Our buddy Syp links to a GameSpy column on how irrelevant and easy the original 60 levels of WoW have become. Beyond quicker leveling, and even quicker leveling with refer-a-friend zebras, old-fashioned twinking has been re-introduced:
…after putting the Greater Inscription of the Gladiator on it, my little level six Rogue had an extra 30 stamina and 15 resilience. An extra 30 stamina is a sizable boost at level 80; at level six it’s just overpowered. The real reason to pick these up, though? The passive 10% boost to experience gained from killing monsters. That, my friends, is leveling made easy.
/faceroll
At level six my character had more than triple the health of a normal rogue of his level, and dealt more than four times the damage, not counting when the fiery enchant on his sword would go off. Just for fun, I dueled some level 11 and 12 characters who were going at it in Brill, and it wasn’t even close. I was killing characters twice my level in seconds, while barely getting scratched. No need to stealth. Just walk up to them and Sinister Strike until they’re dead.
Any challenge that I may have encountered while leveling this Rogue through the starting areas was completely taken out of the equation. I don’t even bother with stealth anymore, instead focusing on the delicious ham sandwich I’m eating as I cruise through the levels.
: Zubon
That is some incentive to return imo. I could possibly make it beyond level 60, vurry inturestin.
I’m pretty sure that 10%-increased-kill-XP doesn’t actually put you that far ahead. The math of a percentage increase in XP earned vs constantly increasing XP-cost-to-level shows that the non-10%-increased character is only very slightly behind at any given point in parallel careers.
I suspect that the experience of ease is mostly due to how ZOMG amazing it is for a rogue to have a Thrash Blade tuned precisely to their level with a Fiery Weapon. I’ve seen people limping along through the 60s with obsolete green weapons without seeming to realize how much of a difference better weaponry would make.
Limping through the sub-60 levels with obsolete green weapons, that is. English literacy 4tw.
Pure madness.
Hmm, at this rate the next expansion will include an Insta-Level feature so people can just bypass all that boring leveling completely.
Mark my words: Blizzard will allow you to create any class starting at 55 if you already have a level 55. That is the path they have taken, it will come to be so.
Now you’re talkin Andrew! Take a page out of the ol’ DAoC book.
Blizz has stated this will be fixed ..
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7700473388&sid=1
Scroll down to the blue post.
Ethic: I hope so. I’d have zero problems with that.
Yeah the 10% XP isn’t THAT significant since most of yourXP is still coming from quests which does not get increased.
besides which one of the complaints about WoW originally was that it was “grindy” this makes it a little less so.
As for creating character at lvl 55. I think this will happen though I would rather they go back and revamp the 1-60 game. Specifically the starting areas for the original races. I absolutely can NOT stand the barrens. I think it is a boring zone that has too many random drop reliant quests. I always take my horde toons to the BE starter BE starter area. Not only are the quests concise and less grindy but they also have an overarching theme/story to them.
Come to think of it I dislike leveling on Kalimdor no matter what the zone is. I much prefer the Eastern kingdoms
That’s pretty much what I’m doing, only minus the shoulder enchant. Double-crusader already gives me more health per fight than I should feasibly have and, up to at least level 20, the heirloom weapons have double or better dps than green weapons of your level. If I open with a melee crit and simultaneous sinister strike crit, it’s a kill.
The only easier early leveling I’ve seen in WoW was a warrior with [Enti’s Quenched Sword] before patch 3.0.8, where it had a base damage of 20-200, so all you had to do was skip gleefully through the zone, hitting rend once on everything you came across, leaving a proper wake of corpses.
It’s hard to get excited about the premise of this column. Bear in mind that the heirloom items and the enchant are only available to folks who’ve already gotten a character to 80. The column bemoans the irrelevance of the starting areas, but conveniently overlooks that for folks who are just starting the game, the starting experience remains solid.
One friend of mine has finally started playing WoW after years of mocking me for it. The initial experience grabbed him, and after letting his trial account run out, he eventually decided to purchase the game. He’s currently in the 40-50 range, and enjoying the leveling experience. But the relaxed leveling speed also means that when he sees us at 80, doing group play, he knows that’s not out of reach.