Let’s go on safari to the new/old zones of Azeroth! Today I’ll share brief pet-oriented reviews of Mulgore, Durotar, Azshara, and the Northern Barrens.

Normally I wouldn’t do four zones at once, but there weren’t all that many changes in these zones.

Before we start our safari, you should read the disclaimers and caveats in the Cataclysm Safari: Intro.

Mulgore

Mulgore didn’t see many substantive changes, although it does have some interesting bits. The largest modifications were on Red Cloud Mesa — the 1-5 Tauren area. This area lost the Mountain Cougar (which shares an appearance with every other cat in Mulgore) and the red Bristleback Battleboar.

In exchange, Red Cloud Mesa picked up a brown Armored Battleboar. Yup — a level 3 armored boar. I bet that’s going to be a popular destination for young hunters!

Other interesting changes: Ghost Howl, the untameable rare white worg, is no longer rare nor untameable. And Mazzranache is now followed by four extremely adorable pick hatchlings. Unfortunately Hazzranache, Jazzranache, Razzranache and Spazzranache are critter, not beasts, and cannot be tamed. (The Rake is also still around for those who want a lion.)

Azshara

This is the most boring zone ever.

No, no, I’m sure that Azshara — which is the new 12-20 zone for goblins — has some great quests. It also has some great goblin-inspired scenery, including rocket highways instead of flight masters and a golf course right in the middle of the zone.

But the basic tone of Azshara hasn’t changed much. It’s brown and filled with naga and there aren’t that many beasts here. It’s especially galling that something like a third of the beasts are exotic chimaera. Young goblin hunters won’t be taming those!

So what has changed? Well, white Coralshell Tortoises are gone but there are still plenty of white Coralshell Lurkers. Mistwing Rogues — a brown chimaera — are gone, but they’ve been replaced by Mistwing Cliffdwellers, also brown. (Or alternatively, the Rogues have been renamed to Cliffdwellers. Same difference.) And anyway, brown Mistwing Ravagers are still everywhere. The only new beast is a bronze crab called a Sand Crawler.

I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Azshara’s two rare beasties — Scalebeard and The Evalcharr — yet. But Scalebeard is a pretty common blue turtle and white chimaeras like The Evalcharr can be found in quantity in Winterspring and Howling Fjord.

So strictly from a pet hunter’s perspective, I’m a bit disappointed with the new Azshara.

Durotar

Thankfully, Durotar is a bit more interesting — and pretty accessible for goblin hunters. Durotar still has a bunch of red raptors, a bunch of black and grey boars, and a bunch of bronze, brown and black scorpids.

Durotar has also picked up some interesting new pet choices, especially in the new troll starter area, Echo Isles.

But first the bad news: the blue Corrupted Surf Crawlers are gone, as are the yellow Corrupted Bloodtalon Scythemaws. Worse, the Durotar Tigers have disappered.

Durotar Tigers appear to have been replaced with Wildmane Cats — a brown lynx. And instead of Corrupted Bloodtalon Scythemaws we have Corrupted Bloodtalon raptors, which have the spiky red look of Outland raptors. And Durotar did pick up a new red boar and a green crocolisk with the impressive name of Dreadmaw Toothgnasher.

Oh, and my favorite: Screamlash the grey raptor, who shares an appearance with Takk the Leaper.

Sarkoth the black scorpid and his rare brother Death Flayer are both still in residence in Durotar, by the way.

Northern Barrens

And finally (for today at least) we come to the Northern Barrens.

The Northern Barrens retains the old Barrens 10-20 level range, so other than a few very minor level adjustments there haven’t been all that many changes here.

Corrupted Dreadmaw Crocolisks have been removed … except that they were really renamed as Dreadmaw Toothgnashers and moved into Durotar proper. The only two noteworthy additions are King Reaperclaw, a grey raptor who shares an appearance with Takk the Leaper, and a widespread population of your basic black Barrens Vulture.

Takk, Dishu, Snort, Echeyakee and Humar have all been sighted in beta, and the only named beast unaccounted for is quest-spawned red raptor Ishamuhale.

Whew! Even though these zones saw pretty minimal changes in terms of beasts, I’m still worn out. But we’ll be back tomorrow with more Cataclysm safari!