Blizzard To Sell Level 90 WoW Characters For $60

An anonymous reader writes "After their online store accidentally spilled the beans last week, Blizzard has now confirmed plans to let players pay $60 to boost one of their World of Warcraft characters to level 90, the current cap. At Blizzcon a few months ago, the company unveiled the game's next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, currently in development. When it comes out, they're giving every player a free boost to 90 in order to get to the new content immediately. They say this was the impetus for making it a purchasable option. 'It's tremendously awkward to tell someone that you should buy two copies of the expansion just to get a second 90. That's odd. So we knew at that point we were going to have to offer it as a separate service.' Why $60? They don't want to 'devalue the accomplishment of leveling.' Lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas said, '[L]eveling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that.'" On one hand, I can appreciate that people who just want to get to endgame content may find it more efficient to spend a few bucks than to put a hundred hours into leveling a new character. On the other hand, I can't help but laugh at the idea that Blizzard will probably get a ton of people paying them to not play their game.

Comments

Next Service from Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay an additional $50 for the new Starcraft III game and you can tell your friends you have completed the game without even playing it once.

Re:Next Service from Blizzard

[NotDrWho]

How much will it cost me to get a big button in PvP that just says "Win"?

Arg Pandas

[aethelrick]

Once upon a time WoW was worthy of the gaming geek... now it's watered down drivel complete with kung-fu pandas... who even plays this any more?

Re:Arg Pandas

[Dj Stingray]

Addicts. Sad but true.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Travis Mansbridge]

World of Warcraft is still one of the most popular western games in Asia.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Buck Feta]

Once upon a time WoW was worthy of the gaming geek... now it's watered down drivel complete with kung-fu pandas... who even plays this any more?

7.8 million people.

The kung-fu pandas joke is old.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Anonymous Coward]

Mist of Pandaria was a joke? LOL i totally believed it was a real WoW expansion.

Re:Arg Pandas

[dcw3]

Could it be because they pandered to that audience?

Disclaimer: I played from beta up until last year. Pandas, really???

Re:Arg Pandas

[Travis Mansbridge]

pandered

I see what you did there...

Re:Arg Pandas

[Opportunist]

No, but its name was very apt when you know German. "Mist" literally translates to "Rubbish".

Re:Arg Pandas

[Big Hairy Ian]

Gave up at level 80 when I developed Geek Sores on my Joy Stick :)

Re:Arg Pandas

[azalin]

Actually "Manure" is an even closer translation. Though "Rubbish" is also correct, depending on context.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Nite_Hawk]

I don't see what your love life has to do with any of this? Oh wait, were you that guy I saw in the Deeprun Tram?

Ew.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Opportunist]

Either describes very well and in a very graphic way how I felt about it.

Re:Arg Pandas

[Kaenneth]

EverQuest 3 lyfe, yo.

(No True Scotsman)

Re:Arg Pandas

[Kaenneth]

err... 4 as in for, not 3 as in EQ Next, or whatever... just woke up...

Re:Arg Pandas

[jeffasselin]

You may have missed the fact that Warcraft is filled with jokes and RL references.

Re:Arg Pandas

[jeffasselin]

It's just a shame, because Mists of Pandaria was the best expansion since Burning Crusade, in my opinion.

Re:Arg Pandas

[drsquare]

Really? When WoW came out I remember everyone saying how easymode it was compared to existing MMOs. You didn't even lose all your gear when you died.

Value

[gd2shoe]

[L]eveling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that.

I don't know anybody who values 100s of hours of their time at $60. They might not want to diminish that effort, but they have a poor way of showing it. If I played WoW, I'd be insulted.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this sort of good. I have a problem where I like playing games with my friends(WoW was previously in there) but I don't play NEARLY enough. I might play 2-3 hours a week. So, it would take forever to get the point where I could play the game with friends. At the time, WoW considered to get fun and more playable at level 60. But getting to level 60 takes a long time. I would give someone some money so I could play with friends and get some more entertainment out of it without having to invest a lot of time.

I guess the best way to describe myself is a casual gamer of hardcore games.

Re:Value

[omglolbah]

Guild Wars 2 solved this issue beautifully I felt.

When you enter a zone your hp, damage etc gets scaled to the level of the area. Only down-scaled however so you cannot just jump to high level areas immediately.

This DOES mean that your friends at higher levels can play with you though,which a bunch of my friends did. Worked great.

Sadly the game didnt really 'last' for us for a variety of other reasons.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

Guild Wars 2 is is still a fantastic game, and they constantly bring out new content, all voice acted, very nice.

WvW is still fun..

You just have to totally forget about the "gear-treadmill" mindset.

Re:Value

[Charliemopps]

and this is why these freemium models are ruining gaming. Logging in and finding that the idiot in your guild that can't even figure out how to work the chat window properly suddenly, over-night, out-leveled the entire guild and now is wielding a vorpal blade, makes wanting to actually play the game and achieve all those things glaringly pointless.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

play the game and achieve all those things glaringly pointless.

There is no "achievement" in WoW. If you want a game that involves skill rather than "pay to win", learn to play Chess or Go or any of a number of other things. You cannot pay $60 and suddenly become a master level, because it requires learned skill.

Play the game because you enjoy playing the game. If people are willing to pay $60 to not play the game, it's not a very good sign of the game being any fun. But someone ELSE paying $60 to not play the game, does not remove YOUR ability to play the game if you actually do enjoy it.

Re:Value

[Riceballsan]

This I have to second. Really that is the problem with the majority of MMORPGs these days. WoW is actually closer to an exception, in the sense that the hours to get to cap, are pretty small compared to the amount of time one spends in raids etc... after getting to cap, compared to many other MMO's in which there is no point in the game in which partying becomes the standard, or said point is so insanely far down the road that under 10% of players reach it. What baffles me is how many players complain when it is harder to solo than to group up. If the game makes grouping easier, but soloing harder, then people who want to work harder and solo can. When the game makes grouping the hard way and soloing easier, then the 10% that want to group up, spend 2 hours looking for a group, because 95% of players are going to go the most efficiant way no matter what, and the people who actually want to have fun and group up, have to spend hours trying to find others. I've always considered solo MMORPGs analogous to inviting a whole bunch of friends over to play solitare.

Re:Value

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

One confounding factor: There already exists an illicit(but ill-controlled) market for assorted paying-to-not-play-the-game services. The Chinese Gold Farmer is the stereotypical classic; but if you want it and somebody can either grind for it in a country with lower wages and costs of living, or hack accounts for it, it's for sale.

$60 is a value likely chosen to be high enough to pad Blizzard's pockets, and discourage truly casual purchase(which would mean that Blizzard basically wasted their time with the lower-level content, and now has to scrounge up enough 'epic level' new content to satisfy everybody, not just the powergamers); but also chosen to be ruinously low for any non-Blizzard seller who has to work, rather than just twiddle numbers on the server, to provide the product.

It isn't my game; but my understanding is that people generally loath the famer-for-profit guys, so they may be delighted to see Blizzard blow them out of the water with economics, rather than comparatively feeble attempts at banning.

Re:Value

[jythie]

Maybe someone needs to build a fantasy MMO with EvE Online's advancement mechanic. While power levelers decry the skill system, it does do a pretty good job of letting people with different amounts of play time still play together.

Re:Value

[asylumx]

Everquest 2 also has something similar called "Mentoring" which essentially reduces your level to your friend's level as well as all your skills & abilities. I suspect the "free ride to level 90" is not probably going to bring new players to the game, so much as allow long-time players to quickly create an alternate character and have it be high level without grinding it out. $60 seems steep as a product from Blizzard, but on the flipside, in the past people have paid a lot of money for max-level characters on these games. Much more than $60.

Re:Value

[Bing Tsher E]

I consider solo MMORPGing to being in a spun up world that has dynamic processes in play. An economy, and other individuals within the economy to compete with in interesting ways. Resources to harvest, craft with, etc.

I don't care that Blizzard employes a bunch of prima-donnas who think their 'content' for the endgame is all that matters. If it gives them something to do that doesn't fuck up the basic structure of the game, so be it.

There always needs to be a level of frilly bullshit in every society, virtual or real. Froth at the top that keeps the whole place vital and interesting. And I suppose diligent airhead 'endgamers' to keep the froth fresh and foamy.

Re:Value

[UnknownSoldier]

Could you list your reasons for why GW2 didn't last please? As a game developer & designer I would be most interested in your perspective! TIA.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

I'm not the OP, but I'll give you my reasons for why GW2 didn't work for me.

1. Gameplay was too dissimilar to GW1. I felt like I had been taken in a bait and switch.

2. Poor/no character customization. Every character was exactly like every other character of their class and weapon. MMO replayability requires diverse gameplay options, and social games require character uniqueness. GW had little of the first and none of the second.

3. Bad and inflexible control layout. This was my breaking point. What abilities I had were defined by the weapon I used, and were locked in place. In every game I like my fast attack to be on 1, my heal to be on 4, etc. In GW2 the ability keys were chosen for me and were not rebindable. This made play difficult unless you specialized in one character using a single weapon...and I don't play that way.

4. Bad storyline. A minor point for me, but the character story was not good. Some races were better than others. It wasn't good in GW1 either, so I'd overlook this, but it was a flaw.

5. Grind. Too much grind. You could avoid some grind by paying real money to buy better equipment, and I know that's a business strategy for MMOs now, but casual players like me are the least likely to engage in microtransactions *and* we hate long grinds. Put outrageous grinds in your game thinking you can mitigate it with an auction house, and you'll lose the casual playerbase.

Re:Value

[coolsnowmen]

All truth. It tooke me a while to learn that that hard way, as some addictive parts of my personality got some fake reward from leveling itself (damn you disgaea). Now it is all about game play. Currently I'm playing Planet Side 2.

Re:Value

[JaredOfEuropa]

Better solutions than pay-to-win have come up in other MMOs. The dilemma is: how do you make sure that levelling up takes sufficiently long, without making it too easy for power gamers nor too hard for casual players. The simple answer is to consider both elapsed time and effort spent.

In Age of Conan, you start earning Offline Levelling points at a certain point, you get 1 every 4 days or so. You can use those to level up any character already over 30, 1 level per point. This ensures that you have at least some proficiency in playing the boosted character, and still allows grinders to level up the normal way, while making it feasible for casual players to have a few level 80 alts as well.

