The Reason I Hate Night Elves

Okay, maybe not the only reason.

While slacking off this weekend, I once again attempted one of my greatest WoW hurdles: leveling a Druid. While doing this, I had an epiphany.

I think I may have figured out just WHY I dislike Night Elves so much.

Teldrassil is an exercise in frustration.

First of all, let's look at Teldrassil itself:



See all those mountains and caves? Yeah, that's a pain to navigate. Since there are quests that have you running back and forth all over the place, you can't just point down the road and autorun while playing Peggle.

Dun Morogh is complicated as well, but more compact. Goldshire is frakking huge, but very easy to navigate. None of the starting zones are perfect, but Teldrassil seems to be the worst, at least on Alliance side.

Next, most of the Elves I've attempted to level have been Leatherworkers. The Leatherworking Trainer is just outside Darnassus. That's a heck of a haul every 5-10 skill levels.

So far, minor annoyances, but really no reason to discriminate against an entire species, right? To be honest, the Elves THEMSELVES should be enough of a reason, but it's easier to justify this way.

Let's look at the classes available to Night Elves, and how well they perform at very early levels.

Warrior - No worse at low levels than anything else. Anybody can become one, so you rarely see Elf Warriors.
Priest - Can Priests do ANYTHING before level 20+?
Rogue - Terrible survivability without the damage to make up for it yet.
Hunter - Playing a Hunter before level 10 is one of the worst things anyone can do. Thankfully, my Dwarf Hunter was my first character, so I didn't know it COULD be any better.
Druid - Same as Hunter. Sure, you have spells, but nowhere near enough mana to use them much.

So, with the exception of Warrior, all these classes are brutal to play at Teldrassil level.

Finally, the quests. I despise these quests.

EVERY time through, one of the species flat-out refuses to drop one of its body parts. And it's a different headache each time!
Practically EVERY enemy in this zone either can heal, will run away at low health, or be completely impossible to pull less than 2 or 3. Usually all of the above. I don't mind multiple pulls every now and then, but every darn time is a bit annoying.
Too many "bosses" are completely impossible to solo pull. Since they're even tougher than the USUAL annoying enemies, this becomes very frustrating.
Then there's that place.

Sure, Hunters get their pets, Druids get Bear Form, Rogues become awesome and you can always just group up. But I don't want to wait. I don't want to grind. I don't want to deal with your average low-level NIGHT ELF player. A newbie zone should be quick and easy. I should be able to do the quests in whichever order I please, without needing to wait until level X to be able to attempt it. I should be able to just go on autopilot by this stage of my WoW career.

At Level 8, I should not be this frustrated. At Level 8, I should not want to just stop playing. At Level 8, I should not already be considering making it a Free Realms night.

How in the world did ANYBODY who made I Night Elf their first character continue playing this game?

Oh yeah, it only gets worse.