How does it show lack of integrity or courage? 'Reseting' things periodically is a good way of letting newer players catch up, and as long as they continue to make leveling easier, the grind won't wind up taking much longer.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Look at it this way: right now, there're 3.5 tiers of content/gear between a fresh 70 in greens, and one who's "beaten the game." Just before BC, there were 3.5 [including AQ40's 2.5]. They've established a pattern, and I think they're sticking to it.
Hamurabi on
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited April 2008
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
Completely unrelated to the topic of discussion currently at hand:
Does anyone else think Blizzard is crazy, or at least cowardly, to be raising the level cap again?
Even the first time was needless, but doing it again is establishing a pattern. If every expansion is like this, how long is the level grind going to be a few years from now?
It feels to me like they're just pressing "reset" every time they do it. It's easier and will lose them less players than fixing the game's current problems, and perhaps attract more new players in the process. Good business sense, I suppose; not a whole lot of integrity or courage.
Nah, as people have said, at some point you need to push the "reset" button in order to get people a fresh start.
Also many people enjoy leveling more than the end game content, so you add in some more levels, new areas and quests, and you get some people back playing.
I'm not sure how it's helping new players catch up when it's increasing the time required to hit the level cap with each expansion. If anything, it's making it harder for new players to catch up.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I'm not sure how it's helping new players catch up when it's increasing the time required to hit the level cap with each expansion. If anything, it's making it harder for new players to catch up.
The time, itself, isn't increased. 1-70 now is about on pace with how 1-60 was a couple years ago.
I'm not sure how it's helping new players catch up when it's increasing the time required to hit the level cap with each expansion. If anything, it's making it harder for new players to catch up.
The time, itself, isn't increased. 1-70 now is about on pace with how 1-60 was a couple years ago.
Perhaps (as a launch day player I still think it's somewhat longer), but even if that's the case, there's only so far you can take it, and Blizzard's already pretty much pushed "changing the level curve" nearly to its limit. They'll completely break the way the quests are set up and indirectly push players to skip content if they keep increasing experience rewards (or decrease experience requirements). They'll also destroy the sense of accomplishment you get from leveling up if they make leveling much faster. Furthermore, they'll make it even harder to make gold on the way up the levels (without gimping your exp gains), forcing lots of backloaded farming at max level just to get your mounts and other basic requirements. Finally, there was already little enough incentive to run instances on the way up the levels, even at launch; now, it's not only unnecessary, it's damned inefficient and basically just a waste of time. Even the gear isn't worth it since you know you'll be outgrowing it in just a few more hours of gameplay. I for one liked it when you had to actually set foot in instances to completely quest your way to the level cap.
I don't know, I just have a pet peeve against increasing the level cap and screwing with the leveling curve. I'll admit it. I hated it in past MMORPGs and I hate it now.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I'm not sure how it's helping new players catch up when it's increasing the time required to hit the level cap with each expansion. If anything, it's making it harder for new players to catch up.
Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction rewards increased.
Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have been changed to accommodate solo play.
Also adding quest hubs, etc are all ways in which to reduce leveling time. So if 1-60 currently takes an average of 70 hours, you can reduce the amount of time needed by increasing exp given.
The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60.
In case you're wondering where I got this from, please read the 2.3 patch notes.
I'm super excited about levelling 70-80 with people everywhere, gonna try to do it all in instances.
I was thinking of doing the same thing. Assuming WOTLK is much like TBC, then by grinding instances to level 80 I should have tons of rep with the various factions and the truckloads of quests in northrend to do ay level 80 for a lot of extra gold.
Depends on how much XP I would get in an instance whether I will do it or not.
CidonaBoy on
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I'm not sure how it's helping new players catch up when it's increasing the time required to hit the level cap with each expansion. If anything, it's making it harder for new players to catch up.
The time, itself, isn't increased. 1-70 now is about on pace with how 1-60 was a couple years ago.