Even back in the days of Ultima Online, they introduced this at some point in the form of the guaranteed gain system. In UO, you'd gain skill for every action related to that skill. Make a sword, gain blacksmithing skill. After a certain level the gain would drop off to a point where you'd only have a certain probability of gaining a point. Close to the skill cap, you might have a 1 in 1000 or worse chance at a point. Even for regular players it might take 6 months or more of hard work to reach the cap. Being a grandmaster meant something... but was pretty much unattainable for casual players. So, the guaranteed gain system would always give you a skill point for the first sword you'd make in a certain time period. A few hours at lower levels up to multiple days close to the cap. You'd still take months to reach the cap but you wouldn't spent hours every day working at it, and power gamers could still grind to gain additional points during the "cool down" period.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

You're missing the point. Players play MMOs for four main reasons: Achievement, Exploration, Competition, and Socialization. You play because you enjoy the game -- you're an explorer or socializer, or if you enjoy PvP you're a competitor. Some people play to get a sense of achievement. They want to vanquish a monster or loot a dungeon or solve a puzzle, and they want badges and items that show their accomplishment. Skill doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it; they're not trying to increase their skill, they're trying to earn trophies, and in these games trophies can be won with enough determination and time.

The problem for other Achievers is that is level 90 is an achievement in itself, and being able to purchase it with real money cheapens the prize.

Re:Value

[techprophet]

I'm not the op either, but I'll comment on this:

1. I didn't have this issue, mostly due to complete unfamiliarity with GW1. This was more a failure of marketing/differentiation than game design.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Yes, if two characters equip the same weapons they'll have the same weapon skills, but that only sets half of the bar. The remaining 5 skills can be set at will.

3. Not being able to reorder weapon skills was an odd choice. It didn't bother me, but I can empathize.

4. The story had highs and lows. Some parts were good (the death of "Mr Apples", as my exgf called the order of whispers helper character, was well done. Less so for other helpers) others were atrocious. This was a more major problem for me. I really enjoy the story bits, so the painful parts are just that: painful.

5. Maybe it's because I'm a PvPer and explorer, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Value

[Salgat]

This is actually one reason why I stopped playing the game. Guild Wars 2 fails to make you feel like your really progressing anywhere. After a week of playing the game I sat and thought, "what's the point?".

Re:Value

[Salgat]

A lot of players still see this as cheating. Embracing cheating may, at the very least, control it so that Blizzard gets the profits instead, but at the cost of legitimizing it and making it mainstream; this is something that may leave a lot of players with a bad taste in their mouth.

Re:Value

[N0Man74]

"Mentoring" and "sidekicks" have been implemented in many games. It's been requested countless times for WoW. It's a good idea that they seem resistant too.

The nature and design of these games naturally creates limits on who can play with who. Instead of coming up with an interesting and potentially fun solution to the problem (as the other 2 systems create), Blizzard has only implemented the Recruit-A-Friend system that helps reduce the time a little for the new player, but forces one friend to invest a lot of time leveling a new character with that recruited friend. Without that, it's just more grinding through 90 levels, or pay money in the future.

This seems like the greediest way to handle the problem, not the most fun.

Re:Value

[noh8rz10]

surely since day one you could buy a level 90 character from somebody else on the open market. so there were people who did nothing but make new accounts and level them up, then flip them for cash (probably a lot more than $60!). i remember reading that in chinese prisons they had everybody playing WoW for the benjamins.

if this move devalues anything, it devalues the market for max characters.

Re:Value

[Talderas]

Blizzard has been pursuing this course ever since they released bind on account gear in WotLK which increased the rate at which you gain experience as well as make the gear have stats that scale with level. They've been making leveling easier and less time consuming. I would say that after a new expansion pack comes out players will reach the new level cap within 3 days to 3 weeks. That's just one expansion pack. The cost of this service is 4 months subscription. I would say that the casual player could level a new character to the cap in 2 months so what it amounts to for the target demographic is paying $30 to be able to experience end game content now rather than in two months.

Re:Value

[noh8rz10]

flip side: never played WoW, and I have no interest in trying because so many people have been doing it for so long that I'm pretty sure I would flounder about for a year getting killed all the time and called nooby nooby noob noob. This new way I could pay $60 and at least get my foot in the door. Much more tempting.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

To help clarify:

2. The first four skills, those defined by your weapon, defined your role. The last four skills were utility skills; seldom used, usually on long cooldowns, and generally not important to the character's role. They also took forever to unlock. I don't think I ever unlocked the last one, so most of my characters only had 5-6 skills to use, with little choice.

5. I played GW2 casually for a year, splitting my attention between 5 different characters. My highest level character got to level 26. That's not even high enough to get into the lowest level dungeon in GW2. If you wanted to gain levels you needed to grind. The story outleveled you quickly; my level 26 character was facing level 30 enemies in her storyline missions, and of course failing. In order to level you had several options, all of them distasteful to a casual player: Grind xp by re-doing zone content (encouraged by the daily reward chests, but who wants to do the same thing over and over again); grind crafting (at outrageous expense that could only be supported by PvE grinding or a guild's funds); or PvP (where you are under-equipped because you're low level). In contrast, a character in GW1 was max level before leaving their newbie zone, at which point the game and the story really began, and in PvP you felt that you could contribute.

In just about every way they made GW2 unfriendly to casual players. They probably decided that fanatics were their main moneymakers so they designed the game for them, and that's fine...but they shouldn't be surprised when their player numbers are low because the casual players stayed away.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

I can't speak to WoW; I've never played it. I'm just referring to the classic Bartle theory of MMO game design: Achievers, Explorers, Killers and Socializers.

You make it sound as if there is little social interaction in WoW. Other MMOs have a lot. In some MMOs there are entire zones dedicated to social interaction with no combat possible. (TSW has a nightclub/bar, CoH had a rave, etc.)

Re:Value

[N0Man74]

It does devalue the market for max level characters, but that was a black market anyway. In theory, bought characters (if discovered) could get the account banned.

However, I think it's been a long time since you had people power-leveling characters to max to flip them for cash was common. My understanding was that in more recent years, it's been far more common for people to try to steal ("hack") the accounts, and then try to sell those compromised accounts.

When accounts were (or are) not compromised, using cheats and exploits was also common, which again could put you at risk of the "banhammer" if your account comes on the radar of Blizzard.

It was still a short-cut (with risks) for exchanging money for time investment, unofficially.

But again, the lack of a good solution to the original problem that new players are effectively cut off from the content of veteran players is what created an incentive for this type of criminal behavior.

That's one of the big problems with MMRPGs. They eventually become so old that only those heavily invested in it can find it fun and compelling to continue playing. The gap between newbie players and veteran players will continually expand.

However, I still maintain that there are better ways of bridging the gap between old and new players, rather than requiring huge time investments or more money.

Or... maybe MMRPGs are just a flawed idea in general.

Re:Value

[Oligonicella]

One way is to spend some thought and create content that can be played on numerous levels and with group OR solo play. Some games get so fixated on PvPrs that they purposely forget there are those who don't log on for five hours every day for the 'glory of pvp' . Many devs have groups of friends in the game they play with and so concentrate on scenarios only large groups can play. I'm not paying for content that requires eight players to do because it quickly becomes "GLF tank, must be CR95+". Those new people quickly become f2p and stay there because none of the new content that costs money was designed for their pleasure.

Re:Value

[noh8rz10]

Do you know how much a leveled up character would go for?

Re:Value

[Oligonicella]

In an ideal situation, all of those modes would not be progressively linked (in that you must level to the maximum level before being able to raid, etc), but designers are still trapped by the rigid progression structure of character level that is imposed on anything considered an RPG.

Bingo. I would like the game to allow me to try and fail, not read "You must be this high to go on this ride" when I try. So what if I'm only leveled to 20? So what if I'm evaporated? Can I take the opponent or not? That is the only question. If I can, I should be allowed and I should reap the reward and open up any further story thread it leads to even if I have to wait to successfully accomplish anything in it.

Oh, an one of my biggest beefs, I want to see collateral damage, not magical "won't hurt my friends" bombs.

Re:Value

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, I have no particular illusions about Blizzard giving a damn about their customers (see also: Diablo III: because shitty ping is too awesome not to add to single-player! Also auction house.); but they are operating in an environment where pay-to-play already happens under the table, so they will probably be able to get away with it being seen as a difference of degree, rather than kind, and a blow against the farmers.

Re:Value

[kungfugleek]

I'm not the OP either but I'll also respond. I enjoyed GW1 and still play GW2, both very casually.
1. Yeah, that's marketing. I miss some aspects of GW1 (like the dual profession system and more flexible skill system), but like some aspects of GW2, mostly technical (mostly non-instanced, the z-axis, the event system, the crafting system, unlocking weapon skills as you use the weapon, etc.)
2. Also don't forget traits, which further customize your character. But he's right that your character won't be as unique as he could have been in GW1 (mostly I think because of the skill collection system in GW1).
3. Yeah, that was weird. Didn't bother me at all, though.
4. I agree on the story, but still force myself to sit through new cutscenes.
5. I've never really felt like I was grinding (I play PvE). If I wasn't enjoying something, I'd go on to something else. But I'm also the type to hang around and listen to the NPCs talk and enjoy the setup and resolution of their dynamic events. A lot of it is mundane, but there are some gems there once in a while. And you can't directly spend real money on better gear, but you can spend real money on in-game currency and use that at the Trading House (items put up for sale by players) to buy better gear. Then there are some convenience and cosmetic items in the real-money store; the only one that helps you get more powerful would be the temporary XP boosters. Doesn't bother me.

One of the things I love is that my friends or my kids can get online with a new character and I can join them up wherever they are with my highest level character and still have fun playing with them.

Re:Value

[Xinef Jyinaer]

I personally put over 1000 hours into GW2 and have most classes at level 80(ranger and engi didn't make it quite) 1. I miss the GW1 customization. Also healing... I loved healing. I have to agree with Remus tha tit felt like it was a bait and switch partly because they made it seem like you could actively protect your teammates a lot more than you could. No collision detection between npcs or players really hurts a game in my mind. 2. Ascended gear. This takes WAAAAAAAY too long to grind for my liking. The stat increase isn't really even worth the grind. Especially when you need to do it for 5 level 80 characters that were there before they even released this surprise tier. 3. Healers, you can have healers without the holy trinity you just don't use traditional threat mechanics

Re:Value

[Xphile101361]

Note: I am a currently GW2 player and like the game. Hoping to put some context around the above's comments for people who haven't played the game.

1) The game play did majorly switch between GW1 and GW2. They reimplemented the class system, created a whole new skill system and a bunch of other things. Some of this were a disappointment to me as well, as they removed the "Monk" class and you no longer had the ability to have a Main and Secondary class for each character. Beyond that though, I found the rest of the changes to be an improvement for the most part.

2&3) At any given time, you have 10 skills on your character. The first five skills are defined by what weapon combination you are currently wielding. Every Necromancer using a staff will have the same five skills. You then have a slot for a healing skill, three slots for utility skills and one slot for an elite skill. On top of this you also have a "trait" system, which modifies your skills or gives you bonuses for certain types of actions (steal HP on crit, your AoE skills get bigger, etc). I find this is where most of the customization comes into the game, while in the original GW you simply just dumped points into various stat pools to make the associated skills stronger.

