World of Warcraft Wednesday: Shattrath City
Shattrath City was the first large city in World of Warcraft to count as a home for both Horde and Alliance, and was the major city hub for the Burning Crusade expansion. It also had the distinction of being the first zone, even on full PvP servers, that did not allow PvP of any kind.
Now sure, there were a lot of neutral cities in vanilla WoW, mostly Goblin outposts like Gadgetzan or Everlook, but none of them ever served as a “home base” for players. But the trip into the expansion was often a mad dash to get to Shattrath so that everybody could set their hearth there and have access to the whole game.
And it was neat, in its time. Having the whole server in one area allowed for some neat interaction, and gave the game a feel of a real concentrated war effort that it hadn’t had since the Ahn’Qiraj patch. Of course, there were many instances of “Shattrath Lag,” even on low population servers where there were way too many people in one spot for most computers to keep up with the server.
Convenience: C+
On the one hand, Shattrath was fantastic during playthroughs. You could get from there to anywhere in Outlands in a very short period of time, there are portals from the city to any vanilla city (plus later Quel’Danas) for easy travel, and there are a lot of factions and vendors to interact with inside the city.
The major issue is, in an attempt to combat the inevitable lag that came with creating it, they built Shattrath way too big. Everything is too far spread out and the vendors and trainers unevenly spread and curiously laid out. It was the same problem that Exodar and Silvermoon suffered from, so I guess Burning Crusade was just the “Let’s see how big we can build this city” expansion.
The problem is somewhat mitigated by the ability to fly in the city (something they didn’t really work out with Dalaran in Wrath of the Lich King), but even that can still be a little annoying. You get used to the quirks of Shattrath fairly quickly once you know the city, however.
Ambiance: C
In contrast to the strikingly lovely Silvermoon and the colorful, twinkling Exodar, Shattrath is really rather boring. Everything is the same color dusty brown, most of the buildings (where there are buildings) are half put together holes rather than anything interesting. It’s a clever design decision (Shattrath was a city under siege, after all), but really boring when you have to spend your time there.
The NPCs are fairly unique, however, and add a good bit of flavor. Refugees and orphans run around the city, beggars line the entrances, that one ogre is always stealing apples, and, of course, Griftah the salesman is selling junk in the corner (when he’s not being forced out of the city).
Special Features: A
As the key hub for a whole expansion, Shattrath has its fair share of special features. There’s the portals back to vanilla, the launching portal for Quel’Danas (and the Sunwell raid), and any number of different faction specific areas and quests to do, along with battleground queues. Additionally, there are the Aldor and Scryer tiers, two small areas of the city that have their own questing points. It’s an interesting little functionality, because earning rep for one faction decreases rep for the other, to the point where you cannot enter the other faction’s part of the city. But the rep gains are available regardless of whether you are Horde or Alliance, so you’ll often have Horde Aldor and Alliance Aldor sharing inn space and vendors, and (back then) raiding the Scryers together. A fun little diversion.
Key Stats
Average Population: Medium
Class Trainers: None
Best Feature: Still the best place to have your hearth set from 58-68.
Worst Feature Tries to do too much with too much open space
Recommended Hearth for Levels: 58-68
Shattrath is still the place to be if you’re shuffling through old content or trying to level through Burning Crusade. It’s got all the amenities a character could need, and once you get used to the placement of everything it’s not that bad to navigate. It would be nice if they had class trainers in the city, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Dalaran is clearly the better option at this point for generic hearths, but Shattrath is probably going to be less crowded if you’re worried about lag now.