, but it has been taken over by the Scourge.

Since this is one of the first instances to offer plate gear drops off of bosses, it is very popular for warriors and paladins who have just hit Level 40, and are looking to upgrade. The bosses run the gamut of the Scourge's arsenal, including a giant undead spider-like creature, a Nerubian named Tuten'Kash

and an abomination made up of dead victims sewn up together named Glutton.

The final portion of the instance is an ascent up the Spiral of Thorns to the dungeon's ruler, an undead Lich named Amnennar the Coldbringer.

Level 34: Saturday, March 12, 2011

First day off from the exercise in two and a half weeks.

Tucked into the Southern portion of the Barrens is the instance entrance to Razorfen Kraul.

This instance is located inside an oversized briar patch, which is infested with savage quillboars, kind of a mix of pigs and porcupines. This dungeon would be pretty bearable, if it wasn't for the awfully shrill sound that quillboar make when they are killed. Just imagine that...several hundred times.

The final boss of RFK is Charlga Razorflank.

Level 17: Monday, February 21, 2011

Wailing Caverns is another starter dungeon instance located in the heart of the Barrens.

This dungeon might be the most hated in the entire game. Keep in mind, it's meant to be a starter instance, so you wouldn't think it would be too long or convoluted.

Take a mix of people who might be just learning how their characters work, mix it with the most boring aesthetics possible; a never-ending series of caves, make it about two hours long, and you have yourself this place. It is pretty wretched. As near as I can tell, the story involves rescuing a druid who wandered in here and was trapped in the Emerald Dream, which is explained in-game about as well as Poochie's home planet. For all intents and purposes, it is a parallel version of the real world, which non-playable characters sometimes find themselves in. Anyway, your mission is to save the druid, but the wild raptors and corrupted druids inside the caverns stand in your way.

When it comes time to wake him up, you have to protect another one of the druids while he completes the ceremony. However, a creature from the trapped druid's nightmare emerges...a giant murloc.

You kill the murloc, free the druid, and get out of the caverns, most people vowing never to enter again.

This place is not very good!

Level 14, Thursday, February 17, 2011

Located almost directly halfway between the tauren and orc (and troll) capital cities of Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar, the Barrens is the major questing zone for a majority of Horde players between levels 10 and 20.

The chat channel in the Barrens has become internet famous for its tendency to degenerate into Chuck Norris jokes, mom jokes, and other recycled memes.

Most of the aptly-named Barrens is made up of open savanna.

However, the settlements peppered throughout the zone either reflect the architecture of the Native American-inspired Tauren

or war-happy orcs.

There are a few oases throughout the zone to break it up.

The seaside village of Ratchet is home to some lovable Goblins.

But the environmentally unfriendly Venture Company is here, polluting and strip-mining.

Deathwing made his mark in this zone also, burning a gigantic hole right through the middle of it.