It does suck that you can't move your weapon skills to different slots. Some of the skills i use far more often than others, and it would be nice to have those as one and two all the time, instead of two and four on one set of weapons and five and four on a different set of weapons. The rest of the skills (6-0) can be put on different keyboard commands though, as most people I know make "Q" their heal skill and "E' their elite skill. Overall I think that after you play awhile, you just get used to it. I constantly shift back and forth between my two weapon configurations on multiple characters and no longer have issues, but it did take awhile to learn.

4) There are two storylines, your personal story line and the "Living World Storyline". I agree about the personal storyline. After about level 40, I became rather disinterested in it. GW2 for the past year has been pushing out bi-weekly updates that push the "Living World" story forward and this one I have enjoyed immensely.

5) This is the one that I have to disagree with, unless we have very different versions of grinding. Basically anything in this game will give you XP. Craft a new item? Explore a new location? Do a jumping puzzle? Congrats, you got XP for all of that, on top of any killing that you have to do. So leveling I never felt was a grind, as I had a choice to basically do whatever I wanted in game and I would level up for doing it.

As for equipment... everything in the game is craftable. Legendary items do take a lot of grinding to acquire, but they are meant to showcase the dedication of the player. Between Karma rewards given by the vendors when you help out a location and the ability to craft equipment, I've never had to either grind or spend real money to get equipment. I've gotten so much crafting stuff just by running around and salvaging stuff that I make stuff just to throw it into the slot machine for a chance to get a precursor item.

Re:Value

[N0Man74]

One way is to spend some thought and create content that can be played on numerous levels and with group OR solo play.

Absolutely true! Mentoring and Sidekicks aren't the only option. Some games have also created "mercenaries" that allow you to play dungeon content with NPCs that act as your party. Though, the problem with that is that you are still playing a massively multi-player game solo, which kind of seems pointless (given there are better single player games).

I'm still a fan of mentoring though. They could have created a "Legacy Dungeon" mode (with some incentive) for higher level characters that would mix them (artificially de-leveled temporarily) with lower level players (friends or random) that are still leveling up. Give both something to do.

Well there are many possible ways to deal with it, but they seemed to have taken the monetize it solution.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

I did my storyline as far as I could. I completed every heart and every exploration point for every zone up to where my storyline was. (So, the first two zones for each race. I think my 26th level mage got to the third zone but didn't complete everything.) I did dynamic events when they happened near me, but I didn't go out of my way for them. I even tried crafting. With all of that, I was still underleveled for my storyline missions and could not handle PvE in the next zone.

My only choice to level was to re-do all the heart content that I've already done, pour more money into crafting, and just generally whack monsters to grind for xp. I can't get into dungeons, I can't survive in any new zones, and I can't progress in my storyline. I had five characters with no choice but to grind or give up on, so I gave up. I'm a casual player; I don't have the time to waste grinding the same content over and over.

(I did have the option of entering PvP. I don't like PvP in general, but I'll play it if it's fair. It's not in GW2. While my low-level character was boosted to level 80 upon entering the PvP zone, everyone else had three more skills than I did and better equipment, not to mention guilds backing them up. PvP in GW2 is very, very unfriendly to solo casual players. I'd prefer grind over PvPing.)

Re:Value

[Altrag]

It didn't "beat" WoW therefore it no longer exists! Never mind the practically constant stream of updates and such that they're still putting out. Anything less than WoW's what.. 60-80%? MMO market share isn't worth considering right?

The problem with these claims isn't usually the games themselves -- its that people bill them as WoW-killers in the first place. -No- single game will ever "kill" WoW in the sense of having more users. WoW will continue to bleed off users as it goes along of course (its a 10 year old game after all!) but the market is saturated by now so the chances that ALL of those users are going to move to the same new game is practically non-existent. (Well perhaps for a few weeks here and there when something new and flashy is just released and before the hype dies. See Diablo 3 -- not coincidentally, also a Blizzard product.)

By the time some other MMO finally exceeds WoW's user count, we will probably be several years past caring about "WoW-killers" because WoW's market share will have dipped to a level where "killing" it won't be considered with quite the same awe that we seem to expect currently.

A true "WoW-killer" is not impossible of course but there's a huge difference between WoW coming in at a time when MMOs were just getting off the ground and taking the cake, and a "WoW-killer" coming in when WoW already exists, a handful of other big names such as GW2 exist and countless tiny MMOs are all competing for your time and money. Not to mention the mass exodus from sit-and-play games to play-on-the-go mobile games sucking up MMO players in general.

Re:Value

[jeffasselin]

Most leveling is done solo nowadays in WoW. You will participate in dungeons with other random people, but you'll likely never see those people again in your entire life, so you don't really care. Even while leveling, most players you meet will be from other realms.

Most of the socializing happens at max level, when you play in the high-level zones, organize groups for challenge dungeons or raids, and with your guild, most of which happens at max level.

Re:Value

[WuphonsReach]

And in EQ2, they do it through Vitality. If you have Vitality, you are earning XP with a 200% bonus. That usually runs out after a few levels, depending on how much you mob grind vs quest grind and takes a while to refill back to full.

So the player who only has time to login a few hours each week, will be running on +200% XP for most of their play time.

It mostly works. There are trinkets on 7-day cooldowns that you can use to refill your vitality meter, and potions that you can buy with RL funds to refill your vitality.

(Note that EQ2 also now offers a level 85 character for 3500 station cash or about $35. Current level cap is 95. So they do the pay-to-level method as well.)

Re:Value

[im_thatoneguy]

This isn't really for the casual gamer though since if you buy the expansion you get one character up-leveled for free. It's unlikely a casual gamer has multiple characters that they feel need to be leveled up.

Re: Value

[techprophet]

You did WvW, which is a completely different animal from sPvP. sPvP boosts you to 80, gives you exotic gear and unlocks all skills and traits and skill slots for you. The only grind in it is for epeen. I personally can't stand WvW, but greatly enjoy sPvP.

I had a very different experience while leveling. I consistently out-leveled my story missions when doing zone completions on my guardian. However, I also went out of my way for group events and gathering modes, both of which give a significant amount of experience.

Also, not to nitpick, but: your traits and utility skills do more to define your role than your weapons. Using engineer as an example, a rifle engi can be a bunker, power burst or support in sPvP. Which the engineer actually is depends on their traits and utilities (and amulet, but it's less defining). I typically play pistol/pistol engineer, which can be control or condi dps. The reason for P/P is that rifle has fewer conditions than pistols. Deep alchemy traits combined with elixir utility skills give group support and slipperiness. Deep invention traits and skills would make me tankier and more control-oriented (pistols have an aoe root and blind that helps with that). I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea: weapons are only one piece of what defines a build. That's really good, because engineers only have 4 options for weapons (not counting kits, which are also utility skills).

Re:Value

[Tharkkun]

One way is to spend some thought and create content that can be played on numerous levels and with group OR solo play.

Absolutely true! Mentoring and Sidekicks aren't the only option. Some games have also created "mercenaries" that allow you to play dungeon content with NPCs that act as your party. Though, the problem with that is that you are still playing a massively multi-player game solo, which kind of seems pointless (given there are better single player games).

I'm still a fan of mentoring though. They could have created a "Legacy Dungeon" mode (with some incentive) for higher level characters that would mix them (artificially de-leveled temporarily) with lower level players (friends or random) that are still leveling up. Give both something to do.

Well there are many possible ways to deal with it, but they seemed to have taken the monetize it solution.

At the end of the day you still need to level your character for max level content. Most mentoring systems didn't grant you spells or abilities that the max level character had. Only the stats. So you would be completely broken when it comes to doing true endgame content in a system like this. Thus the reason for buying a boost.

Re:Value

[Tharkkun]

play the game and achieve all those things glaringly pointless.

There is no "achievement" in WoW. If you want a game that involves skill rather than "pay to win", learn to play Chess or Go or any of a number of other things. You cannot pay $60 and suddenly become a master level, because it requires learned skill.

Play the game because you enjoy playing the game. If people are willing to pay $60 to not play the game, it's not a very good sign of the game being any fun. But someone ELSE paying $60 to not play the game, does not remove YOUR ability to play the game if you actually do enjoy it.

Bzzt. After you've leveled your 4th, 5th, 6th, etc character the content you experience while leveling is old. It's awesome the first and second time but it becomes dull after that because it's nothing new. Thus the boost, the heirlooms for extra experience and recruit a friend. There's also the returning player. You come back after 4 years because your friends have talked you into the playing again. Oh no, you're stuck at level 30. Now you have to spend 2 weeks leveling before being able to play with your friends. Most people will be like screw this and quit or decide not to come back at all. A boost to 90 gives an incentive to return. Keep in mind you still have 10 levels to go once this service is enabled because 100 will be the new cap.

Re:Value

[Tharkkun]

This is like if baseball has responded to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal (players paid to throw the World Series) by simply selling the World Series trophy to the highest bidder each year. (Yankees jokes aside.) Does that fix the corruption, sure. Does it save the sport, no. "Pay To Win" is the opposite of a game, it is just normal life.

Pay to win would indicate that you are given an advantage over other players. You have no advantage at 90. You're still responsible for learning how to play and acquiring gear. There's not a single thing in WoW you can purchase for real money that will give you a competitive advantage over another player.

Re:Value

[Tharkkun]

flip side: never played WoW, and I have no interest in trying because so many people have been doing it for so long that I'm pretty sure I would flounder about for a year getting killed all the time and called nooby nooby noob noob. This new way I could pay $60 and at least get my foot in the door. Much more tempting.

Your first time through would probably be better suited without using the boost. This will give you a feel for the game itself. The character on the other hand changes completely at max level so learning to play from 1-90 doesn't have much benefit.

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

I think you missed the fact that I was leveling several characters simultaneously, all of a different race. Yes, I could have taken my Human mage off to the Charr newbie lands and leveled there...but I had already done that content with my Charr engineer. It's still repeating content that I had already played. There were no level-appropriate zones that I had not already completed. That's how I play MMOs -- I try several different characters until I find the one I like best.

Good suggestion, though. If I ever feel the urge to pick GW2 up again I might give that a try. There may be some replayability in re-doing content as a different race/class. (In other games I'd say there definitely would be, but in GW2 I'm not so sure.)

Re: Value

[Remus Shepherd]

You're right, I don't think I ever found 'sPvP'. WvW is a button on the GUI. I don't even know how to get into an sPVP zone.

All the discussion about traits goes right over my head. My max level character was 26. I never got high enough level for traits to affect my gameplay. At all. They are a completely useless mechanic for new players -- 'new', in my case, meaning I had played for a full year. A game mechanic that means nothing to players after a year of play is a badly designed mechanic.

