Am I even allowed to go to the Badlands?

[:1]I'm a blood elf, trying to mine some mithril. Going to badlands. Well, or so I thought.

Starting from the Wetlands (well, not actually but it's where the problems began) I had to find my way to loch modan. No problem, I thought. Until I realized there was no way to get there just walking past a border. I looked it up online, and tried to make my way to dun algaz. Well, apparently the little "ramp" on the giant mountain dun algaz is on isn't actually a way up. The way up is actually a tiny, unmarked cave that lets you past through to loch modan. Annoying, but not a big deal.

So I get to Loch Modan. Simple, I thought. Wrong again. After traveling south, I am greeted by this monstrous, massive black canyon. I try going down it, I figure there has to be SOME way here. I end up falling too far and die. Run back to resurrect myself, and now I am stuck in that big black canyon.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the Badlands is just a myth, a place you go when you die, if you're good, to mine mithril in bliss for all eternity.

Seriously, this is the hardest, most frustrating trip I've ever made in WoW. Any suggestions? Are horde characters just not supposed to go there? They sure as hell designed the maps this way. After I cross this giant canyon some way, I'm expecting a blue screen on my Pc, a fatal exception has occured when a horde character enters the badlands.

/end rant|||If you're at the appropriate level for Badlands, you should have a flight path available (apparently you get them automatically now). If not, the entrance in Loch Modan is where it used to be, you just have to look carefully (south of the drained loch, between the mountains). If memory serves, its off to the right and winds down and you follow the canyon to the left, and there is a ledge going upwards. You might want to avoid using a mount.|||Yup, there's a small path crossing the canyon. Keep your panties in a bunch.|||Personally, I had a frustrating travel moment many years ago on my first character. I had a Night Elf druid, and I was looking to do my aquatic form quest at 16 or so and had to make my way to Westfall. Now as being a new player and there wasn't much info to be found on travel online, I had quite the adventure. The Wetlands gave me a lot of hardship, but it was nothing compared to going through Searing Gorge and trying to ghost run to Stormwind that way. After getting lost in Blackrock Mountain and trekking along through a few more zones as a ghost, I had finally made it to Goldshire's graveyard to revive, and I ended up back in Searing Gorge... At that point I gave up and asked my irl lvl 60 priest friend for directions and located the Deeprun Tram.

There was also the issue with going into Gnomeregan, the instance, to try and get the gumdrop for the Halloween quest, which incidentally was in Ironforge all along. Thankfully today there are tons of information resources available, and we're all a little wiser now :) (and the game is more accessible).