Perhaps (as a launch day player I still think it's somewhat longer), but even if that's the case, there's only so far you can take it, and Blizzard's already pretty much pushed "changing the level curve" nearly to its limit. They'll completely break the way the quests are set up and indirectly push players to skip content if they keep increasing experience rewards (or decrease experience requirements). They'll also destroy the sense of accomplishment you get from leveling up if they make leveling much faster. Furthermore, they'll make it even harder to make gold on the way up the levels (without gimping your exp gains), forcing lots of backloaded farming at max level just to get your mounts and other basic requirements. Finally, there was already little enough incentive to run instances on the way up the levels, even at launch; now, it's not only unnecessary, it's damned inefficient and basically just a waste of time. Even the gear isn't worth it since you know you'll be outgrowing it in just a few more hours of gameplay. I for one liked it when you had to actually set foot in instances to completely quest your way to the level cap.
I don't know, I just have a pet peeve against increasing the level cap and screwing with the leveling curve. I'll admit it. I hated it in past MMORPGs and I hate it now.
So lets go through it point by point:
Maxing the level curve limit: Not really. There is still alot of fat to be shaved there, the 40's are better but still slow.
"Skipping Content": It happens. Content has a shelf-date and it passes. But people will still encounter the neat parts.
Not enough gold: Trivial fix. Increase gold from quest rewards.
Out leveling gear: You'll out level it anyway.
Not going to instances: The issue with instances is not the poor quality or rewards but simply getting enough warm bodies to do it with. Raising the level cap doesn't change that at all.
I'm super excited about levelling 70-80 with people everywhere, gonna try to do it all in instances.
I was thinking of doing the same thing. Assuming WOTLK is much like TBC, then by grinding instances to level 80 I should have tons of rep with the various factions and the truckloads of quests in northrend to do ay level 80 for a lot of extra gold.
Depends on how much XP I would get in an instance whether I will do it or not.
Seems from what they've been saying they like Mr T's way of unlocking heroic mode, so we'll all have to run them all anyway.
I'm super excited about levelling 70-80 with people everywhere, gonna try to do it all in instances.
I was thinking of doing the same thing. Assuming WOTLK is much like TBC, then by grinding instances to level 80 I should have tons of rep with the various factions and the truckloads of quests in northrend to do ay level 80 for a lot of extra gold.
Depends on how much XP I would get in an instance whether I will do it or not.
I leveled my Priest in instances from 60-70, we were getting about 80-100k an hour. (non-rested) A Druid buddy of mine was following a questing guide and running ~120k an hour. He ended up hitting 70 about a day or two before us, but had to do a lot more instance grinding later on to make up for it.
The one change I'm going to make this time around is to finish all the group quests I never got around to and turn them in when the Xpac goes live. The folks I knew that did that did get about 3/4 level head start. I wonder if dailies will give any decent amount of XP. Hmm...
I read a blue post that stated that they were pleased with the "pacing" of level 60-70, and that 70-80 would be similar.
So it should take the same amount of time to get to 80 that it took to get to 70. The thing people don't realize is that while you need to get more experience to level, the amount you're getting for mob kills and quests has increased as well... if you think of it in terms of percentages, I bet they are extremely close, maybe varying by +/-5%.
rehtonAesoohC on
Was wowed by Rift so I'm trying that now.
0
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
Has anyone else noticed that mining is running out of control now? It seems that in every outland zone I got to, there are at least 5 people per zone mining. Kinda makes it hard to farm mats for blacksmithing/engineering. This seems to be related to the recent patch. I think my time to ore site was something like 20 mins.
Nemaroth on
"But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd. " -Jules
0
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
Has anyone else noticed that mining is running out of control now? It seems that in every outland zone I got to, there are at least 5 people per zone mining. Kinda makes it hard to farm mats for blacksmithing/engineering. This seems to be related to the recent patch. I think my time to ore site was something like 20 mins.
I've been noticing this for a while (in fact I think I even made the same complaint a few pages back); it seems like EVERYONE'S a goddamned miner these days. You used to just see warriors/hunters/the odd rogue mining, but now you can't go into any zone without shitloads of people hugging cliff faces as they fly along at 280% speed.
Fine and dandy, but that just increases the probability that someone will come along and jack your node while you're mining it (which should be punishable by castration).
Completely unrelated to the topic of discussion currently at hand:
Does anyone else think Blizzard is crazy, or at least cowardly, to be raising the level cap again?