Re:Value

[zugmeister]

You bring up a good point. There are fairly clearly defined roles players assume in a party, and if someone doesn't know what they're doing it will ruin the experience for the rest of the group. Leveling up your character teaches you exactly how to play that class / type. If you buy your way to the top, you still may have no idea what you're doing when the rest of your party is depending on you to pull your weight.

Re:Value

[dougisfunny]

There really isn't a difference based on race, any given zone is the pretty much same for a Charr as it is for an Asura etc. Also of note, after level 30 things converge, and all 5 of your characters would be going through one of three options for Vigil, Whispers or Priory. And then after that, those funnel into the Pact.
That said, completing, even if not in their entirety the starter zones for other races is a good/easy way to level, as the XP scales with you, and it's a good way to get skill points while starting.
But for the record, doing multiple characters like that isn't always the best way to get a feel for a character, as a number of them you don't even really get a feel for until after level 40 when you unlock the second tier of traits. I found doing one at a time works better for me, then when you do go back to the newb zones, it will have been long enough ago that repeating it isn't as bad either.

Re:Value

[Darinbob]

Lord of the Rings Online offered a similar service, getting you to roughly mid level with appropriate traits and such. It was only temporary, caused a lot of controversy, and often the same argument of "who would ever buy this?" But then when temporary offer expired there were a lot of players suddenly asking when it would be available again.

Basically there are a lot of players who really want to skip the early stuff and get to higher levels fast. There had already been a huge amount of powerleveling going on. I think it is short sighted myself. However some people with many alts don't want to do the same stuff all over again. It a money maker. It's along the lines of revamping the game to make leveling go faster, since higher level players are more likely to buy expansions and suh.

Re:Value

[Brulath]

That or it's more about being able to create a level 90 character to play immediately with your friend who just signed up to WoW and got a free 90. WoW, and I assume other MMOs, aren't full of terribly engaging gameplay, but being able to play with friends makes up for that somehow; not many people would play a WoW-like game in permanently-offline single-player mode.

Re:Value

[Darinbob]

I disagree. The free-to-play and hybrid games are necessary. But the people who hate that model and assume that subscriptions are the only divinely sanctioned metod will find any flaw and point to it as proof that the store is evil. Ie, a game loses customers, switches to a store/sub model, then the game continues losing money but at a slower rate and this is treated as proof that the store caused it all. Lord of the Rings Online has done very well since switching to this model; yes there are flaws in what's happening however if it had stayed a "subscribe or get the hell out" game then it would have even more problems today. The fact that the game has more casual players is absolutely NOT a flaw. Also LotRO was not uninundated with trolls and gold sellers as so many people continue to claim will happen with free-to-play. Dungeons and Dragons Online had dropped subscription enough that they had already merged servers, then it went with F2P/Sub hybrid model and it regained customers and it still around several years later.

I am uncertain why people are scared of someone being high level and unskilled. You aren't forced to group with them. They can not get the vorpal sword of EyeWin, there are no game stores I know of that do this. Instead they level up to higher levels via the store, get some consumables, etc. That takes no skill to level up it only takes time. The person who takes 3 years to reach level 90 is not any better than the person who took a week to do it.

None of this diminishes anyone else. If your self worth is so shaky that it can be upset by someone else achieving the same thing you did with less effort, then the problem is not with the game. These are cooperative games, not competition, there is no "win". On PvP side maybe there is some competition but those players always strongly insist that player skill is the most important thing and you can't buy that in a store. (and besides, if there is no whining in PvP then it's because the servers are down)

Re:Value

[Remus Shepherd]

Yeah, I figured that my approach to MMOs was 'wrong' for GW2. They designed it for a different kind of player. No harm no foul.

The question is, how many players like me were driven away for the same reasons.

Re:Value

[N0Man74]

At the end of the day you still need to level your character for max level content. Most mentoring systems didn't grant you spells or abilities that the max level character had. Only the stats. So you would be completely broken when it comes to doing true endgame content in a system like this.

Thus the reason for buying a boost.

You are confusing a "Mentor" and "Sidekick" system. A Mentor system will take a higher level player and temporarily reduce their power (level) in order to allow them to play with lower leveled people in lower level content.

A "Sidekick" type system is more like what you are describing, which allows a lower level player to become more powerful in order to play with a higher level character.

Both can be of benefit, but I'd lean towards a Mentor system for WoW.

Also, A "Sidekick" doesn't necessarily have to be viable for high end raid content. In fact, I'd say it shouldn't be! That content is designed to be something that higher level players have to build up to already. But that doesn't negate the value of allowing sidekicks to perform in "Normal" level dungeons with higher level players.

Though a sidekick system probably works best in a game that doesn't require party role optimization to work well, which would not be WoW.

Re:Value

[davewoods]

Indeed, this brings to mind images of 30 year old babies that have no motor skills aside from walking. When I played, I could run into almost any situation and know exactly what strategy to use. These people would end up lumbering around mashing random buttons/skills/spells until they found the first thing that kinda works, and rely solely on that. Then as soon as the situation changes, they are useless again.

Re: Value

[techprophet]

I've played for only a bit more than a year and have 2 80s and several 40s. I get the feeling that you've not put a significant amount of time into the game during that year.

sPvP also has a button on the GUI, it is placed immediately to the right of WvW. It -- unfortunately -- cannot be bound to a hotkey.

Re:Value

[B33rNinj4]

I agree. While I don't feel "compelled" to play it like I did with WoW (probably due to no subscription), I still find myself spending most of my evenings. It's never felt like a chore. I'm still a little surprised that Blizzard would make it so expensive. That's the full price of an expansion! I also don't buy their excuse for preserving player value. With full heirlooms, leveling is fairly trivial.

Wut?

[Kjella]

When it comes out, they're giving every player a free boost to 90 in order to get to the new content immediately. (...) They don't want to 'devalue the accomplishment of leveling.'

So... buy WoW, create lvl 1 character, buy expansion, instant level 90? Sounds to me like you don't have to accomplish much...

Re:Wut?

[Buck Feta]

That is true, but you also won't accomplish much if you don't know how to play. Not to mention, you won't find many people to raid with (besides fellow hollow 90s). This isn't aimed at new subscribers. It's to keep the old ones interested.

Re:Wut?

[zwei2stein]

If you play game to "accomplish" something, you might want to reevaluate reasons why you pay to play the game to fake-accomplish stuff.

If you are instant L90 you have ... freedom.

Want to go to sightsee zone X? You can.

Want to try dungeon Y? You can.

Want to do quest Z? Sure, go ahead.

Want to...

There is so much you can do besides watching stupid pointless number to go up. Maybe you can try that sometimes.

Re:Wut?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not really true. Leveling is just a different phase of the game (and in vanilla it was a much bigger part of the game at that, these days it's a lot faster).

Re:Wut?

[Exitar]

Do you mean that killing thousands of rats is an accomplishment?

Re:Wut?

[ButchDeLoria]

Reminds me of Godville, a mobile cow clicker sort of affair where you had an RPG hero who you couldn't control, only heal. All gear acquisition, fighting, quests, etc. were autonomous.

Re:Wut?

[war4peace]

So... why does that number exist in the first place?
Just remove levels and be done with the whole thing.

Re:Wut?

[Mike Frett]

Leveling was the best part of the game for me. Once I hit max level I rerolled, the adventure stops at max level for me. Of course now they got everybody phased into zones, you can't even complete quests anymore because nobody groups. There's always a huge line waiting for the quest-giver. I wouldn't mind playing again if I could have my wide-open, empty space back again. =p

Better yet, add bots and make a solo, single-player version of WoW available. I'd definitely buy it if it worked in Wine.

Re:Wut?

[timftbf]

Better yet, add bots and make a solo, single-player version of WoW available. I'd definitely buy it if it worked in Wine.

This. I love the first few levels of WoW where I don't have to interact with anyone. I think the art style is great, I enjoy the lore, the feeling of just wandering about exploring things is a whole bunch of fun.

Then I get to a point where it's time to go in an instance with other people, and I hate it, and quit.

Been round this loop three times now since vanilla. I know how it's going to go, but every few years I get the urge to go and do it again...

Re:Wut?

[darkestsoul]

Agreed. The best part of the game for me was starting out at Camp Narache and questing my way to Thunder Bluff!

Re:Wut?

[tbuddy]

WoW needs this and then a $10 death penalty waive option.

Re:Wut?

[omglolbah]

Some players enjoy leveling, others do not.

Re:Wut?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So... buy WoW, create lvl 1 character, buy expansion, instant level 90? Sounds to me like you don't have to accomplish much...

If the game is any good, those level 90 players won't survive without skills anyway.

I don't play this game, so I can't really say if it's any good or not, but as a general rule, if the level does not equate to actual skills, then it's not a very useful measure (except perhaps of time or money spent).

Re:Wut?

[noh8rz10]

You describe it like a Zelda game. this is more appealing. I don't want to deal with other fuckers; my life is full of them already.

Re:Wut?

[BlackHawk-666]

Why not fire up your own private WoW server and play on your own or with a few mates? Most of the solo stuff works pretty well on them.

Re:Wut?

[war4peace]

There you go, there's the sense of accomplishment, exactly what the parent tries to play down.

Re:Wut?

[Darinbob]

To SOME players the game begins there. To a lot of other players though when you hit max level that's when they start over with a new alt. Most players are in between.

In my view, if the game is not fun while leveling up, then it will not be fun in the end game either.

I've long had the view that these games should discard levels entirely. It's an archaic D&D concept and alternative systems came out a year or two later. Get rid of levels and these problems vanish; players can decide to quest or do dungeons or laugh at players with poor gear or whatever other hobby they have. The real reason that levels are still around is that players still foolishly want to keep score, or need a number to prove they've advanced.

Endlessly upping the level cap is ruining a lot of games. They start off nicely balanced but after a few expansions things are way out of wack and take more and more effort to keep things enjoyable at all levels, and the stats systems become ridiculously complicated (at least compared to single player games), classes need revamping, etc.

Re:Wut?

[DJ Particle]

To be fair, apparently there are these caveats:

1) Once your character is boosted, you'll be thrown into a scenario chain to teach you the higher abilities. You need to pass it to go back into the world.
2) There's still incentive to get your character to 60 first. If you raise a 60+ character to 90, your professions also auto-boost to 600.
3) By the time you can buy this, the level cap will be 100. There's still some leveling to do.

Can't imagine many will see the point

[RogueyWon]

I played World of Warcraft on and off for a few years. I was a pretty hardcore player from the launch of Burning Crusade through to near the end of Lich King and came back casual for a while for late Cataclysm and early Pandaria. I know the game pretty well and have friends who still play it.

So I can say with confidence that you would be absolutely mad to pay for a boost up to level 90 with prices like that (and if you are a new player, mad to pay at all).

There are two types of people now who might be starting out at level 1; new (or returning-after-a-gap-of-years) players starting their first characters, or veterans levelling an "alt" (a secondary - or indeed tertiary or beyond - character).

