Welcome to the Gnome starting areas, New Tinkertown and Dun Morogh.
After you load in, you'll find yourself in The Old Dormitory, an underground area outside of the Gnomeregan dungeon. You will be wrapped in bandages and have a toxic cloud hovering around you. Fear not though, you can get to the surface without doing a single quest and be miraculously detoxified. All you will need to do is run straight ahead, up a ramp to a platform, this will bring you to the Train Depot. Once up on the platform, turn to your right and you will see another ramp going down. Now, run straight till you get to the stairs, then go up them and to the left you will see a doorway, go through it. Hopefully, you will find yourself now in the Loading Room. Turn to your left and go through the next doorway, this will take you past some detox cannons, keep going straight and get on the elevator platform. This is your ticket to the surface and your freedom! Yay! You are now on the surface without having to do a single quest.
Now some of you are probably thinking, "Excuse me, you didn't kill any of the mobs you ran by underground on your way out." No, I didn't. You don't need to, you can if you want to but my main goal here is to get to the surface so I can start going after mobs that have a higher level then the ones underground, this way I can get a little bit more experience faster.
Once on the surface, your bandages and toxic cloud will vanish and your starting gear will be visible. A good place to start out killing would be The Toxic Airfield. You'll have your pick of neutral (yellow) mobs such as Living Contamination elementals, Toxic Sludge oozes, and some Young Snow Leopards. Hanging out around some big gears and toxic air vents you may get lucky and find a rare by the name of Gibblewilt. He is a little male gnome wearing a purple robe fiddling with a control station, so he'll stand out. Just be careful, this mob is a red mob and will aggro on you, so make sure you are ready to take him on before getting too close. I was able to kill him at level 1 and he is a level 4 mob. He gave me 49 copper, a small blue pouch (6 slot bag), and enough experience points to ding level 2. Not bad at all. He seems to respawn in about a half hour.
If you are feeling brave, you could head over towards Frostmane Hold, the part of the zone where the troggs are hanging out. Should you head over there, please be careful. These mobs are red and will aggro on you. I recommend you always please avoid this cave. It gets crazy in there quick, even more so when it's busy.
If hunting rares is your jam, don't forget to check out the back side of Iceflow Lake, where you can find a rare wolf named Timber. You'll find him surrounded by several neutral wolves walking around him. There is also a rare mechanical bunny just over the hill from where you find Timber. Weaponized Rabbot is his name but experience giving is not his game. He will start to scale at one point so keep that in mind. At level 2 when I killed him, he only gave me 58 experience(he was level 3). I did manage to score a small black pouch (6 slot bag) though, so yay free bag!
Once I hit level 5 it's time to dump the junk out of the bags and head for Kharanos. Go to the inn before doing anything else and set your hearthstone. It will make getting back a lot faster when you are done for the day, as there is a lot of impassible mountainsides and long passes. Inside the inn you can find a First Aid trainer as well as a general goods vendor who has 6 slot and 8 slot bags for sale. Now is a good time to grab some updated food and drink if you have the money to spare for it.
Dun Morogh is a pretty spread out zone so you've got plenty of areas to pick to grind in.
Starting out I like to head down to the Grizzled Den. You've got lots of mobs to kill down there. Boars, wolves, and wedigos are just waiting for you to slaughter them, just watch the cave as always. There sometimes is a rare in there but I don't like being in there if I don't have to be. The shit tends to hit the fan pretty quickly in caves.
At level 6 I like to start slowly making my way through the trolls at Frostmane Front. There is a passage at the back area of the Frostmane Front to get to Frostmane Retreat. I'll kill the trolls there till level 7.
Level 7 brings me to The Tundrid Hills area, the spot down the road east of Ironforge with the trolls riding around on the stolen rams. Here you have bears and trolls that you can kill. A rare white bear walks around here as well named Bjarn. I've gotten a 6 slot bag to drop from him, so yay another free bag.
When you hit level 8 you'll have some choices to make depending on how strong you feel on your class choice. If you feel a bit squishy then stay in Dun Morogh till level 10 and head over to Gol'Bolar Quarry to kill some troggs that are outside the cave. You can also head over to Helm's Bed Lake and kill some dark iron dwarves, leopards and boars, as well as some water elementals that are roaming about.
If you feel like you are in a good place and strong enough at level 8, you can try heading over to Loch Modan. Depending on your class, you might be able to get away with slowly killing troggs, bears, spiders and gnolls over there. I was able to take a level 8 gnome disc priest over there and was killing mobs around Thelsamar.
That pretty much covers how I handle this starting area. Have fun and until next time challenge onward and challenge safely!