Even the first time was needless, but doing it again is establishing a pattern. If every expansion is like this, how long is the level grind going to be a few years from now?
It feels to me like they're just pressing "reset" every time they do it. It's easier and will lose them less players than fixing the game's current problems, and perhaps attract more new players in the process. Good business sense, I suppose; not a whole lot of integrity or courage.
Like everyone else, I'll echo that Blizzard will keep changing the levelling curve.
But even more important is that, is bringing back experience of some kind. I have always and will always maintain that questing and levelling in new content it the very best that this game has to offer. So, ok, I guess you could keep the level cap where it is, but you'd have to design some completely new system of alternate levels, or perk points or something to give you slow and steady ability increases while questing. It's simpler to use levels.
In regards to the discussion about 1-60 (and soon to be 1-70) content being abandoned: yes. They (Blizzard) and we know this. They're comfortable with it. The content isn't being removed, they're just lowering the amount of time and effort required to get to 'the good stuff' at the level cap where people can play with their friends, pvp, raid, and consume the massive volume of content to be found in Outland even at that level.
And with WOTLK, they'll probably tweak it a bit again eventually, to let people (comparitively) breeze through to 69/71 or so and push into the new content again.
Content has a shelf life. It's only good for so many years before it merely becomes another roadblock to new players who want to join their friends in the new stuff (and don't want to be a burden dragging players back to the old world to help them with an elite or a quest or an instance), and makes people rethink exploring new classes, as they don't want to do the same old shit for several DAYS of their lives again.
Most people I know have at least one 60+ alt, and I'd venture as far as saying that most players have probably played the 1-60 content at least twice on their own characters, and god knows how many times in helping other players out. Do people really gain that much out of killing the Mauradon Princess for the 89th time? Or killing dozens of drake whelps in redridge yet again?
Now, before anyone calls me a hypocrit, yes, I am an advocate of making some old content relavent, particularly the raid content, where an abudance of time, resources and manpower were surely committed to making things for 40 people to challenge themselves on. I do feel that it'd be a nice nod to the newer players to make the older instances even vaguely appealing, perhaps by putting a Badge of Justice on each boss, thus letting players get something currently relavent out of it while dragging a crew back through the older stuff that some player might not've seen (due to being new to the game, or not having the time to commit to raiding when it was relavent).
Because of things like gathering skills and alts, lower level zones will remain relavent (to a degree) essentially forever, even if it's just a swarm of deathknights powering their mining to a useful level (pvp servers: don't even fucking think about levelling a new non-DK alt for at least a couple weeks after WOTLK is released), but the raid zones could use just a little something more to sweeten the deal. With 3-7 day lockouts, it's not like getting 9ish badges for tearing up MC in 2-3 hours with a bunch of friends would be game breaking, but it would give a small incentive to at least help a group out for fun now and then.
But yes, I fully expect everything from Ramparts to Sunwell to be abandoned as of WOTLK Release Day, and those zones will become ghosts of their former selves, at least until the first round of Death Knight alts finally break into the high 50's or so and start tearing the place up.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
Has anyone else noticed that mining is running out of control now? It seems that in every outland zone I got to, there are at least 5 people per zone mining. Kinda makes it hard to farm mats for blacksmithing/engineering. This seems to be related to the recent patch. I think my time to ore site was something like 20 mins.
Burning Steppes, Eastern Plaguelands, Un'Goro were all like that before the expansion. Anywhere that people could find Rich Thorium, meaning Arcane Crystals you would have to compete with many people. I was on a normal speed mount, so I was at a distinct disadvantage.
Seg on
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
But you had already experianced that content. Unless a new player uses a leveling guide, they aren't likely to skip all of that content. And if they do use a leveling guide, then they are determined to skip content.
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
Well luckily(I guess?) the large majority of the quests there are not really important. You can go there, do a few quests, get a feel for the atmosphere, and I think that's good enough. In Felwood, all you need to do is Jaedenar, in Silithus and Winterspring wandering is good enough, and in WPL/EPL there are just a few questlines like going to Hearthglen, and the Blightcaller/Fordring questline etc.
And you can just go do these in the mid 60s or at 70 to see the lore.