If you are a new player, then going through the level-up process is important and you should not skip it. First of all, this is where you learn how to play your character. Most end-game content involves group-play and if you have a brand new player at the level cap staring at a hotbar full of unfamiliar abilities, it will be a long time before you are actually competent enough to play alongside others. The level-up process, during which you are introduced to abilities one or two at a time, takes you at least part of the way along that learning curve for your character. It also exposes you to a lot of the game's lore, if that's your bag (I always found WoW's lore a bit boring and juvenile, but some people like it).

And if you're a veteran player, then there are lots and lots of things you can do to accelerate the level-up process for an alt without handing over real-money. I levelled up three alts while never taking them out of "rested" state (meaning they were getting double xp from kills). Heirlooms allow you to boost the rate of xp gain even faster, to the point where 1-80, by the launch of Pandaria, was just stupidly fast. I doubt even a brand new character takes over 100 hours of game time (or indeed, anything like it). Alts certainly take much less.

So yeah, I can't imagine Blizzard would have too many takers for this. Or at least, I hope they won't.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[omglolbah]

I would not pay to level up an alt... but if I were to start on a new server? I actually might.

Starting out on a new server, even with heirlooms you still end up sometimes strapped for cash.
Boosting up to 90 so you have a 'money-runner' so to speak might be worth it.

Personally I've leveled up probably 30 characters since I started playing shortly after launch in EU.. I find it enjoyable compared to a lot of other time-wasters. Sometimes I just want to mindlessly derp around after a long day of figuring shit out at work.

I doubt I will make use of it, but I can see situations where I could.
Especially with the amusing exchange rate/cost of living difference between the US and where I live... 60 bucks is roughly 4 pints :p

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[RogueyWon]

Seriously, it's nothing like 100-hours game time to get a character to max level and it's much less if it's not your first character. There are a few factors that affect how long it will take (if you do marathon play sessions it will take longer than if you play in bursts with rested state), but I'd estimate no more than 60 for a first character, as of Mists of Pandaria. And a good chunk of that will be on the final 5 levels, which (last time I checked) hadn't yet been accelerated in the same way as the pre-Pandaria content.

I've done alts in under 40 hours of playtime, through a combination of rested state and heirlooms. Combine those and the little xp-progress bar absolutely shoots across the bottom of the screen. Plus levelling an alt is actually kinda fun, particularly with the group-finder making low-level dungeon runs a much better way to level up.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[captainpanic]

In any game, I never like it when people get more powerful than me, simply because they pay more. It's a game, not real life!

Games are no longer primarily about friendly competition between players. It's now a source of income for the developers, so much in fact that the competition (which once was the whole point of games - even in the pre-digital era) has been sacrificed to generate more income.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[RogueyWon]

Pay-to-win isn't - quite - what's on offer here. Blizzard haven't yet gone that far.

If you've played WoW for any time, you'll know that the game only really "begins" once you hit the level cap. Certainly, there isn't much point in comparing yourself to other players until you hit the maximum level. What Blizzard are selling here is the opportunity to skip the extended tutorial/storyline hybrid that comes before the game starts in earnest.

Genuine pay-to-win would be the sale of any kind of advantage, be it gear, increased access to instances (such as a waiver on weekly lock-outs) or any kind of character power-boost or income-boost once at the level cap. So far, Blizzard have not gone in that direction (though many other MMOs do). I think Blizzard still understand that would be a step too far for the player-base they've built up and would likely kill their cash-cow. MMOs that do use that model tend to have relatively short lifespans, while WoW is still going strong after the better part of a decade on the basis of a subscription model.

In fact, the pure subscription-model is by no means as dead as many people seem to think. There was a real worry, after the disaster of the initial Old Republic launch, that the model was no longer viable in a world of free-to-play-pay-to-win. But the re-launch of Final Fantasy XIV late last year was extremely successful (and remains successful several months after launch) on the basis of a subscription model with no microtransactions at all.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[silentcoder]

A largely overlooked factor (though I agree with your general comment - and for myself, I will at most see it as a way to maybe rapid-level an alt with the free one when I buy the upgrade just to try some new class out) is that they realized that without the levelling people would have no idea what a class's spells do.

So they are saying boosted characters would go through a kind of special starting zone and get a bunch of quests designed to teach them the character in a kind of crash-course way - much like Death Knights have done all along to rapidly skill up between 55 (where they start) and about 58 where they leave the DK starting zone.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Xordin]

First, when you buy the new expansion, you get a level boost to 90 for free. You only need to buy it separately if you want multiple characters at 90.

Secondly, being good with your class is now only required for Flex level raids and higher. You can see all of the game without knowing how to play your character. Blizzard has at times re-introduced minor difficulty in 5-mans (heroic 5-mans at the start of Cataclysm, Icecrown 5-mans) but while some people liked that, most of the players didn't.

Thirdly, you say you'd be "mad to pay" $60. I could easily see myself having $60 worth of fun trying out another character class. What other things can you buy for $60? You can easily spend more just eating out in a good restaurant, and that'll give you only two hours of fun.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying your way into accomplishing some of the in-game goals without putting any effort into it sounds like pay to win to me. There is no rule that says you have to win the UltimateGoalOfTheGame (tm) to qualify.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[captainpanic]

Thanks for the info. I can't give you any mod points though! Maybe someone else can.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Bing Tsher E]

The game wouldn't even be interesting to me if there weren't other servers to switch to after a character has leveled up to the point of being boring. The game for me is roleplaying up to about level 85 then starting over.

All the store-bought mounts, and even the earned 'epic' mounts look like big fat power-boats to me. Ugly as shit when not in the air. Likewise the fat pandas wobbling around on their giant tortoises. I'll get around on a black griffon, thank you. A gnome or goblin assassin on a canoe.

I'll admit the game probably wouldn't pay out for the publisher enough to still exist in an interesting form, with an economy, etc. that is interesting to exist within, without the endgame for those others. But I'm a nerd, and I don't care very much what the jocks are doing over in their areas. It can be annoying at busy times to have to frequent the places in the game where they've gathered to queue up and dork around on their giant e-peen mounts, but I don't have to spend much time there.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[jayveekay]

If you've played WoW for any time, you'll know that the game only really "begins" once you hit the level cap.

The most interesting aspect of MMORPG gaming is interacting with other players and attempting to influence the direction of the game by conversing with the game designers. That can occur at any level.

Genuine pay-to-win would be the sale of any kind of advantage, be it gear, increased access to instances (such as a waiver on weekly lock-outs) or any kind of character power-boost or income-boost once at the level cap.

In WoW, the power of a character increases with the time spent playing the game. The power comes primarily through leveling to the cap and once at the cap it's from getting better gear. If you're able to start at the cap, then all the time that would have been spent leveling can be spent getting better gear, for a net increase in character power given the same time investment as a character that starts at level 1. However, for a serious raider, the time spent leveling to the cap is miniscule compared to the time spent playing at the cap, so the level skip does not make a difference in the long run, so I'm in agreement that there isn't a substantial pay-to-win aspect to this.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Whorhay]

That may be true of WoW now but in Vanilla and even to some extent in TBC the leveling game was much stronger. I knew very few people that didn't have a half dozen alts at various levels. TBC started to erode the leveling game by funneling all characters through the same set of zones. In Vanilla there was always a variety of zones you could play in at any particular level. So many people would play alts to see other content and see how a different class could handle the same challenges. The elimination of the leveling game is part of what has kept me from going back to WoW since I quit.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[RogueyWon]

Yes, WoW has evolved substantially since its launch. To all intents and purposes, Burning Crusade was "WoW2", Lich King was "WoW3" and so on. The game changes more through expansions (and even through some of the larger patches) than... say... Call of Duty changes between entire games.

Before WoW, levelling up was almost the whole point of MMOs and end-game content was something only a small proportion of players ever saw. In Final Fantasy XI or Everquest, many players still wouldn't have reached the level cap after playing for a year or more.

WoW's great innovation - and one of the big reasons for its success - was to cut down the length of the level grind and make end-game play (which tends to involve more skill and more social interaction) available to a much larger pool of players. Vanilla WoW was a huge shift in that direction compared to older MMOs and Blizzard have shifted the game even further that way with every subsequent expansion.

Almost every MMO launched since WoW has tried to duplicate that formula, but failed to add enough of a distinctive twist to it to lure people away from it in the long-term. If the re-launched Final Fantasy XIV - which is very impressive indeed and the most successful MMO launch since WoW - has one really killer feature, it is that it shifts the tone and nature of both levelling and end-game content substantially away from the WoW model (without ignoring WoW's evolutions of the genre entirely).

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[_xeno_]

If the re-launched Final Fantasy XIV has one really killer feature, it is that it shifts the tone and nature of both levelling and end-game content substantially away from the WoW model (without ignoring WoW's evolutions of the genre entirely).

I have no idea what you mean. Granted I haven't played WoW since vanilla, but in FFXIV, you level up via quests, gain rest XP by logging off at an inn^W"sanctuary," and the game doesn't "really" begin until you hit level 50. Almost exactly like WoW, except for the part where you have to level a second class up to level 15 in order to play your original class past level 30 and the fact that the cap is 50, not 60.

End game content is then annoying raids with strict loot lock-outs, making for a very slow gear progression grind.

Now I have to admit that I don't know what leveling in WoW is like today, but leveling in FFXIV is basically identical to what WoW did at launch. Except you can (well, are forced to, if we're honest) level multiple classes on the same character. But it's still basically "grind quests until level cap, then switch to a gear treadmill." Just like WoW. How is this different? I'm not seeing it.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[MarcoAtWork]

I played WOW from vanilla to cataclysm (I played the most during tbc and wotlk) but did not play MOP, from my perspective the most fun of the game was to meet people while levelling, grouping together and then having that develop in a friendship and/or starting a guild and so on.

When I left nobody grouped for anything during levelling due to the content being way too easy, x-realm dungeons removed any sort of incentive to behave (in the "old days" if you were a ninja or you ruined a party your reputation on the server would be immediately affected, meaning no more runs for you, kicked out of your guild etc.), and in general realms did not have much of a feeling of community anymore. After I left apparently they introduced x-realm zones which seem to me the worst of both worlds, you have people everywhere ( so competition for nodes / quest items ) *and* they are not from your realm, so you can't really interact much with them and there is no incentive again to be nice.

