On the Speed at Which One Achieves Level Cap

Don't you hate it when you have a topic in your head all day, then forget it when you sit down to write? I need to start keeping my notes on, say, GoogleDocs, rather than on my home computer. So, in lieu of the topic I was going to write, you get: speedy leveling!

Wow.com reported a few minutes ago that, if you already have a level 80 character with Cold Weather Flying, future alts will be able to gain the ability at level 68 via a single use bind to account heirloom item. (IE, you buy the item with your 80, send it to your 68, they use and consume it to gain Cold Weather Flying early.) This has been confirmed by Blizzard as almost certainly going to be making it into the live realms.

A few weeks ago, not long after some of the first announcements of the mount changes for 3.2, Beta Rogue, another guildy (I don't remember who, sorry), and I had a friendly debate about whether the changes were a good thing or a bad thing. They argued that all the changes aimed at getting people through the old world content faster had an adverse effect on the game and the experience. I called them curmudgeons who were jealous of the new-fangled toys the kids have these days. Ok, not in those words, but...

Back when I was new to this game, I remember level 60 being a far-off, nigh-unobtainable goal. Running after those centaur in Desolace seemed endless, but I did both sides of the quest chain because grinding was not a bad way to level back then (or so we all thought) and that particular spot combined grinding humanoids with quests! I also remember grinding through 58 and 59 on those ogres down in Burning Steppes. I always loved ogre mages. "Casters who don't cast! Awesome!" This bout of nostalgia makes me remember how long that really did take. Now, we WoW players have never had anything to complain about to players of most other MMOs. It's always been one of the, if not the, easiest MMO to hit level cap on. But it's damn near trivial now.

For example: When I made my first post here on 20 June, Paks was approximately level 35. It's now 7 July, two and a half weeks later, and she's level 67. I'm well under four days played. I would be *very* surprised if my first character was under four days played at level 40. I believe she was at near two weeks when she finally hit level 60.

And not only that, but our characters are actually more powerful now. With the rebalancing of talents for level 80 raiding and pvp builds, a level 50 character has access to much more power now than they did when the level 50 content was new. My paladin facerolled her way through content that was honestly challenging on other characters. (I commonly solo 3-man quests, and occasionally a 5-man. The most recent example is Tusker. It took my shaman at least three tries to solo that. Paks did it one shot. Those are the only two I've leveled straight up since Wrath. And I don't think soloing her was feasible in BC. Not at her level, anyway. My hunter couldn't manage it.)

So, is this detrimental to the game? I can really see both sides of it. You really shoot by the lower levels, not even slowing down until you hit the tail end of Outland. All that content, just whizzing by so fast that you have a really hard time taking any of it in unless you stop and look for it. For veteran levelers, it's just a long line of quests that you've already done X times. (Personally, I've done it all so many times that I put a movie up on the second screen and use something like Carbonite or QuestHelper to just remind me of exact locations and a rough guide of where to head next.) I really think that someone who has never seen the content before is not going to shoot by it nearly as fast and will pick up more than those of us who don't pay attention to it think they will.

On the other hand, it really does seem as if the end game is where they intend you to be. The talent trees are focused and balanced around both arenas the cutting edge raid. The best gear comes from the same two places. Even the newest casual content requires high levels to either access or get the most out of (Argent Tournament and the holiday achievements that have level requirements). The vast majority of the new content and, thus, the development time is being spent on what you can do at level 80. So, yeah, the devs really do want to get you there as fast as possible. Wouldn't you want people to see and play with all the shiny new toys that you just made, rather than the toys that are five years old? That seems to be the real reason that they're accelerating the level gain.

Well, that and can you imagine how mind-numbingly boring it would be to level a third (or fifth, tenth, etc) toon at the slow pace that would be required if you still leveled all through Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend at the original rate of each?

With that in mind, I've heard a number of times that one should be able to either accelerate leveling *or* auto-create higher level characters once one is level capped. One points to the Death Knight as an example of this already being done and the heirloom shoulders (and soon the chest) as another way it's implemented. These same people also seem to think that new players should have to pay their dues and level the slow way like they did.

I don't seen any reason to punish new players by making them level more slowly. So what if you leveled that way? Just because you had it the "hard" way doesn't mean that others have to. It seems that these people are complaining mostly to rail against change and out of some odd sense that their accomplishments are being stolen from them if others don't have to work the same length of time. Because, really, that's all that leveling is: a time investment.

In speeding up the leveling process, Bliz is just making us invest less time in getting to the cap. The argument I hear against this is: you don't know how to play your class nearly as well if you haven't spent as much time playing it. To which I say: bull. I have leveled every class except rogue up into Outland. And I did it all solo. I don't have the first idea how to play a Warrior in a group. I was totally a huntard when I hit 70 (cap at the time). I didn't know a Flash Heal from a Binding Heal when my priest hit 80. And you know what? It doesn't matter how much time I spent leveling...it would have been exactly the same. Because I'm not the type of person who groups when leveling. Oh, sure, if I happen to be on a particular group quest and in the area when someone hits /1 looking for help, I'll join them. But, generally, I skip them. Poor XP/hour, wrangling group members. This is also true of dungeons. Just quicker to do quests.

So it doesn't matter if I spent three weeks of my life, three days, or if my character was born 80...I still wouldn't know how to play them with other people. You learn that when you start doing it.

Best example I have offhand: We were doing Naxx as progression content. It was probably my first time or second time healing a raid with a priest (my healing background was with druid. I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to learn that bubbles are my friend). We were doing Four Horsemen, with me healing...oh, either a caster or a hunter in the back. Whatever, doesn't matter. I'm struggling back there, trying to keep myself and the other person up through what feels like really heavy, constant damage. We wipe a few times. Then the other priest in the party makes the offhand comment of, "I don't know why you're struggling. You just cast Binding Heal and Renew." And I facepalmed. I had completely forgotten that Binding Heal existed. I've never lost a person in the back of Four Horsemen since.

So, really, it's not the time you spend leveling that makes the character or the player. It's the experience in what you're actually doing, the willingness to make mistakes, the ability to learn, and adapting.

Take it from the priest who didn't know Binding Heal from Power Word: Shield. Going faster at level 20 and 40 will *not* change whether or not you play well when you get to 80. And flying all the way through Outland and Northrend is not going to really make you skip anything that is of any consequence in how you actually play your class. I promise.