I remember so many great memories leveling up, grouping, outdoor quest chains, doing instances with the appropriate levels. That is all largely gone to be replaced by a grind. Maybe that’s just nostalgia… but I imagine for a new player the game must seem pretty boring for 70 levels.

And I don’t know if this is a side effect, but I notice now almost everyone wants to pay to be run through instances. No one wants to actually do an instance with the levels it was designed for. It used to be only a few players were like that, now it’s everyone. I think because they’re now thinking of instances as yet another grind/chore to get through as fast as possible, not something to have fun doing.

At the end of that day it’s always up to the players. Blizzard is not generally known for doing random, spur of the moment stuff; if those mechanisms are there it’s because they found out a large chunk of their players requested them. Players by large do see repetition as grind, however well intentioned and attractive it might be. So when faced with the prospect of 2x/3x/4x leveling grind all over again, they asked for ways to shorten or skip that. Heck, even here in these comments Saylah mentions the DK as a way to skip 50-odd levels.

Even my roleplaying friends and guildies, whom are typically recalcitrant “stop and smell the roses” kind bitch and moan about having to level their alts.

I think on this one Blizzard is largely responding to player demands and not the other way around.

EVE and DDO present alternatives …

This is my biggest contention. I think that purely on a black and white objective level you are right. However, I think that when you look at all the grays like the blob called community, which is quite hard to put a finger on, Blizzard is creating a culture through it’s game mechanics (and how the community uses them) of trying to run through 1-59+ as fast as possible.

So yes a player can take his or her time and see all the little quests and explore all the hidden places, but that person will have to go against the huge, IMO, oppressive weight of GET TO THE END GET TO THE END.

Anyway thanks for the great in-depth reply. :)

There is so much content available in the old game that a new user is unlikely to see it all on a first run and will need to level alts just to see some of the other areas. The slow bit probably comes between 20-40 but in saying this, I’m also aware that I may well not have explored other areas fully. Only the other day I found a huge swathe of STV that I had never done before in 3-4 years of playing.

What this content can’t do is address your perception that levelling 79 times prior the level cap “isn’t fun”.

- I notice the slight notion of WoW being easy now. This is not the case. WoW has *always* been easy. It was easy in 2005, it’s easy (easier?) in 2009 and it will be even easier for 2-3 years more.

- There’s also the notion that Blizzard is now focusing exclusively on the end game. This is also not the case. Blizzard has always focused on the end game, and this goes back to the time Molten Core was the hardest instance available. How nice 1-59 was is not the point. The point is that level cap was where Blizzard’s focus has always been.

- Personally I’d much rather have Blizzard (or anyone on any game, really) use their resources to develop new content rather than revisiting old content to spice it up for those doing their second, third or fourth lap. But that’s just me and that’s opinion.

- At the end of the day it’s up to the player to take that 1-59/69/79 at the speed of his liking. Nobody forced the author of that article to equip those heirloom items and unbalancing his own game, just as no one is forcing people to multibox their alts and gain gobs of xp via the refer a friend deal, just as no one is forcing anyone to go to wowhead to look things up.

Those are resources available to those who want to speed up their leveling (and they do speed it up tons). I’m finding it hard to sympathize with players who knowingly take shortcuts only to complain about how short the road becomes when you take them. By all means, if you wanna take it easy then do so. Myself I never used the referral, never got heirloom items, and I’m leveling my fourth 80 off and on like that. I don’t blame those who take shortcuts either, it depends on the circumstances and the player’s goals.

- If we’re always going on and on about how awful grinding is, then there’s not much room to complain when you’re given options to shorten that grind. And yes, enjoyable as it might be (and it is, in my opinion), leveling can justly be considered a massive grind when you’re doing it for the third or fourth time.

- If the goal of a game design is to have people play the game (as opposed to people not playing the game I guess), then a design that nets you millions of players is not “bad” by any stretch of the imagination. We might like it, we might not like it, we might like parts of it and not some others, but just calling it “bad” is a step I’m not willing to take myself.

Likewise, and I say this with a lot of love, if those shortcuts are still in place it’s because a lot of people use them. And if a lot of people use them it makes sense for Blizzard to keep those shortcuts and not waste time/energy/money redesigning old content for the minority. I agree it would be wonderful, and given infinite resources I’d love for them to do it, but they won’t. Designing for the minority is bad however you slice it, be that minority at level 80 or at level 1.

- I’m not kissing ass here. There are many, many valid issues to take up to Blizzard and ask what the heck is going on. But this one isn’t one of those.

Good article.