Ultimate Quest: Chapter Nine - The Hinterlands

(Spoilers for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.)

Welcome back to the Ultimate Quest, where we play through every zone in World of Warcraft to determine, through an exacting and rigorous science, which quest is truly the greatest of them all!

This week, we woo the hearts of arachnophobic ladies everywhere by squashing a very, very large spider.

Keep your feet on the ground!

On the heels of Arathi Highlands, which wouldn't recognize a plot if one punched it right in the Stromgarde, and The Wetlands, which is chocked full of lovely moments that are only moments, it was a somewhat of a relief to ride into the Hinterlands and actually find something useful to do: intervene in a war.

We meet the Wildhammer dwarves, a branch of the extensive Warcraft family of dwarves that prefers the open air to smelting at great forges inside mountains, who are engaged in warfare with a nearby village of forest trolls. These skirmishes slowly escalate before our attentions our diverted to a more devious and deadly branch of the troll family: the Vilebranch.

The Vilebranch are up to no good, it seems, sacrificing prisoners in horrific blood rites from their mountain city of Jintha'Alor. A back and forth battle through the city eventually reveals that the Vilebranch have perhaps sacrificed one troll or dwarf too many. Their altar is a bloody mess, but instead of euphoric Vilebranch, we instead step over their corpses contend with enormous spiders spilling out of a nearby cave. At first, this seems to be the climax of this particular plot thread, but we soon learn that Jintha'Alor was only the beginning and not enough.

The trolls are attempting to summon a spider loa by the name of Shadra. This is bad news for everyone in the Hinterlands, not just arachnophobes the world over. So rather than allow the Vilebranch to summon Shadra on their own terms, we spend the true climax of the zone working to summon and then slay this terrible spider goddess.

A plot then! That is certainly something, right?

Unfortunately, there is not enough meat on these bones to carry an entire zone, so much of the Hinterlands is spent meandering around pursuing other problems, including Horde and Alliance conflicts that end in status quo (and budget-saving) stalemates. In the end, more of these efforts play into the Shadra plot than is initially suspected, but it's sadly not quite enough to carry forth much intrigue.

Still, a plot is a plot.

Without a doubt, however, the greatest moment in the Hinterlands comes when we first set our eyes upon Aerie Peak's towering (and mostly outdoor) mountain fortress. There are a couple of ways to approach this bastion, including a new tunnel carved through the Arathi Highlands to save adventurers a jaunt through Hillsbrad Foothills, but both views are equally stunning. And as dwarven heroes, we were more than ready to meet mighty, soaring Wildhammer dwarves.

Except we don't.

Inside, Aerie Peak is eerily quiet. It's an enormous piece of level geometry, but it is only inhabited by a handful of dwarves with even less to say. Worse, in service to shorter hub-to-quest standards in modern Warcraft, we found ourselves spending even less time here. There is no Wildhammer story, there are no memorable Wildhammer characters, and there is no sense of who or what these regal, isolated dwarves might be.

Encountering draenei at the nearby Quel'danil Lodge is also initially encouraging. We learn that the draenei, permanent exiles from their home, have come to build a life for themselves here. And when we find ourselves defending their new home from an attack by the Horde's undead Forsaken warriors, we would have reason to suspect we would at least get some more world-building here. But again we are disappointed. After combatting the Forsaken for a single quest cycle, the battle ends as abruptly as it begins, and we are shuffled off to deal with Shadra shenanigans.

It's a shame. The Wildhammers hold such promise with regards to world-building. A civilization of dwarves who hate the underground, but instead prefer to fly gryphons around? Sign me up! I want to hear that story! But instead of a rousing tale of lofty, airborne dwarves, we get a skirmish with boring trolls and yet another cult summoning yet another big bad god. While the draenei and high elves offer an intriguing tale of resettlement and racial tension, they are instead faceless ciphers for an underdeveloped and overburdened phasing system wrapping a limpid battle.

One aspect of the science we must undoubtedly keep in mind is the potential a zone offers. It is one thing to just be boring and bad. It is another to touch greatness, to gird yourself with the full means by which to tell a compelling story, and then leave it all on the floor.

In the end, the Hinterlands offers a few fun things - a visually distinctive and pleasant region, a decently-paced subplot about a big, bad evil spider - but ultimately provides much less than it promises.

Best start this one at the bottom.

V. Arathi Highlands

Squandered opportunities are pretty bad in this science, but a nearly-complete lack of coherency and purpose, not to mention casual racism, is still worse.

The Hinterlands are better than Arathi Highlands.

V. The Badlands

The Badlands is another zone of squandered opportunities, but it does manage to stumble its way to the finish line to tell an interesting story. Spider loas are pretty gross, but fighting one doesn't really ask the player to consider anything new or interesting. If the theme of the Badlands is forgiveness and redemption, the theme of the Hinterlands is just un-examined racial tensions and the disgusting nature of spiders.

It's a closer race, but the Badlands are better than the Hinterlands.

Conclusion

The science is in and irrefutable.

The Hinterlands is the second worst zone in World of Warcraft.

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