But even more important is that, is bringing back experience of some kind. I have always and will always maintain that questing and levelling in new content it the very best that this game has to offer. So, ok, I guess you could keep the level cap where it is, but you'd have to design some completely new system of alternate levels, or perk points or something to give you slow and steady ability increases while questing. It's simpler to use levels.
Agreed, though personally I think that the Death Knight should have gone this route rather than a full-fledged class.
Prestige classes would have worked so much better as a separate skill tree that you could unlock. Maybe you tie the skill tree in with specific classes (ie. Warrior or Paladin -> Death Knight, Rogue -> Master Assassin or whatever, etc), maybe you just make it available to anyone who completes the requirements. But at least it alleviates the need to level another character from 1/50/60/whatever.
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
But you had already experianced that content. Unless a new player uses a leveling guide, they aren't likely to skip all of that content. And if they do use a leveling guide, then they are determined to skip content.
What does a leveling guide have to do with it? I only have two 70s, I'm not really pro at the 1-60 speed run, so I don't think I did it much differently than new players would. It just seems that someone starting at level 1 now and following the general order of zones as suggested by "Run here and talk to this guy in Tanaris" type quests will hit 60 long before they end up in any of the level 50-60 zones. Maybe the instance runs gave me a lot more XP than I thought but certainly not three or four zones' worth of questing.
Admittedly on my druid I got to 60 without doing quests in EPL and not finishing some other places, but there was also more instancing and hours of grinding turtles and yetis back then. Which I did to some degree on my prot paladin, but mostly I did quests.
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
Well luckily(I guess?) the large majority of the quests there are not really important. You can go there, do a few quests, get a feel for the atmosphere, and I think that's good enough. In Felwood, all you need to do is Jaedenar, in Silithus and Winterspring wandering is good enough, and in WPL/EPL there are just a few questlines like going to Hearthglen, and the Blightcaller/Fordring questline etc.
And you can just go do these in the mid 60s or at 70 to see the lore.
And because of the lack of people doing instances between 1 and 70, new players aren't likely going to be seeing the instances that riz did as many times as riz.
Besides, you don't really lose the, "Whoa, this zone is HUGE" feeling until you've experienced all of it, anyway. I remember, three years ago, being notably impressed by how big the world of Azeroth was (and, granted, my previous MMO experienced consisted solely of the early levels of RO, with every square zone had a loading screen and no huge continuous continents).
And the statement about "How long will the leveling curve be?" is complete nonsense. Because it assumes that Blizzard will never touch the leveling curve. Because we all know that Blizzard is unwilling to reduce the time it takes to level. I mean they didn't do a major patch with tons of new content and which they altered the amount of exp to get to 70....
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
But you had already experianced that content. Unless a new player uses a leveling guide, they aren't likely to skip all of that content. And if they do use a leveling guide, then they are determined to skip content.
What does a leveling guide have to do with it? I only have two 70s, I'm not really pro at the 1-60 speed run, so I don't think I did it much differently than new players would. It just seems that someone starting at level 1 now and following the general order of zones as suggested by "Run here and talk to this guy in Tanaris" type quests will hit 60 long before they end up in any of the level 50-60 zones. Maybe the instance runs gave me a lot more XP than I thought but certainly not three or four zones' worth of questing.
Admittedly on my druid I got to 60 without doing quests in EPL and not finishing some other places, but there was also more instancing and hours of grinding turtles and yetis back then. Which I did to some degree on my prot paladin, but mostly I did quests.
New players tend to end up wandering a little bit more simply because they don't have things like locations memorized or knowing how the quest chains fit. You'll have a better idea of how zones flow in terms of quest hubs. You may not have been speed running it but your /played to 70 would still be lower then a very new player.
And Silithus doesn't count. It sucked prior to AQ and it didn't suck much less after it.
New players tend to end up wandering a little bit more simply because they don't have things like locations memorized or knowing how the quest chains fit. You'll have a better idea of how zones flow in terms of quest hubs. You may not have been speed running it but your /played to 70 would still be lower then a very new player.
And Silithus doesn't count. It sucked prior to AQ and it didn't suck much less after it.
