The Riverglades

At a glance

• More than 150 quests, targeted at mid-30s through mid-40s charactersConfirmed
• A frontier of rivers, grasslands and trade routesConfirmed
• Sits on the eastern coast of the Eastern KingdomsConfirmed
• Orcs, humans, ogres and goblins in conflict — ogre encampments and goblin trade routes among the landmarksConfirmed
• Draws on the look and factions of the earlier Warcraft strategy gamesConfirmed
• This is the single most valuable zone in the game for levelling pace, because the 35–45 gap is Classic’s worstSpeculative

How to read these labels. Confirmed — Stated by Blizzard at BlizzCon or in official material. Strong signal — Datamined, or consistent across every previous Classic launch. Usually right. Speculative — Our read. Reasoned, but not fact, and we will say so when it turns out wrong. Unknown — Nobody has said. We are not going to pretend otherwise.

The gap it fills

Anyone who has levelled in Classic knows the shape of the problem: quests dry up around 35, and the stretch to 45 becomes Stranglethorn, Desolace, and a lot of grinding between them. Adding 150+ quests in exactly that band is the most consequential levelling change in Forever, and it is easy to overlook next to a new race.

For anyone planning a route, this is the zone that changes the maths. A dense, purpose-built questing zone at 35–45 could remove several hours from a 1–60 run and take the worst grind out of the middle game.

Faction and flavour

The four-way orc, human, ogre and goblin conflict is a deliberate callback to Warcraft I and II, which suggests contested quest hubs rather than a neatly split zone. Coverage of the announcement also places the Scarlet Monastery among the zone’s landmarks — treat that as reported rather than confirmed until the beta shows the map.

What to watch in beta

Two things decide whether Riverglades is a great zone or a crowded one: how the quest hubs are split between factions, and whether the level band is really 35–45 or drifts wider. The beta is capped at level 30, so this zone may not be fully testable before launch.

Related

• Mount Hyjal