« World of Warcraft Resources: WoW Insider | Home | Race and Faction: The Final Frontiers »
Lich King Release Date and Low-Level Content
By Cameron Sorden | September 15, 2008
Today’s official announcement revealed that the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be hitting stores on November 13th, 2008. Soon, many people will be coming back to the game for the first time in months (or even years, if they didn’t like the Burning Crusade expansion), and a lot has changed in Azeroth. The changes to 60-70 leveling and the Recruit-A-Friend program have drastically changed the pre-70 progression game and arguably closed the door (to a degree) on the chances of Blizzard ever expanding the leveling content, while the PvE to PvP character transfers have been making waves in the PvP community ever since they were announced. When Lich King hits, players will suddenly have the ability to create level 55 characters on any server provided they have at least one already
Leveling a character in World of Warcraft is ridiculously fast at this point. Between the RAF program’s obscene XP perks (which many players are taking advantage of to powerlevel themselves), this spring’s boost in XP for 20-60 content, and the upcoming boost to 60-70 XP, you can level to 70 at a speed which makes players of the classic game cringe. Now that Death Knights are available to start at level 55, it’s possible for players to bypass all of the pre-60 content anyway. With these changes in place, it’s become very clear that Blizzard is committed to vertically expanding their game and is not interested in offering additional leveling content. I think it’s time to let my dream of a “Kunark for WoW”-type expansion die.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and it’s actually kind of interesting how they handled the replayability problem. For players like me who started at launch, the old-world content is old news because we saw all of it in one or two play-throughs. You were almost guaranteed to see it all to because under the old XP system, you needed to visit almost every zone in order to have enough quests to do. These days, you’re usually ready to move out of zones before you finish all of the quests in them and you level fast enough that you’re able to bypass entire zones quite frequently — especially if you do instances on the way up.
While this might seem like it’s a quick fix to get players to the “real new content” up at 70 and now 80 more quickly (which is how I originally interpreted it), it’s actually kind of an ingenius way for Blizzard to add some replayability for genuinely new players. Instead of spending time and resources to expand the lowbie portion of the game, Blizzard just shortened the time you spend on that lowbie path, making many different paths viable. If you leveled in Silvermoon, Hillsbrad, and Arathi last time, maybe this time you want to try the Barrens, Stonetalon, Ashenvale, and Desolace. There’s no real need to hit them all anymore, so most players won’t. If you’re really desperate for new content, you can always switch factions, too.
I can’t say that I particularly like how they’ve chosen to approach the low-level content problem, but I can’t argue against it too much, either. It was a smart way to address a real problem, and it makes a lot of sense in light of some of their other recent design decisions. This “speedy leveling” trend is only going to continue moving forward. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them open the option to create level 55 characters of any class or some kind of super-XP buff for solo players at some point in the next year.
But here’s what they should really do, given the game direction they’re taking: Add a triple experience modifier for grouping of any kind — not just with linked accounts. They’d single-handedly put the multiplayer back in “massively multiplayer,” and give players a legitimate and fun way to level quickly without feeling like they’re cheating the system or having to pay boatloads of cash (plus, encouraged grouping equals more new friends to play with and stay in the game with).
Topics: Game Design, Massively Multiplayer, World of Warcraft |
September 15th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
[...] right there with Cameron on his commentary about WoW’s 1-60 content. Blizzard has made their decision about what that [...]
September 16th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Couldn’t agree more on this group xp thing you mentioned. It’s just incredibly stupid to encourage people to solo up to the raid content. There will be more and more of the newcomers who don’t know how to play their class or how to behave in a group. Instead, I would like to see them to go for the multiplied exp for grouping and additional rewards for 50+ instances so that they would be alive again.
Yes, I haven’t been into any instance above lv40. And it pisses me off as a ‘newbie’ player. Really.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:02 am
[...] Sorden at Random Battle pointed out how Blizzard’s decision to drastically alter the amount of XP earned in World of Warcraft (WoW) is actually helping re-playability and low-level [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Very much agreed, I came to a similar conculsion a while ago - http://www.gamereactor.eu/text.php?id=64
Copra - I think that’s a problem for most players. I’m impressed that you managed to get to a dungeon below level 40 as well. Does anybody do the Stockades as they are supposed to be done anymore?
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:04 am
Petter, do you mean that kill everything inside? Well, we did with my two brothers and then I did the same with a PUG. Successfully. Somehow I just got lucky with my warrior to get into such group, interested in clearing the whole instance.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:11 am
i STRONGLY agree with you in ALL the fatcs you have mention if you or anyone that write someting here can send a leter to blizzard if posible explaining this situation it will be super .
November 11th, 2008 at 9:14 am
oh i gut a question if i make a dwarf hunter and it hits level 55 will i be able to make a 55 human death knight here is my email you can send me a leter to explain me
amesajr2@gmail.com
i ll wait for answer :O
November 11th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Yes, you will (can).