Part of the sheer fun of fresh start servers and going through WoW Classic again is becoming reacquainted with that old and welcome friend, the original starting zone. When World of Warcraft originally came out in 2004, there were but six of these, as the Gnomes and Trolls were too late to the party to get their own special regions and had to share.

As I’ve gone through all of these zones more times than I can count, and because my head is very much in the early game of WoW Classic right now, I wanted to have some fun this week by ranking all six of these starting zones — the newbie areas and surrounding region — from worst to best. Let’s crack into this!

I want to say this up front: Out of the six zones we’ll be looking at today, I consider only one to be mediocre, and that is Durotar. It’s not awful, but it’s easily the lowest on the totem pole of these starting experiences. The sea of tan and endless rocks exudes a weak personality, dumping players into a craggy desert with not a lot of fun factor to it. It’s almost a relief to get to the savannah of the Barrens after trudging through Durotar’s canyons and sparse vegetation.

I’m sure to get some flak for putting Teldrassil so low on this list, as I know that some players are incredibly fond of the Night Elf starting region. And while I admit that there are some great vibes (and music!) happening with this unique tree-top zone, Teldrassil comes with the headache of the most difficult navigation out of all of the zones, a cluttered landscape, and a complete lack of mining nodes for any wanna-be miners. I’ve also found this to be surprisingly difficult and sometimes tedious for newbie players. It’s definitely a mixed bag.