From my perspective if I could make decisions I would:

- remove automatic x-realm gameplay (if you know somebody on a different realm and you want to invite them, fine) so no x-realm raid finder or dungeons or bgs
- make all nodes or quest mobs drop shareable loot so there is no competition for them
- merge low-pop realms, create a couple of "special" low-pop realms players can be moved to if they so choose
- significantly increase the difficulty of levelling and dungeons, and I mean difficulty, not just lowering drop percentages of items
- increase the role of 'proving grounds' to make them more and more mandatory, every time you run through a proving ground you get a buff (say, lasting a day or two) and only with this buff you can PUG (raids or dungeons or bgs)
- any time you fly when you dismount you get a "can't pvp debuff" so you cannot attack players unless they attack you first

these IMHO would bring back more of a feeling of community and achievement to the game, OTOH I am sure they are still making money hand over fist with the current model so I doubt anything like this will happen, which is sad because there definitely was a period of time where wow was an incredible game to play.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Tharkkun]

I played World of Warcraft on and off for a few years. I was a pretty hardcore player from the launch of Burning Crusade through to near the end of Lich King and came back casual for a while for late Cataclysm and early Pandaria. I know the game pretty well and have friends who still play it.

So I can say with confidence that you would be absolutely mad to pay for a boost up to level 90 with prices like that (and if you are a new player, mad to pay at all).

There are two types of people now who might be starting out at level 1; new (or returning-after-a-gap-of-years) players starting their first characters, or veterans levelling an "alt" (a secondary - or indeed tertiary or beyond - character).

If you are a new player, then going through the level-up process is important and you should not skip it. First of all, this is where you learn how to play your character. Most end-game content involves group-play and if you have a brand new player at the level cap staring at a hotbar full of unfamiliar abilities, it will be a long time before you are actually competent enough to play alongside others. The level-up process, during which you are introduced to abilities one or two at a time, takes you at least part of the way along that learning curve for your character. It also exposes you to a lot of the game's lore, if that's your bag (I always found WoW's lore a bit boring and juvenile, but some people like it).

And if you're a veteran player, then there are lots and lots of things you can do to accelerate the level-up process for an alt without handing over real-money. I levelled up three alts while never taking them out of "rested" state (meaning they were getting double xp from kills). Heirlooms allow you to boost the rate of xp gain even faster, to the point where 1-80, by the launch of Pandaria, was just stupidly fast. I doubt even a brand new character takes over 100 hours of game time (or indeed, anything like it). Alts certainly take much less.

So yeah, I can't imagine Blizzard would have too many takers for this. Or at least, I hope they won't.

You learn very little in the leveling up process in today's game. People who say otherwise are stubborn and believe you should suffer the slow process like they did in 2004. Once you hit max level everything changes. There's guides, macros, priority lists, addons, etc that allow you to learn your class quickly and efficiently. Yet WoW still has tons of bad players. So forcing someone to spend extra "wasted" time leveling isn't going to fix them.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[Tharkkun]

Paying your way into accomplishing some of the in-game goals without putting any effort into it sounds like pay to win to me. There is no rule that says you have to win the UltimateGoalOfTheGame (tm) to qualify.

Leveling to max level isn't an accomplishment. You can level any character while watching Gilligan's Island reruns the whole time. Players who believe it's an accomplishment are those who wasted hours of their lives leveling multiple characters before this service was announced.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[DJ Particle]

By the time you're actually able to buy this, the cap will be 100.

Re:Can't imagine many will see the point

[drsquare]

If you've played WoW for any time, you'll know that the game only really "begins" once you hit the level cap.

So what you're saying is that the vast majority of WoW players have never actually played the game? They've only played the extended tutorial?

People think that raiding is the centre-point of the game because hardcore raiders make the most noise on Internet forums. The fact is, they had to introduce the random raid finder because Blizzard were putting all this effort into making all these raids and most players weren't seeing them because they weren't interested in raiding.

Re: Levelling not the point?

[AskChopper]

Your friend is lying in order to cover up his shameful addiction. It's all about levelling. After that it's all about hanging around the bank on a unicorn, or was that UO?

WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[AlphaBro]

Everyone wanting to emulate WoW's success has absolutely destroyed PC gaming. Watered down content and gameplay that is engineered to be inordinately time consuming? No thanks.

Re:WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[meglon]

WoW didn't originate those "features."

Perhaps a better way to look at it is: UO made huge news when it broke 200k (final peak was a bit more) geeks with accounts; EQ upped that to 500k (final peak was a bit more) geeks/fantasy rpgers with accounts; WoW opened up MMO's to anyone that wanted to play, not just the geeks/rpgers/hardcore gamers... and hit what12 million? I'd suggest that instead of blaming WoW for the bad things they merely imported from their predecessors (and FYI: it was much, much, much worse in EQ, if you don't already know that first hand), you might give them a little credit for making it so that all games have a vastly larger MMO player base now days.

Don't get me wrong, i enjoyed WoW for the couple years i played larger because of a few friends playing, and because i'd come off a 6 year stint in EQ. It was nice and slow and overall somewhat entertaining. EQ (if you didn't play it) on the other hand, felt like a 17 hour a day job, with a root canal appointment during lunchtime, crammed into 3-4 hours of playtime (by the end of my playing days of it). UO, well... it's summed up with just one word: griefers.

Each of those three had it's merits, and each it's detractors, but you have to see them as the stepping stones of the industry and realize that each was designed to take time to play; that was how the companies made money. The richness of content is somewhat subjective though. If they didn't have enough content, they wouldn't have had people continue to pay to play them (see SWTOR), and while they were filled with bugs and bad juju that sometimes popped up, they had enough merits that people tolerated the few issues (see Age of Conan and Vanguard).

For the issue at hand, i think the one line pretty well sums it up:

I can't help but laugh at the idea that Blizzard will probably get a ton of people paying them to not play their game.

.... and that really sums it up.

Re:WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[Tharkkun]

Everyone wanting to emulate WoW's success has absolutely destroyed PC gaming. Watered down content and gameplay that is engineered to be inordinately time consuming? No thanks.

Don't you mean WoW brought a new level of quality to PC gaming? There's so many garbage games out there released early, buggy, completely broken, etc with patches coming months later. WoW decimated those shitty companies by opening our eyes to a game that worked.

Re:WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[painandgreed]

For the issue at hand, i think the one line pretty well sums it up:

I can't help but laugh at the idea that Blizzard will probably get a ton of people paying them to not play their game.

.... and that really sums it up.

Thing is, I've played their game. I have four Loremaster characters. All at at least 80, because I had to do vanilla classic loremaster and then go in and do the new classic (or is it the new vanilla?) with Cataclysm for both Alliance and Horde. I have many more characters of varying levels. There were times when there simply were no more yellow exclamation points to find. I still want/need some maxed out crafters though. I've done everything so many times, and some of it I like more than others, that I'm about to the point that I'd buy maxed out new characters. After all, in the real world $60 is like two billable hours for me versus somewhere around 40 of grinding through stuff I am tired of seeing.

Re:WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[meglon]

I certainly get it. After my 6th capped toon, the next two were a little on the boring side...... but you have to admit the irony of people buying the game, paying all those months and years to play it, then paying even more not to have to play it. That's one hell of a business model.

Re:WoW Ruined PC Gaming

[AlphaBro]

What? There are still plenty of shitty games. In fact, many of them are blatant WoW clones. And if you enjoyed WoW, then sure, you can probably find a few clones that are enjoyable. However, I did not, which leaves me feeling left out in the cold.

Levelles design

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that levels gives the player a sense of progress, but I see no point in them game mechanics wise, other than a "mandotory" system.

I've always hated leveling up in games. After the first character it's just mindless running around after quests... If my friend plays more or less than me, we're going to end up in different levels and eventually can't play together as the level of content doesn't allow it (and no one really wants to grind low level areas even with friends!)

I'm sure someone out there could develop a levelles system... Like individual skills could get better over time (with a realtime diminishing system that would lower your skills if you don't use them?) and make the gear make your character more powerfull (everyone loves a good loot!)

So that someone who has played for an hour, could have a (tiny) chance on beating someone who has played 100 hours (in a fair PVP fight)... Try to do that in WoW, lv 10 vs. 90 ... you won't even hit, and if you do, you do 1 out of 2000000 damage.

Re:Levelles design

[mrvan]

Vendetta Online has a system of license levels which unlocks content, but combat success is 90% skill and 10% equipment (after the first couple of levels which probably take an experienced player less than an hour). Smart use of low level ships/weapons in the hands of a skilled player will kill a relative noob with top-notch gear every time.

What I'm trying to say: levels aren't really the problem, making "level" the most important determiner of success is the problem.

Re:Levelles design

[Whorhay]

SWG before all the game changing patches had this. UO also was a levelless design. Eve Online also doesn't have levels, instead skills limit what you can or can't do with newbies being able to participate in useful ways within the first week.

If you transfer the advantage of power to equipment rather than inherent levels all you've done is moved the problem. This is visible in WoW where once at max character level it all becomes about gear iLevel.

This is a problem because some people want a game that is more about personal skill of execution. Where as other people want a game where character power progresses even if their personal execution skills stay the same. Almost every single RPG game I've ever played was a mix of these two systems.

Boost price vs expansion price

[MtHuurne]

It's tremendously awkward to tell someone that you should buy two copies of the expansion just to get a second 90.

A bit of searching shows that in the past WoW expansions were introduced at $40, so why wouldn't a player opt to buy the expansion twice rather than buying the level upgrade for a second character?

Note that the pricing for this expansion hasn't been published yet, but I doubt they're going to price it at $60, since people expect a full game for that price.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[Brownstar]

Because you need to pay for the Base Game, Plus all expansions, and the new expansion. Now they've discounted the old expansions, but in total base game, plus xpac's to MoP + the new Xpac, will probably be close to $60, or possibly more.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[Xordin]

Obviously, that means the price of the expansion is also $60. :)

I think that's on the high side, especially giving economic conditions. It's also a bit sad that they require you to buy the earlier expansions as well. That's a very high barrier for new players.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[silentcoder]

Because buying it twice is useless unless you also pay for a character transfer - actually TWO. Wow-insider calculated that getting a second boost from buying the expansion twice would work out to around 140 dollars in all.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[silentcoder]

That's not actually true anymore. With the release of MoP all past expansions got folded into Vanilla so buying a base account gets you everything up to the end of Wrath - a single extra purchase gets you the current MoP features.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[asylumx]

I guess one has to assume that your Battle.net ID can only associate with one serial number of the expansion.

Bingo. You can't apply the same expansion to your account twice.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[jcoleman]

Battlechest ($20) + Mists of Pandaria ($40 now, maybe $20 when WoD arrives) + Warlords of Draenor ($40) = $100. Then you will need to transfer your character to your main account unless you want to pay $15/month. This is another $25. $125 vs $60. Most people using this feature will be hard-core players whose raiding guild needs another class but doesn't want to recruit, or people who want to try out another class at max level but CBA to level it (levelling from 1-90 is still no small task, generally taking 40-50 hours unless you are one of the top levelers. Not to mention that once you've seen it 5-6 times it's a little repetitive)

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[jcoleman]

Battlechest includes Cataclysm now.

