StrawberryShake

Just to throw in my 2 cents. The IBT-TP chokepoint is a nightmare. There are 5 elites inside that area: 2 abominations, 2 Lt. commanders, and the Mine Layer. None of these elites can be CC'd and at least 3 will be aggro'd (Lt. Commanders 100% as well as an abomination). This is on top of 3-4 patrols of 2-3 regular NPCs as well as 4 archers in IBT and 3-4 archers in TP. All of that is within this 15-20 second mount run stretch. The road is also an issue. The entire stretch from IBT to TP is like one long hallway. From IBGY to TP there are dozens of mines on either side that do 1400-1500 AoE damage. That means if you take one step off the road you and everyone around you takes loads of damage. The Mine Layer is a huge threat here because he does 1400-1500 AoE damage around himself. Everyone has to stick to the road or you blow up, everyone also has to stick near the tank who will hopefully be out front getting aggro. Everyone is in a tight pack running down this hallway, no room to go left or right, and Horde almost always have a group of defenders (mages) at this chokepoint spamming AoE slows. You now have 20-30 people slowed down on a slim stretch of road with mines on either side, elites running wild, the Mine Layer doing his AoE that will hit most if not all of the people there, and the Horde players spamming their own AoE. Anyone that survives has to make it through the TP archers, and anyone that survives that gets picked off by Horde defenders.

I believe it was confirmed on the subreddit that this was done on purpose as it was 'blizzlike' and apparently stuff didn't start dropping from junckboxes until a later patch (think 1.12). The loot bug where you can't loot any coin that drops half the time is still in game though. So just to clear things up, DM N and E were changed to non-blizzlike because people used them to farm gold and PP RFD/BRD was changed to blizzlike because people used them to farm gold. Better get your DM E jump runs in before those get nerfed as well.

Gear isn't really needed while leveling. Yes it helps but you don't need the best gear for your level. Back on Warsong Feenix, with 12x XP rates, a majority of people were running around at 40 with level 20 gear because they were forced to use quest items or whatever dropped for them in the world. The AH was horrible with prices (5+ gold for level 10 gear when I played) and nobody did dungeons. It will be a bit harder but you can level with poor gear. The exception is warriors.

If this is your first time playing vanilla WoW then roll a PvE server. PvP servers generally have more aggressive players in that they'll try to grief anyone regardless of faction (ganking, NPC camping, spawning mobs in quest hubs). Meaning your leveling will be hell unless you know exactly where you're going and what you're looking for. PvE servers are usually more relaxed and welcoming to newer players.

Wasn't aware that AV wasn't in game yet. In that case Org/Ironforge might not be doable either, I've never focused on their rep due to AV always being a decent option to fill in any space left before exalted.

On my character I've actually been doing every Troll/Tauren quest I can get to try for exalted. Atm I'm about 4 or 5 quests away from doing every Troll/Tauren rep quest outside of level 60 instance ones and for Darkspear I'm 3.5k/21k and Thunderbluff I'm 6.8k/21k (or somewhere around there). From what I can tell pre-cloth turn in it's only possible to get exalted with Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, and Orgrimar. Possibly Undercity but I've never checked because I couldn't care less about skele horses. Stormwind has loads of quests, same as Darnassus (fewer but still possible around level 50 I think), Ironforge has Alterac Valley to help, same with Orgrimmar. I've been following vanillagaming's database list of Troll/Tauren quests and am currently level 50. Supposedly Horde/Ally quests are meant to give all aligned factions rep for every quest (100 Org means 25 for the other 3 Horde factions) but this isn't the case (through bug or not patched in yet). Thunderbluff would be doable pre-cloth but the repeatable rep quest for it (yeti hide) isn't in the game. So you're left with morrowgraine which is something like 75 rep for 10. So I guess it's still doable but you'd need a group effort to farm enough morrowgraine because by yourself it'd take months of constant farming to get the last 15k rep (it's a random drop, I got it 1/6 of the time so it was 1 drop per hour for me). So currently: Exalted Stormwind: Doable Exalted Ironforge: Doable Exalted Darnassus: Doable Exalted Gnomeregan Exiles: Not Possible Exalted Orgrimmar: Doable Exalted Undercity: Maybe Exalted Darkspear: Not Possible Exalted Thunderbluff: Possible but not probable

With the Nost population being about 2.5x the average vanilla experience it makes sense for there to be about 2.5x the amount of gankers. I'm not currently doing anything on the NostPvp realm so I don't know how bad it is but on the old server it was definitely fun for me, a player that previously leveled around 10 toons to 60 on Feenix and was getting burned out. It was pretty much an adrenaline rush from 20-30, constantly ducking 60s as they came into the few leveling zones and watching small raids of low 20s try to kill them (sometimes happened). It was a completely fresh way to level, depending on sniping mobs and pulling them out of sight or trying to frantically complete a quest or two while the 60s were off on the other side of the zone griefing the levelers there. Getting into the upper 30s and early 40s was like being thrust from a rave into a snowy field. So calm it was almost off-putting. The griefing would be a pain in the попа to go through multiple times or even on your first time, but for a veteran WoW player that's leveled more alts than I care to admit, it can actually be a nice break from the norm.