Exploring an Impossible, Hidden Zone in World of Warcraft

Today we explore a place I never thought possible. Today we explore an area that should theoretically not exist. Today we UnCraft the Ruins of Gilneas from World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion. There’s a ton to explore, so let’s jump in.

“Gilneas will be reborn from the blood of our enemies.”

This is part 1 of 2.

Support links:

Chapters:

Intro: 00:00-00:57
How to Get Into Gilneas… As a Horde Player: 00:57-03:34
How to Explore the Map Gilneas: 03:34-05:44
Duskhaven: 05:44-07:04
Allen Farmstead: 05:44-07:50
Hammond Farmstead/Duskmist Shore: 07:50-10:09
Wahl Cottage: 10:09-10:57
Crowley Orchard/Crowley’s Stable Grounds: 10:57-11:29
Rubber Duckies and Wigglies: 11:29-13:23
The Mobs of Gilneas: 13:23-15:14
Koroth’s Den: 15:14-16:01
Gilnean NPCs and a mailbox?: 16:01-18:28
The Black Wald: 18:28-20:00
Tempest’s Reach: 20:00-21:09
Wedding Ceremony?: 12:09-22:33
Emberstone Mine and the Lonely Wanderer: 22:33-24:18
The Greymane Lake: 24:18-25:26
Emberstone Village: 25:26-26:25
Northgate Woods: 26:25-27:26
The Gate and the Northern Headlands: 27:26-28:59
Mary Oxworth, the Mysterious Banker: 28:59-31:13
The Horde Invasion: 31:13-33:18
Worgen NPCs at Duskhaven: 33:18-34:03
Greymane Manor: 34:03-37:27
Conclusion of Part 1: 37:27-37:55

#worldofwarcraft #gamingvideos #wowsecrets

[GameUnCrafter]

Have you ever been to Gilneas as a Horde character?

[calebmclarty]

This may or may not be coming in part 2, but you can actually break out of Gilneas and explore vanilla Silverpine forest alongside other areas, its really cool and I've found some way to bypass some of the more tricky invisible walls on Warlock.

[fave]

the vibe of Gilneas is immaculate. i love the victorian, kinda dark aura of the city. i'd love to have an entire zone like this that's available to players. i'd literally live there.

[TheWolfwiththeDragon]

16:05 This is especially interesting as it is using the old Worgen skin, which is *not* used at any point in the actual Worgen starting zone. So this must be a leftover from a long time ago! Probably the early stages of designing the zone.

[greysen]

the wedding place is actually part of the real ruins of gilneas too, not just apart of the phased worgen place. very cute!

[alexistaylor]

The reason old gilneas is built like that is because your leveling as a worgen takes place actually in a different zone and it pulls some assets from the active game.
It is to separate anyone but Worgen from the Worgen starting zone.
Long story short, during beta testing horde managed to get in the starting zone quite easily to kill new players so they created this workaround to prevent that. It is why parts of the zone they were working on were just left unfinished in the zone you can access and only the phasing zone you play as a Worgen is finished.

[beardednose]

The 'Gilnean NPCs and Mailbox' section looks like something that never made it into the final game, at least not the phase you are in when you reach that area naturally.

The worgen NPCs there that you killed used the old Worgen models, which would suggest that may have been made before the new models were even made.

[NeuroticPanda]

I've done this a few times too!

If you manage to clip back into Gilneas city, all the NPCs are there because the zone we bug ourselves into is just the Worgen Starter zone, which changes and phases more npcs elsewhere as you progress through the quests.

If you go to where the worgen characters spawn in, Liam Greymane will be there spouting "Stand ready guards!"

[NostraDavid]

The stargazing device at the end is used in a short cinematic where you view the Horde ships in the water - as a player you won't have seen them yet, as they hid behind Greymane Manor.

[patrickbuckley]

I think the beds are there because Greymane Manor was one of the last strongholds against the Worgan curse. So people where using it as a shelter.

[Apocobat]

I always found it interesting how much resources blizz would put into something like a starter zone that only matters for the first couple levels. I wish they would reuse this stuff more

[Eviiana]

I've leveled many worgen both on retail and on private servers and one thing that remained consistent is how buggy the zone ends up being. I've gotten stuck as a ghost before because I died in an area that would've really only been accessible by a demon hunter. I feel like the zone never stops being interesting. It is absolutely one of my favorite places in the game

[emarceeqem]

15:24 Koroth's den is where you would have killed some ogres, and stolen an Ettin's banner. The banner is then used to lure the Ettin into fighting some Forsaken.

35:00 Even in the 'real' Gilneas (As in the starting zone you naturally progress through as a Worgen) Greymane's Manor is one of the only indoor spaces to not disable mounts. The bed rugs on the floor are there because in the story, they would have been receiving a lot of Gilnean refugees as they had fled the city and Duskhaven. If I remember correctly you would have seen wounded lying around and manor maids tending to them.

[storbokki]

playing as a new Worgan, I've explored the area ahead of the quests and it looks just like this. The NPCs spawn as you progress through the questline.
It would be interesting to explore this as a Worgen Death Knight.

[KageJason]

Replying as a worgen player

it's actually different for us

we spawn near the graveyards (before we have to fight the orcs) and the spirit healer is already there so we can res on the spot and back track to explore

on top of that, some NPCS spawn for us too, including stuff like the wary mastiffs

but the location is in it's post shatter state so the city you initially respawned in is still sunk and lost for us :c

tl;dr worgen players get the last part of the instance they had in their starting area

[fanmr]

As someone from the Blizzard team said, I think it was Steve Danuser, not sure, something will be happening in Gilneas soon. It was especially foreshadowed with the 9.2.7 Lordaeron questline. I've been waiting for this for years and can't wait for whatever they do with it. Hopefully a fully functional city.

[thefakemcbirdo]

what's notable when i did my exploration is that there are absolutely 0 hostiles in gilneas city.

i broke into the city, using my alliance dracthyr evoker, and hopped ontop of some buildings to get into other areas so the barriers weren't too much of a problem.

and it's hard not to notice that it was pretty empty, id assume it's due to each area being phased differently in each quest or gilneas is in some odd limbo when it comes to mob phasing.

but it feels.. borderline **wrong** for the city of gilneas to not have worgens whatsoever. not even in the area you spawn in when you start a worgen.

on the bright side, though, i spotted a single new player in the merchant square. kind of cool.

[blackhawkcz]

I want to see so, so bad Gilneas and Kezan rebuilt and maybe main cities in next expansion based on Kalimdor and Eastern kingdoms? That would be so great!

[uwuAstolfo]

Did this myself and with Stormglen - the worgen attacking the village looks a lot like the gnome starting area in cata, so I think Stormglen was the original starting area for worgen.

[foulu]

I highly recommend having a shaman to use far sight to explore these type of areas. So many out of bound things to be found.