Re:Boost price vs expansion price

[Talderas]

I'm not sure that hard core raiders are the intended audience. The problem with rerolling is that you're substituting player A with character 1 for player A with character 2. That only fixes issues when the problem is class makeup. If you're problem is you lost a raider then this feature only helps if one of your current raiders is rerolling in order to bring in a new recruit.

Re: Levelling not the point?

[MrL0G1C]

Why is being addicted to a game shameful?

Wrong incentives

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately this means that Blizzard will benefit from making the leveling content as boring as possible. I always considered that the fun part of the game, the rest is just a repetitive cycle of running the same dungeons over and over.

Re:Wrong incentives

[silentcoder]

Why would blizzard change the leveling content ? It's been the way it is for 10 years, it got some revamps with cataclysm and been left alone again ever since.

Altering the comprehensive leveling content (which includes all the past expansions) now would cost them a fortune in development time for literally zero gain.
If anything the biggest change that could reduce the quality of leveling content is to speed up XP gain so people level through zones much faster and this has already been done for all pre-cata content but that change, if anything, actually reduces the number of people who will buy an extra boost by reducing how much time and effort leveling actually takes.
When I started playing in Wrath it took me over 3 months of playing several hours a day, almost every day, to get my first character to level 80.
Now I have several characters at maxlevel and several quite close to it - you can do it in a few weeks, or with sufficient dedication (and heirlooms and boosts) one long, hard weekend without sleep.

Re: Levelling not the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

because any addiction implies that you're a weak minded fool unable to control your own behaviour.

Re: Levelling not the point?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I dunno, I kind of like it. I have 11 level 90's, but I'm not addicted.
I could give it up any time. Seriously.
No, really.

Devalue WHAT????

[Anonymous Coward]

'Why $60? They don't want to 'devalue the accomplishment of leveling.'

Could also be regarded by many of us as...

"Why $60? $60 for every new character pushed to 90 (which will take probably less than 1/2/3s CPU time from WoW Servers) is sweet."

Every day I am more amazed of the new ways to take money from people for things that are virtually worthless. Like calling a script to change level to 90, change attributes and award skill points / gold / whatever.

BTW: I dont think most people nowadays really enjoy grinding and leveling on a 8 year old MMO. I played WoW 4 or 5 years ago, and it already felt like wasting time just to get to Level 80, where all the current end-game content was happening. As for the items and stuff you get on the way... the gold you get will be a little amount compared to Max level and the equipment will be useless after you get a couple of levels more.

Social gaming

[Garnaralf]

Blizzard has always held that WoW is a social game. To play with your friends. They offered this as a way to get close to your friends to play with them, rather than taking a whole bunch of time to catch up. In the next xpac, the max level is 100. The boost brings you up to the beginning level of the xpac. Everyone gets a free one with the xpac, and then after that, you can buy it. Originally, this was not going to be offered, but Blizzard listened to its players and offered it. Why is listening to your audience bad?

Re:Social gaming

[XAD1975]

Blizzard didn't listen to its customers. It listened to Bob Kotick and the need to cash more. When WoW was released, the Devs clearly stated that there would never be any paid extras to migrate, change class, change race, etc. Then Burning Crusade came, WoW was reset, and all previously existing content was nullified and underrated. At the initial Devs started to move on... and Blizzard was acquired by Activision... and more Devs moved on. The game is pretty dead since the second extension and most of the initial Devs left an empty shell Blizzard.

Re:Social gaming

[Bing Tsher E]

You're just bitter because you thought you were actually accomplishing something in the end by playing the game, whereas you were supposed to be enjoying yourself while playing the game. It doesn't 'get better' when you finally reach max level. It isn't 'grinding' to play the game within the lower levels. You're supposed to be there, in the virtual world, having fun. It's supposed to be fun all along the way.

Re:Social gaming

[XAD1975]

No bitterness at all. I had a blast with EQ for years, 'cause it was tough and epic content was truly epic and required an exceptional teamplay and commitment. Vanilla WoW, and to some extent BC upon release, required such teamplay and dedication. But then, Blizzard started to make the game easier, for the sake of retaining frustrated customers. As for the "grinding", you miss a point. I personally do love lore, and reading the quests often provides that. WoW has an awesome backstory and very interesting character concepts. I'm a slow leveler, but I enjoy every bit of it, and I learn to play my character through it.

Re:Social gaming

[Tharkkun]

Blizzard didn't listen to its customers. It listened to Bob Kotick and the need to cash more. When WoW was released, the Devs clearly stated that there would never be any paid extras to migrate, change class, change race, etc. Then Burning Crusade came, WoW was reset, and all previously existing content was nullified and underrated. At the initial Devs started to move on... and Blizzard was acquired by Activision... and more Devs moved on. The game is pretty dead since the second extension and most of the initial Devs left an empty shell Blizzard.

How is close to 8 million subscribers dead? If that's the case then nearly every other game is wasteland. The majority of the developers still remain. They've just expanded so it feels like they don't exist. Blizzard also funnels community feedback through a few individuals instead of the developers talking 1 on 1 with subscribers. Blizzard did remove a lot of the stale time wasting grinds. They served no purpose other than to waste time . Good riddance I say. I had enough of those in my 5 years of EQ. When you look at the big picture the game itself has changed but the core is still there. FYI: Activision has no affect on Blizzard's decisions. They are separate entities who were formerly owned by Vivendi.

Pay good money to get there, but be bad at it?

[Stolpskott]

Paying to skip the whole boring leveling process is going to be a wet dream for a lot of impatient wannabes. But from my experience with MMOs based on leveling skills, you pretty much need to go through the leveling process to get to know the class, limitations, effective playstyles, rotations, and so on. Starting at max level is going to mean that you know nothing about the character class, so you will be a waste of a group/raid slot.
Cue lfg messages where the caller asks for members who have not bought their max level character...

Re:Pay good money to get there, but be bad at it?

[thesandtiger]

Not so much, actually.

Most people leveling do it alone or maybe in a small group. No need to think about 90% of the abilities a class has while doing that because the leveling content needs to be tuned to people who are novices. Most people don't want - despite playing an MMO - to be forced to play with other people in a group at all times in order to level, so you can't touch this leveling content.

Most people leveling don't even set foot in a dungeon in WoW. A dungeon being fundamentally different than world questing, and yet still not requiring a player to be very good with their class or understand their class.

A tiny percentage of players set foot in a raid EVER, let alone while leveling - even with new things like a very content-tourist mode like the Looking for Raid feature that was added. Raid mechanics are fundamentally different than dungeons or world questing, so really, require you to play your class in a very different way than you would have experienced while leveling; abilities that seem pointless while leveling suddenly make sense to use, and patterns that made sense while leveling suddenly become counter to survival.

What IS true is that, if you want to raid you need to learn how to play your class. But, I don't think 20-100 hours of doing things that bear no real relation to how you will end up playing your class is the way to do it. Personally, I think the idea of having proving grounds (which they kind of do now) wherein the player is hand held by NPCs and given tons of feedback on how to play their specific class, what abilities to use and why, in game, would be the way to go.

"Hey, new paladin person in a tank role - I'm going to make that big guy over there very, very angry in a moment, and he can kill me but he won't hurt you as much, so I want you to press that flashing button on your screen - it's called a taunt - when he starts chasing me; it'll make him go after you, not me!" If you fail? "It's okay, fortunately we have people around who can make everything better when I get beaten to a pulp... Let's try this again..."

"Hey, priest type person in a healer role - I'm about to fight several small creatures that individually don't do much to me but hurt me slowly over time. Cast that spell that's flashing on me once every 10 seconds or so in order to throw a spell on me that will heal me up slowly over time."

"Hey, shooty damage type person, I'm going to beat up 4 things, but I want you to focus on hurting ONLY the one that is my primary target." "Hey, so these guys aren't stupid, they're going to try to hurt you - see that purple stuff on the floor over there? If it appears under you during the fight, MOVE AWAY FROM IT!"

Etc. and so on. Have people go through that, have it be so that a veteran player who is familiar with game mechanics could complete all the tasks in under an hour, but where a newbie player who knows nothing might wind up taking 10 hours or so to do the quests well enough, and you're good.

The problem WoW has - and most MMO's have - is that the designers assumed that other players would give solid feedback to people on their teams in dungeons and so on. Unfortunately, most people are assholes and not willing to take any time with newbies to straighten them out. Since the playerbase by and large won't help other people learn, there needs to be an in game process for it.

tl;dr: There needs to be a way to teach people how to play their class, but the current way of doing it (leveling) doesn't teach them anything that is actually relevant.

Re:Pay good money to get there, but be bad at it?

[Talderas]

That's funny. I would say my experience with MMOs would suggest the exact opposite. There's a lot of players who have leveled from 1-cap who have no idea how to play their class, no idea of their proper rotations, and no idea how to properly select gear. Someone starting at max level is not going to be all that different.

Re:Pay good money to get there, but be bad at it?

[drsquare]

Levelling is so removed from raiding that they're basically two different games. You can level a warrior and a priest to level 90 without ever once having had to grab aggro or heal another player.

If anything, levelling might teach you things that don't work in a dungeon. A tank might run away from a boss when low on health because that's what he does when fighting mobs in a zone, he's not expecting a heal.

Elf lvl 90?

[dimko]

Can I get lvl 70 Elf instead?

nobody cares

[gizmod]

All comments hidden O.o Look everybody, Blizzard is selling level 90 WoW characters... See? Nobody cares...

Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over!

[Opportunist]

Dear WoW players. Do you remember when the DKs came to be? And how everyone was moaning how, by definition, everyone who had no idea what to do seemed to play a DK?

The reason was simply that DKs started out at level 55. These people did not, like everyone else, start out small with a handful of skills, then get a few new ones every couple levels, with plenty of time to get to know them and get comfortable with them. No, they got everything dumped on their head at once with almost no time to find out what to do and how to play because, well, how would they?

Remember those raids in BRD (for the non-players, that's the first place where those DKs would get to play with the other kids in earnest) were a bit like, as a well known person put it, "a toddler driving a Leopard II tank with a faulty differential lock into a bicycle race of bi-polars"? They had no, zero, zilch, idea how to play their character.

And now, kids, it's like that all over again. Only much, much WORSE. Remember those moans you breathed whenever someone acted like he had no idea what to do, the comment "fuck, did you buy your char on EBay?" in chat? What used to be mostly unlikely will now be very likely: Someone dropped some coin to get a char they have no idea how to play with.

The group finder just got much, much more fun. To watch. Certainly not to play.

