Blizzard has said that World of Warcraft: Forever will add more than 1,000 new quests, and during the BlizzCon demo I stumbled across one that gave me a much better idea of what that actually means.
While leveling a new Human through the starting zone, one of the first Kobold Vermin I killed dropped a brand new item called a Nibbled On Book. Clicking it started an entirely new quest chain that I had never seen before, despite leveling through this area more times than I can count.
The quest itself is small, but the way it fits into the existing zone, helps smooth out early leveling, and how it even introduces professions made it one of my favorite little discoveries from the entire demo.
A New Quest Hidden Inside a Very Familiar Starting Zone
The Nibbled On Book sends you back to the librarian inside the chapel. After speaking with him and another nearby NPC, you learn that the local kobolds have been stealing books… And apparently, they’re also eating them.
You are then sent back out to recover eight of the stolen books before the kobolds can finish destroying them. The drop rate on these books was atrocious, and It took a little while to farm all 8 books up. Which actually worked out surprisingly well from a leveling perspective. Between the experience from the new quest chain and all of the extra mobs I killed while collecting the books, I left the starting zone a little over Level 6. Normally, I would spend some time grinding mobs before heading toward Goldshire so I can learn my LV 6 skills, so the extra Exp was very nice.
The Reward Can Teach You a Profession
The most interesting part of the chain comes at the end.
Instead of receiving a normal weapon or piece of armor, you are given a choice between new profession instruction manuals for Mining, Skinning, or Herbalism. For example, Mining for Dummies increases your Mining skill by 2, and you cannot raise your Mining skill above 15. More importantly, if you do not already know Mining and still have an available profession slot, using the item will teach you Mining automatically. The Skinning and Herbalism versions work the same way for their respective professions.
That means a new character can begin one of the gathering professions directly from a starting zone quest instead of immediately traveling to a profession trainer, or in my case, running all the way to Stormwind to learn Mining.
A Small Change That Makes Early Leveling Smoother
Nothing about this quest completely changes the leveling experience, and that is probably why I liked it so much. It fits naturally into a zone that already exists. A zone I’ve known for over 20 years.
The kobolds are still the same kobolds players have been killing for decades. The original quests are still there. Blizzard has simply added another little story alongside them that gives players more experience, more reasons to explore the area, and a useful reward at the end.
For longtime Classic players who already know these starting zones almost by memory, finding something unexpected like this can make an old leveling route feel new again.
More Than 1000 New Quests Are Coming to WoW Forever
Blizzard’s promise of more than 1000 new quests sounds impressive on paper, but it is difficult to know what that means until you actually encounter one in the world. This quest gives us at least one example of how those additions can work.
Rather than replacing Classic’s original questing experience, Blizzard can add new stories between the existing ones, fill gaps in leveling routes, introduce profession systems more naturally, and give veteran players something they have not already completed dozens of times.
For me, this tiny quest did more to sell the idea of WoW Forever’s new leveling experience than a giant number on a presentation slide ever could.
If Blizzard has hidden this kind of content throughout Azeroth, discovering those new quests may end up being one of the most enjoyable parts of leveling in WoW Forever.