Well sure my /played will be much shorter if I can think ahead to what quests go where and which are the easier ones to do, but I'm not talking about /played. That is irrelevant to the actual number of quests/zones required for someone to hit 60, which is what I was saying has changed a lot and possibly for the worse. Edit: I suppose if new players entirely MISS certain quest hubs then that'd contribute to more 50+ quests needed.
But I agree, fuck Silithus. My paladin actually did go there briefly, to get mining to 290 and get the hell out, and I was ecstatic to think how I didn't need to actually stay there and do quests.
Silithus has like, some of the best atmosphere in the game. Anyone who doesn't run around there for a little while(who cares about the quests) fails at WoW.
Septus on
PSN: Kurahoshi1
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
New players tend to end up wandering a little bit more simply because they don't have things like locations memorized or knowing how the quest chains fit. You'll have a better idea of how zones flow in terms of quest hubs. You may not have been speed running it but your /played to 70 would still be lower then a very new player.
And Silithus doesn't count. It sucked prior to AQ and it didn't suck much less after it.
Well sure my /played will be much shorter if I can think ahead to what quests go where and which are the easier ones to do, but I'm not talking about /played. That is irrelevant to the actual number of quests/zones required for someone to hit 60, which is what I was saying has changed a lot and possibly for the worse. Edit: I suppose if new players entirely MISS certain quest hubs then that'd contribute to more 50+ quests needed.
But I agree, fuck Silithus. My paladin actually did go there briefly, to get mining to 290 and get the hell out, and I was ecstatic to think how I didn't need to actually stay there and do quests.
The missed quest hubs were along the lines of what I meant. But some of it is just the general time spent exploring. I'm guessing you did a lot less playing "tourist" the second time around.
Silithus has like, some of the best atmosphere in the game. Anyone who doesn't run around there for a little while(who cares about the quests) fails at WoW.
Eh. The southern area i.e. the gates of the temples is pretty awesome. But the rest of the place? fuck no. I hate flat expanses of flat flatness where all you can see is huge mobs every five yards for a hundred miles. It's so fake looking.
Silithus has like, some of the best atmosphere in the game. Anyone who doesn't run around there for a little while(who cares about the quests) fails at WoW.
Eh. The southern area i.e. the gates of the temples is pretty awesome. But the rest of the place? fuck no. I hate flat expanses of flat flatness where all you can see is huge mobs every five yards for a hundred miles. It's so fake looking.
The music is so good, it's the only really good desert we have, it's full of massive hives of ancient and foul insectoid servants of the old gods, and it has the occasional giant insect hive claw sticking out of the ground, twitching.
I love it.
And it's better than running through a bunch of dumb furbolgs, or gnolls, or troggs, or orc/troll group #1,000,000.
Septus on
PSN: Kurahoshi1
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
Blizzard would be wise to drop a TBC-qualilty quest reward or two into those zones to give players rushing to 70 a reason to explore them. I saw this once when I was racing my Shaman to 58, in Felwood with the trinket reward for finishing the Timbermaw questline, which I used until level 62, and I might have missed others.
Posts
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Nah, as people have said, at some point you need to push the "reset" button in order to get people a fresh start.
Also many people enjoy leveling more than the end game content, so you add in some more levels, new areas and quests, and you get some people back playing.
Perhaps (as a launch day player I still think it's somewhat longer), but even if that's the case, there's only so far you can take it, and Blizzard's already pretty much pushed "changing the level curve" nearly to its limit. They'll completely break the way the quests are set up and indirectly push players to skip content if they keep increasing experience rewards (or decrease experience requirements). They'll also destroy the sense of accomplishment you get from leveling up if they make leveling much faster. Furthermore, they'll make it even harder to make gold on the way up the levels (without gimping your exp gains), forcing lots of backloaded farming at max level just to get your mounts and other basic requirements. Finally, there was already little enough incentive to run instances on the way up the levels, even at launch; now, it's not only unnecessary, it's damned inefficient and basically just a waste of time. Even the gear isn't worth it since you know you'll be outgrowing it in just a few more hours of gameplay. I for one liked it when you had to actually set foot in instances to completely quest your way to the level cap.
I don't know, I just have a pet peeve against increasing the level cap and screwing with the leveling curve. I'll admit it. I hated it in past MMORPGs and I hate it now.
