There’s a case to be made that Durotar, the WoW Classic starting zone for Orcs and Trolls, is the most famous starting zone in the game—even more so than the historic Elwynn Forest. More players have trekked through Durotar than probably any other zone in the game, whether they were leveling a new character or making their way to the Horde’s capital city of Orgrimmar. Contrarily, though, there’s also a case to be made that Durotar is the game’s “worst” starting zone, and players on the WoW Classic subreddit would tend to agree.
In a post to the subreddit earlier today, WoW players debated which of the game’s original six starting zones is the “worst” and a solid majority of players in the comments agreed that Durotar was toward the bottom of that list, largely due to its visual components being uninteresting and relatively bland.
Durotar is pretty infamous for its intense orange glow as the entire zone is a desert with cracked ground, orange-tinted mountains, and hot-beating sun. If you level an Orc in the middle of the night with all of the lights off in your room, the orange tint from your monitor would have you squinting. That dryness and extreme auburn hue to the backdrop of the first few zones of the Horde leveling experience is a common theme throughout, and Durotar is the standard bearer.
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One WoW player with the username Kablam29 said “I have to adjust my display settings while leveling through Durotar or I get a headache,” to which another commenter replied with a console command for WoW that reduces the zone’s trademark orange tint that many Horde players have had to live with for almost 20 years.
On the contrary, the early Alliance zones are littered with different colors. Humans go from the lush green forests of Elwynn to the bright gold backdrop of Westfall, while dwarves start out in the blinding white snows of Dun Morogh before being welcomed into the deep green swamps of Loch Modan and the Wetlands. In the case of the Horde, though, much of Northern Kalimdor, including Durotar, the Barrens, and the Stonetalon Mountains, all have the same orange tint to them.
Beyond Durotar, another zone that was mentioned by name as a candidate for the “worst” by the player base was Mulgore (the Tauren starting zone) due to its ridiculously large size and the distance players have to travel between quest objectives. Teldrassil (the Night Elf starting zone) was also mentioned, with players praising its unique visuals but criticizing how overtuned and difficult it can be in comparison to other introductory zones.