Lifecycle of a MMORPG

[Thyamine]

I think we are just seeing the prolonged lifecycle of a MMORPG. Most either fizzle and die, or last long enough that they have to start going through these hoops. I think WoW is just one of the biggest/longest so we are seeing some of these ideas for a first time or at least publicized in a grand fashion. Every iteration has made the game easier and easier for players, pushed the upper levels, and introduced things that make players who played the first iteration sound like grandpa (we used to have to grind for days for a single level, up hill, both ways). This is just another step where content is being added, so how can you get the most out of it (business need)? You let players just jump right to it! It bugs me, but as someone working full time with a family, I can see how players may appreciate it.

This is already happening.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone using group finder would tell you that this is already the current situation. Since your time, raids akin to LK BRD have been nerfed to the point where the gameplay resembles Dance Dance Revolution. Where thinking of others is punished. Where strictly adhering to a constantly changing theorycraft published for you by some grognards in Kansas is the only way to play up to snuff. Where teamwork is so unnecessary that it is nearly impossible to Leroy a group (even the healer has to be incredibly off his game to create a wipe.) Where deviating in any way from a prescribed sequence of buttonpresses with slightly random variation will send you to the bottom of the Recount list for DPS.

In sum, there's an idiot in every group anyway, and it doesn't matter because you have to play like a robot anyway.

P.S.: actual robot play is banned, meaning you MUST screw up regularly.

Absolutely amazing

[Thanosius]

So, we pay extra... to play less? Brilliant!

Not max level

[weave]

This won't kick in until the expansion comes out, so it won't be to max level. You'll still need to level it through the expansion. So there will be some learning involved still.

Hopefully the expansion leveling takes a bit of time. I was up to 90 after just two zones in MoP and skipped most of the rest of the zones.

My question is, can a new account do this right away or do you need to get at least one character to 90 the hard way first?

Re: Levelling not the point?

[MachineShedFred]

Nope, you're right.

You level, you then get a half-decent amount of gear, and then you do your daily chores and stand around in the en vogue city waiting for something to do.

I have daily chores already, I don't need digital daily chores.

$60 for 100s of hours?

[X0563511]

Right. So two hours of my time pays for 100 hours of leveling?

Re:$60 for 100s of hours?

[asylumx]

Doesn't sound like so bad a deal when you put it that way...

Re:$60 for 100s of hours?

[painandgreed]

Probably more like 40 hours of leveling with heirlooms and such.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Atzanteol]

I think they should give it as an option only to players who have reached at least 70 or something. That way you get through almost all of the "learn your character stuff" before jumping into LFR under-geared and retarded.

Re:Levelling not the point?

[X0563511]

The real problem then is all the interesting content is end-game.

Guild Wars 2 has an interesting take on it - your level is scaled down to the area you're in, and because of this players who've progressed past an area somehow can still go back and enjoy the content. You even get experience/drops that are useful to you.

You can't really do that in WoW, you'll insta-kill everything and get nothing for it.

It's funny until you realize

[Chas]

The problem with the VAST level-spread is that, even with millions of players, low levels in WoW are a lonely wasteland most of the time for new players.

While I tend to solo-play in MMOs fairly often, I occasionally get a hankering for some group-based ass-kickery. So, if I wanted to play with my friends, I could either invest however many hours essentially soloing a character to catch up, or I could drop $60 and have rough equivalency. They'll still probably outclass me as they have a better handle on their powers having leveled up and gotten used to them, as well as better classes of gear. But, at least I'd be in the ballpark.

Re:No.

[PingSpike]

I don't really have a problem with F2P games, or I didn't anyway. I just didn't play them because I believe all F2P games will eventually transform into pay to win even if they are not in their original incarnation. Its just to easy to go down that path. But when I started having games retroactively turned into F2P that is when things looked bad. Its not just MMOs, think of TF2. Luckily I was never into that game to start with and I only owned it because it came with another game I did buy, but I did not like the precedent it set.

Ugly trend

[GodfatherofSoul]

There has to be a level playing field. Payouts for advancement are a slippery slope. Battlefield 4 has premium double XP days as well as all the additional perks and upgrades they get. Nothing turns away fans more then seeing some guy twinked with "free market" loot.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Opportunist]

And what good did it do? Seriously, tell me, what good did it do? Having a different class at max tells you jack about the new class you just picked up.

I predict a LOT of dds-gone-tank (since, hey, tanks get front row seats in GF, I'll be a tank now!) who think aggro management is the idiot boss they have to deal with at work.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Opportunist]

But ... but ... why should I buy the level 90, then? I wanna raid, I wanna have epics, I wanna be imba, I FUCKIN WANNA! I'm entitled to be in your group because I paid 60 bucks for it! Now go, peons, and drag my sorry carcass through the raid and by definition I get to get every item because I NEED it!

Just watch out for new YouTube videos that will create heaps of amusement. For the people watching, at least.

Re:Levelling not the point?

[asylumx]

the game only really starts once you're levelled [sic] up: before that you're grinding away at the boring tasks because you're incapable of surviving the end-game stuff

This is partially true. At first, the game is about leveling up. Once you've finished leveling up the game is about getting the best gear for your toon. After you get the best gear, the game is about grinding something out for your buddies or leveling & gearing alts until the next expansion is released. Once the next expansion is released, usually with an increased level cap, you start the whole process over again.

If you sit back and think about how these games work, there's a really obvious ploy to keep sucking money out of people -- but thinking about it also takes the fun out of it, so if you enjoy these games I recommend you keep not thinking about it.

Besides, even if it is a ploy to suck money out of people, what EA has done with the Battlefield series is far more egregious, so I don't blame companies like Blizzard for looking for new revenue streams.

Choices

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"You've found a broken 'I.W.I.N. Button'. If only it worked. Wait, this one isn't broken!""

Re:Choices

[eriklou]

To bad the real "Win" button is called "cancel account" found under account management.

Masters Of the Carrot and the Stick

[JavaLord]

They're doing a great job of maximizing revenue from a declining game. Instead of just coming out and offering everything on the store, they just offered pets and mounts at first. The implication was in game purchases would be limited to "Cosmetic items", and of course those willing to buy just cosmetic items did, since there were no functional items competing for their money.

Now they've crossed the Rubicon and will allow you to buy levels, as long as you buy the expansion. It's a good way to increase profits when you have a declining playerbase.

Level 100 is the cap

[cfalcon]

On live, level 90 is the cap. The for-sale 90s are intended to be brought to the new expansion, which goes up to level 100. Since all the content is at level cap, this move makes some sense. The summary should at least mention that level 100 will be the cap when these things are for sale. Pretending that "the game is the experience of leveling, after which you have won" can be forgiven, but leaving out the actual level cap? Shenanigans.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[MiniMike]

driving a Leopard II tank with a faulty differential lock into a bicycle race of bi-polars

That actually sounds really awesome... Um, maybe I've had too much WoT...

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[jeffasselin]

Well, remember that max level will soon be 100, so those people will still need to play some 10 levels. And they've announced that before queuing for heroic dungeons or LFR, you will have to earn a silver medal in the training grounds to demonstrate that you can actually do the job you are intending to fulfill.

Re:It's an effect of the system

[miller701]

The reason for Flex raiding (10-24 characters) was if you had 12 people ready to raid, in the past 2 people had to sit out. Now you can invite the extra two and all get to play.
With 12 players instead of 10, the boss gets another 20% more HP and there's a 20% chance for an additional piece of gear to drop. They worked hard at avoiding breakpoints (the jump in difficulty from say 12-13 is not much, but due to mechanics 13-14 is a big jump)
In my book, Flex raids are a big success.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Talderas]

They changed loot.

Now instead of there being two items. Every player has a chance to get an item when a boss is killed. So unless those terrible idiot players cause wipes, they're nothing more than a warm body being dragged along for the ride.

Re:Retail WoW is a joke and has been for some year

[miller701]

If you're not max level, mana is rarely an issue. Back in Cataclysm, 80-83 was pretty much like before, but then in the level 83 dungeons, mobs started hitting a lot harder and tank had bigger health pools. It's pretty much the same in Pandaria except 85-88 is easy 88-90 can be a kick in the seat.

Re:Is this fun?

[cfalcon]

As you would expect, some people really like leveling, and that is mostly what they do. Others view it as a regrettable grind that comes with the genre, a cockblock before they can get to the part they like.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Tharkkun]

Dear WoW players. Do you remember when the DKs came to be? And how everyone was moaning how, by definition, everyone who had no idea what to do seemed to play a DK?

The reason was simply that DKs started out at level 55. These people did not, like everyone else, start out small with a handful of skills, then get a few new ones every couple levels, with plenty of time to get to know them and get comfortable with them. No, they got everything dumped on their head at once with almost no time to find out what to do and how to play because, well, how would they?

Remember those raids in BRD (for the non-players, that's the first place where those DKs would get to play with the other kids in earnest) were a bit like, as a well known person put it, "a toddler driving a Leopard II tank with a faulty differential lock into a bicycle race of bi-polars"? They had no, zero, zilch, idea how to play their character.

And now, kids, it's like that all over again. Only much, much WORSE. Remember those moans you breathed whenever someone acted like he had no idea what to do, the comment "fuck, did you buy your char on EBay?" in chat? What used to be mostly unlikely will now be very likely: Someone dropped some coin to get a char they have no idea how to play with.

The group finder just got much, much more fun. To watch. Certainly not to play.

I remember playing with my 3 friends in my guild. The ones who actually read what their abilities were and researched a bit on the popular websites. Yeah, they were pro. It doesn't matter how much hand holding you give someone. If they are bad they will continue to be bad. All the resources are available and yet we still have tons of terrible players.

90 isn't to level cap

[D1G1T]

100 is the new cap.

I actually like leveling

[axl917]

You get to revisit old areas perhaps not seen in awhile, run mid-level battlegrounds where gameplay is different due to limited skillsets, and the like . I doubt I'll evne use the freebie 90 boost on a character.

ruined long ago

[PJ6]

I played WoW for a while back when it was newer, when you had to actually form social ties and groups in order to get anything accomplished. That's what I liked, the social part of it. Much later I came back to it and realized that nobody was forming groups any more, there was this new queuing system to get you into dungeons and you got grouped up with strangers and there was no incentive to even talk to each other. I guess it was to please the 'casual' crowd. I wasn't impressed.

Re:ruined long ago

[cfalcon]

Probably haven't killed any heroic raid bosses eh? The grouping part is still there, but it's not as present at the lower levels, or for the simpler things. But if you want to group, there's three tiers that make that mandatory and reward accordingly.

Currently the pve game is: Levelling and dungeons -> dungeons, scenarios at 90 -> LFR -> Flex -> Normal -> Heroic.

Everything from Flex up takes a premade group to succeed with. Heroics take a lot more effort and dedication, etc.

Re:Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over

[Atzanteol]

I forgot to add - and already have one or two maxed out toons. It could be useful if your guild needs a healer and your shammy is still at level 70 or something...

I look forward to paying $6

[WillAffleckUW]

... oh, wait, did you say $60?

Never mind.