Also adding quest hubs, etc are all ways in which to reduce leveling time. So if 1-60 currently takes an average of 70 hours, you can reduce the amount of time needed by increasing exp given.
In case you're wondering where I got this from, please read the 2.3 patch notes.
I was thinking of doing the same thing. Assuming WOTLK is much like TBC, then by grinding instances to level 80 I should have tons of rep with the various factions and the truckloads of quests in northrend to do ay level 80 for a lot of extra gold.
Depends on how much XP I would get in an instance whether I will do it or not.
So lets go through it point by point:
Maxing the level curve limit: Not really. There is still alot of fat to be shaved there, the 40's are better but still slow.
"Skipping Content": It happens. Content has a shelf-date and it passes. But people will still encounter the neat parts.
Not enough gold: Trivial fix. Increase gold from quest rewards.
Out leveling gear: You'll out level it anyway.
Not going to instances: The issue with instances is not the poor quality or rewards but simply getting enough warm bodies to do it with. Raising the level cap doesn't change that at all.
I leveled my Priest in instances from 60-70, we were getting about 80-100k an hour. (non-rested) A Druid buddy of mine was following a questing guide and running ~120k an hour. He ended up hitting 70 about a day or two before us, but had to do a lot more instance grinding later on to make up for it.
The one change I'm going to make this time around is to finish all the group quests I never got around to and turn them in when the Xpac goes live. The folks I knew that did that did get about 3/4 level head start. I wonder if dailies will give any decent amount of XP. Hmm...
So it should take the same amount of time to get to 80 that it took to get to 70. The thing people don't realize is that while you need to get more experience to level, the amount you're getting for mob kills and quests has increased as well... if you think of it in terms of percentages, I bet they are extremely close, maybe varying by +/-5%.
Fine and dandy, but that just increases the probability that someone will come along and jack your node while you're mining it (which should be punishable by castration).
Like everyone else, I'll echo that Blizzard will keep changing the levelling curve.
But even more important is that, is bringing back experience of some kind. I have always and will always maintain that questing and levelling in new content it the very best that this game has to offer. So, ok, I guess you could keep the level cap where it is, but you'd have to design some completely new system of alternate levels, or perk points or something to give you slow and steady ability increases while questing. It's simpler to use levels.
And with WOTLK, they'll probably tweak it a bit again eventually, to let people (comparitively) breeze through to 69/71 or so and push into the new content again.
Content has a shelf life. It's only good for so many years before it merely becomes another roadblock to new players who want to join their friends in the new stuff (and don't want to be a burden dragging players back to the old world to help them with an elite or a quest or an instance), and makes people rethink exploring new classes, as they don't want to do the same old shit for several DAYS of their lives again.
Most people I know have at least one 60+ alt, and I'd venture as far as saying that most players have probably played the 1-60 content at least twice on their own characters, and god knows how many times in helping other players out. Do people really gain that much out of killing the Mauradon Princess for the 89th time? Or killing dozens of drake whelps in redridge yet again?
Now, before anyone calls me a hypocrit, yes, I am an advocate of making some old content relavent, particularly the raid content, where an abudance of time, resources and manpower were surely committed to making things for 40 people to challenge themselves on. I do feel that it'd be a nice nod to the newer players to make the older instances even vaguely appealing, perhaps by putting a Badge of Justice on each boss, thus letting players get something currently relavent out of it while dragging a crew back through the older stuff that some player might not've seen (due to being new to the game, or not having the time to commit to raiding when it was relavent).
Because of things like gathering skills and alts, lower level zones will remain relavent (to a degree) essentially forever, even if it's just a swarm of deathknights powering their mining to a useful level (pvp servers: don't even fucking think about levelling a new non-DK alt for at least a couple weeks after WOTLK is released), but the raid zones could use just a little something more to sweeten the deal. With 3-7 day lockouts, it's not like getting 9ish badges for tearing up MC in 2-3 hours with a bunch of friends would be game breaking, but it would give a small incentive to at least help a group out for fun now and then.
But yes, I fully expect everything from Ramparts to Sunwell to be abandoned as of WOTLK Release Day, and those zones will become ghosts of their former selves, at least until the first round of Death Knight alts finally break into the high 50's or so and start tearing the place up.
