Newbie guide/Starting areas
- Main article: Starting area
Starting areas are where players level from 1-10 and learn the basic lore about their character's race and experience their first adventures on Azeroth. For players that have never made a character before, your starting area is Exile's Reach. Players who have existing characters already can choose to start at either Exile's Reach or the original starting area for their race.
Exile's Reach
Exile's Reach is the default starting area for players making their first character. After surviving a boat crash upon an uncharted island, you'll level from 1-10 while uncovering the ancient evils that have taken root there.
This is one of the fastest starting areas to complete, and is the most recently updated zone that any race can play — it's great for playing with friends who are making characters of different races, or wanting to experience modern parts of quest design like cutscenes and voice acting, that which is mostly absent in other racial starting areas.
Racial starting areas
Experienced players (players with more than one character) can also pick a unique racial starting zone. Certain quests in these areas are only able to be completed by the appropriate race - as such, it's recommended that players leveling with friends, and plan to start in one of these zones, pick the same race for their characters.
- Orc: Valley of Trials in Durotar. This area is dry and rocky, mostly consisting of reddish desert.
- Tauren: Camp Narache in Mulgore. Mulgore is lush and green, with large lakes, grassy plains, and mountain valleys.
- Troll: Echo Isles, off the coast of Durotar. A chain of tropical islands recently reclaimed by your people.
- Undead (Forsaken): Deathknell in Tirisfal Glades. Tirisfal Glades is a dark forest overrun with the mindless undead of the Scourge.
- Blood elf: Sunstrider Isle, Eversong Woods. Rebuilt city. The Fly-thru actually begins in the Ghostlands, showing the straight path of destruction left behind by the Scourge after their attack on the elven city.
- Goblin: Bilgewater Port, Isle of Kezan, in the middle of the South Seas. A large industrial and mining complex that finds itself in danger when the Cataclysm struck.
Either
- Pandaren: The Wandering Isle. The Isle is a massive island on the back of a giant turtle that wanders the oceans, inhabited by curious pandaren.
- Dracthyr
: The Forbidden Reach. An ancient island fashioned by Neltharion has laid dormant for ages... until now.
- Dwarf: Coldridge Valley, Dun Morogh. A snowy area with mountain paths and frozen lakes.
- Gnome: Gnomeregan, Dun Morogh. A high-tech city of engineering marvels, rendered uninhabitable by a trogg invasion and the radioactive gas which was released to fight them.
- Human: Northshire Valley, Elwynn Forest. A low, forested region with various human settlements in it.
- Night elf: Shadowglen, Teldrassil. A huge, ethereal, twilight forest that perches entirely on top of a colossal World Tree to the northwest of Kalimdor.
- Draenei: Ammen Vale, Azuremyst Isle. Misty forest area around the crash site of the Exodar.
- Worgen: Gilneas City, Gilneas. Capital of a great human kingdom that shut its gates to the outside world years ago.
Some of these starting zones are phased, meaning that for story reasons you'll be presented with a unique personal view of the area, and temporarily separated from other players. The worgen, goblin, pandaren, and dracthyr starting zones are only available to players of the appropriate race, and only at early levels, until story progression renders those areas unreachable.