Death Knight Beginnings

I wanted to post a few observations about the early stages of being a Death Knight.  By now everyone knows that you start as a level 55 character, and begin a series of quests designed to help you get used to your new abilities.  I’m sure some of items I’m going to discuss in the post will be modified or “balanced” prior to the game going live (if I’m able to do so, I’ll try to verify this towards the end of the beta), but I thought they were interesting.

The first was the time it takes to get out of the Death Knight starting area of Ebon Hold, a floating mass north of Tyr’s Hold in the Eastern Plaguelands.  In reality this starting area is a finely controlled series of quests that appears to seamlessly take you through several instanced versions of the same location.  This is because there are several “zone events” you participate in during the introduction to the Death Knight class, and they seem to segregate those characters participating in the events away from those just running around the world.  Overall it creates a pretty unique experience compared to the more typical quest progression we’re all used to.  So how long does it take?  From the time I started the new character to the time I completed the last Death Knight quest and was able to explore the “normal” regions of Azeroth was 2 hours and 7 minutes.

Two other interesting items of note related to questing: when I turned in that last quest, I also hit level 57 at the same time, gaining a full two levels during the initial quest process.  I also noticed something about the quest density of the starting zone thanks to the new Achievements feature.  As I turned in the last quest, I was notified I had completed 50 quests total.  Yes, 50 quests.  I guess when you’re flying along bouncing between the exclamation marks and question marks, you don’t really notice how quickly you’re tearing through them.

Finally I wanted to point out how the talent progression works when you’re a young Death Knight.  In the starting area for the Death Knights you receive talent points as rewards for quests in addition to items and gold.  If I remember correctly, the individual quest rewards varied from 1 to 6 talent points when you turned in  quest.  This gives you a way to experience some of the character’s capabilities before being burdened wit the decision of how to spend all the talent points you would normally earn one at a time over the course of reaching level 55.  When you complete your final quest to break free of the starting area, you also receive your final talent points.

Speaking of gear, the starting quests of Ebon Hold will systematically replace each of your starting green items with a blue item, creating a character that is decked out completely in blue items by the time you start your own adventures.  Just how far into Outland those items will last remains to be scene, and will be a topic of several new posts here I’m sure.

So there you have it, a little info about the very early stages of a Death Knight’s life.

Tags: Death Knight, Ebon Hold, leveling, wotlk, wow