I'm sort of torn about the leveling changes from 2.3. It was nice that getting my paladin from 35 to 60 was much faster than previous characters, but she hit 60 without doing a single quest in Felwood, Silithus, Winterspring, EPL or WPL, and maybe one-third of Un'goro. She did two Maraudon runs, three BRD, one ST, two Stratholme. I've done those 50+ zones on two characters before, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything this time, but someone new to the game? Those zones are HUGE. That's so much stuff that people will just entirely miss in the "omg rush to Outland" game.
Burning Steppes, Eastern Plaguelands, Un'Goro were all like that before the expansion. Anywhere that people could find Rich Thorium, meaning Arcane Crystals you would have to compete with many people. I was on a normal speed mount, so I was at a distinct disadvantage.
But you had already experianced that content. Unless a new player uses a leveling guide, they aren't likely to skip all of that content. And if they do use a leveling guide, then they are determined to skip content.
Well luckily(I guess?) the large majority of the quests there are not really important. You can go there, do a few quests, get a feel for the atmosphere, and I think that's good enough. In Felwood, all you need to do is Jaedenar, in Silithus and Winterspring wandering is good enough, and in WPL/EPL there are just a few questlines like going to Hearthglen, and the Blightcaller/Fordring questline etc.
And you can just go do these in the mid 60s or at 70 to see the lore.
Prestige classes would have worked so much better as a separate skill tree that you could unlock. Maybe you tie the skill tree in with specific classes (ie. Warrior or Paladin -> Death Knight, Rogue -> Master Assassin or whatever, etc), maybe you just make it available to anyone who completes the requirements. But at least it alleviates the need to level another character from 1/50/60/whatever.
What does a leveling guide have to do with it? I only have two 70s, I'm not really pro at the 1-60 speed run, so I don't think I did it much differently than new players would. It just seems that someone starting at level 1 now and following the general order of zones as suggested by "Run here and talk to this guy in Tanaris" type quests will hit 60 long before they end up in any of the level 50-60 zones. Maybe the instance runs gave me a lot more XP than I thought but certainly not three or four zones' worth of questing.
Admittedly on my druid I got to 60 without doing quests in EPL and not finishing some other places, but there was also more instancing and hours of grinding turtles and yetis back then. Which I did to some degree on my prot paladin, but mostly I did quests.
And because of the lack of people doing instances between 1 and 70, new players aren't likely going to be seeing the instances that riz did as many times as riz.
Having come from Asherons' Call
New players tend to end up wandering a little bit more simply because they don't have things like locations memorized or knowing how the quest chains fit. You'll have a better idea of how zones flow in terms of quest hubs. You may not have been speed running it but your /played to 70 would still be lower then a very new player.
And Silithus doesn't count. It sucked prior to AQ and it didn't suck much less after it.
Stranglethorn
Swamp of Sorrows
Badlands
Eastern Plaguelands
Searing Gorge
Burning Steppes
Winterspring (almost all of it anyways)
Un'Goro
Well sure my /played will be much shorter if I can think ahead to what quests go where and which are the easier ones to do, but I'm not talking about /played. That is irrelevant to the actual number of quests/zones required for someone to hit 60, which is what I was saying has changed a lot and possibly for the worse. Edit: I suppose if new players entirely MISS certain quest hubs then that'd contribute to more 50+ quests needed.
But I agree, fuck Silithus. My paladin actually did go there briefly, to get mining to 290 and get the hell out, and I was ecstatic to think how I didn't need to actually stay there and do quests.
The missed quest hubs were along the lines of what I meant. But some of it is just the general time spent exploring. I'm guessing you did a lot less playing "tourist" the second time around.
Eh. The southern area i.e. the gates of the temples is pretty awesome. But the rest of the place? fuck no. I hate flat expanses of flat flatness where all you can see is huge mobs every five yards for a hundred miles. It's so fake looking.
The music is so good, it's the only really good desert we have, it's full of massive hives of ancient and foul insectoid servants of the old gods, and it has the occasional giant insect hive claw sticking out of the ground, twitching.
I love it.
And it's better than running through a bunch of dumb furbolgs, or gnolls, or troggs, or orc/troll group #1,000,000.