With the Burning Crusade expansion less than a week away I thought it would be a good idea to pass on some exploration tips for those hearty explorer types that have the need to explore the whole new world as quickly as possible.  Many players that I have talked to do not even want to start questing until they have mapped all of the Outlands and have an idea where everything is. While this is an admiral goal, it is a difficult one. For those not in it to find everything right away your lucky, these tips will still come in handy no matter the level you are when you explore an area.

Consumables - Before you even start exploring make sure you have everything you need to be able to survive.  That means plenty of food, water and bandages.  Also bring along some potions such as healing, mana and swiftness. 

Mount - If at all possible bring in an epic mount.  There are several places where this will make you life much easier as you can outrun the MANY MOBs around key areas.  You can make do with a normal mount, just expect to get caught in a few more fights.

Gear - As soon as you start exploring the Outlands you will notice that MOBs hit a lot harder than they used to.  You should start looking for gear right away with more +Stamina.  It is not uncommon to see level 60-62 green items with +30 or more stamina and by level 64 you can find items with +60 or more!  If you are exploring and getting yourself into places you probably shouldn’t be, the extra health to take a few more hits is well worth getting.

Flight Points - Collect all the flight points that you can, as quickly as you can.  Remember unlike Azeroth, the Outlands generally have two flight points per zone, watch for them in your factions town and the neutral town.  You can check out our map of the Outlands for more details.

Stick near the roads whenever possible - While on the roads you are far less likely to get attacked.  When you venture off the roads to fill in parts of your map, it is always best to head straight out as far as you need and then straight back to the road.  While usually the safest on a road, that isn’t always the case…

Blocked roads - Don’t be afraid if the path appears blocked by MOBs, sometimes you just have to power through and run as fast as you can.  A prime example is the path from the first Outlands zone (Hellfire Peninsula) to Zangarmarsh, it is packed with MOBs.  However if you are mounted and just run through you can make it.  Several paths between the zones are like this.

Instances - Since you will more than likely want to explore the instances at some point for all the great new gear that drops in them, it is worth finding them and the way into them while exploring.  That way you know where to go when you get a group.  While the meeting stones are handy for summons, you need to know where they are and at least two party members need to get there.  Again, check out our map of the Outlands for more info.

Death - There are many points where you just can’t escape combat, so be prepared to fight and occasionally die if you are trying to find everything early for your level.  Most zones have multiple graveyards and getting to your body usually isn’t a big trip.

Some areas you just can’t get to before 70 - Sorry explorer types.  Just like Columbus couldn’t discover America before having a ship, you can’t explore all of the Outlands without a flying mount.  This means that until you get to level 70 and collect at least 900 gold (for the cheap flying mount and riding skill) you just can’t see it all.

There you go, those are the basics I used while exploring the Outlands and I made it through them in almost one piece!  I was able to almost completely map the Outlands on a normal mount with my level 62 Undead Priest in one night of exploring.  There were some areas that I couldn’t get to due to needing a flying mount, or level 68+ MOBs all packed in to tight, but I mapped 90%+ in about 5 hours.

If you have comments or questions we would love to hear from you! Email me ([email protected]) or post on our forums! Better yet, if you have any other bits of useful exploring advise, please feel free to send them on to me.