One thing that many people seem to be forgetting to take a look at with regard to a possible leader of the horde if Thrall becomes the guardian is simple "air time".

Remember, for the majority of WoW players, the Comic and Novels may as well not exist - they simply have no awareness of them or their content. Ergo, any major players (such as factional leaders) must be drawn from characters already established in-game through quests/cutscenes/etc. Currently, Garrosh is pretty much the *only* Orc who could assume the leadership of the horde because of this. He has been in a recent cut-scene as a major player, he has been involved in the argent tournament, etc. Pretty much the only other horde leader (other than Thrall) who is anywhere near as prominent for players is ... Varimathras?

If someone other than Garrosh is to become the leader of the horde, they need to be (re-)introduced, developed, explained and justified in one patch (3.3, assuming this is the last one in WotLK), before taking on the leadership of the Horde. Sorry, but I just don't see that happening.

As for the hordies who are saying they don't like Garrosh as a leader? What if part of the "Cataclysm" was the driving of wedges between previously close alliances? For that matter, what reason do the alliance races (other than humans) have for following Varian? (After all, Garrosh is a stereotypically warlike orc, he's got an excuse for warmongering. Varian is just a human with hurt feelings, hardly justification for starting wars...)

I can't really believe I have to say this, but Saurfang? I know it's not going to happen, we're going to be stuck with Garrosh because they seem to want both factions leaders to be thoroughly un-likable by the general player, but he seems to me to be the logical choice to take Thrall's place. Garrosh has proven time and again that he's not a good peace-time leader.

I'd like to point out that this is not entirely true. Depending on the scope of the revamp and the goals it is sometimes easier to build from scratch.

Making the old world flyable would be one of the instances in which it would be easier to work from scratch, hence the phase engine. Though that brings up a mix of other questions and problems.

Please don't act like you know, when (for the most part) none of us know exactly how much work it is.

War is part of human nature, hence Varian does indeed have the same justification that Garrosh has. Garrosh hates humans for his own reasons. Varian hates orcs for his own reasons. Neither are justified in trying to start a war, but both use the same excuse, saying otherwise is turning a blind eye to human nature.

As for why the other leaders follow Varian? None even have a strong reason to back him if they disagree with him. Same with the Horde and Garrosh. The Tauren wouldn't follow the orc that slew their leader when Thrall name Cairne leader. The Forsaken are tied to Thrall via Sylvanas. The Blood Elves likely wouldn't charge in unless they'd gain something and the Trolls are tied to the Horde via Thrall. Only faction likely to follow is the Elves, if there is something in it for them.

The Dwarves, if I remember right, swore an oath to the human kingdoms after their lands were liberated in Warcraft I (I think, it's been years since I've played it).

This reasoning, for me, is what makes the idea of a complete reworking seem plausable.

Given the incremental changes to XP gains and the advent of heirloom items I have to say the classic leveling experience felt kind of broken to me when i leveled a gnome mage from level 1 to 80 a couple of months ago.

You gain XP so fast - even without Heirloom shoulders - that you barely see any of a storyline in an area before you outlevel the content. many quests are clunky and longwinded and seem very primitive when compared to later content. It is niether fun for old timers going back nor very appealing to newcomers seeing it for the first time.

It is especially noticable when you compare older starting areas to the newer BC ones. Which leads to another point, who doesnt level new alts through either the Draenei or Blood Elf starting areas? the experience is so much smoother and faster and fun than the other 1-20 areas. I dont think the game would suffer if the number of starting areas or the leveling story arc was condensed.

Really, i think some kind of consolidation of old content has to happen if for no other reason than the ongoing XP changes are leading to a point where the content gets broken (for lack of a better way to term it). They cant just keep increases the leveling speed - which they keep doing through items and game mechanics - and not modify the quests and storyline. that can only lead to even more redundent content and dead end storytelling.

The "Overall narrative" comment I took to mean that revamped zones would be spread out through the levelling experience (so we know Azshara is 1-20, perhaps Desolace 2 is 30-35 if anythings left and SoS was 45+, with untouched zones receiving quest givers to continue to guide the story, as opposed to every quest in the game being redone to start with "Phew, now that Arthas is dead...". Only takes a few NPCs placed here and there to continue the Maelstrom story without having to rework the zone. I do like the redoing of lower zones, will make levelling new Goblin alts more interesting.

Easiest solution would be to take the Everquest 2 Method.
Classic Characters that are currently in existence are booted into the cataclysm, ported to a racial city during the event.
New characters made after it are totally new to it and experience events only during that era which brings in this model.
This is taking into account, if EQ1 content stopped existing when EQ2 came out and all classic EQ1 characters were moved over.

Timeline	Level Range
Classic	[x] to 85 or 80-85
Cataclysm	1-85

[x] being any current level that character might being during that timeline.

Characters that are lower level have to deal with the survivalism of the after effects, while higher level characters deal with current events.

I think you are underestimating how much of the old world is largely redundant. Jagiya really laid it out very well, and gobbles continued with it; Condensing the important lore currently presented all of over the map into smaller geographical areas and quests employing new tech is viable, because there's just no need to port most of what's currently taking up server space in EK/Kalimdor. Every expansion is, because of their intent of maintain 1-endgame in the same timeframe, going to create more and more of a speed blurr on old content, which - regardless of any other changes - is going to come out as a reduction in quality or unfinished storylines. The Missing Diplomat chain, for example, is good lore for the game as a whole. It helps explain why things are as they are. But if you don't know it's there, if you don't have a grasp on when each part can be done, it's a pain in the ass. If we don't need half the steps because of exp gain changes, why keep them around? How many new people actually miss out on that particular story because they accidentally outlevel it? The Scythe of Elune, which even has an impact on Northrend, is a similar example. Unless you stop and take the more or less ungodly amount of time required to do that chain - which you're more or less only going to do if you know it's there - you'll easily level right past it. Many, many "kill this" quests in the old world are poorly motivated and could easily be replaced by scaling dailies like Jagiya said.

I honestly don't think the amount of time they'd need to spend on "old content" would be that severe, seeing as part of the objective has to be to condense the whole thing into fewer zones, effectively freeing up the other zones for "new content", and more or less getting rid of a lot of dead meat. Sure, the potential for the Mother of All Retcons is huge but for Blizzard it's an investment in future customers, in keeping the starting experience competitive with both it's own endgame and other new games.

And having said that, part of the whole point of remaking the 1-60 experience during the course of a new expansion is that it's easier to gloss over the fact that you're spending time and effort on future customers rather than current customer, just as you're saying. I won't lie and say that I, personally, am that fond of the idea, but from a business perspective... They'll easily make this sail right past the masses if they've got Shiny Things, sorry, a new expansion to cover it up. The only real reason not to do it is the cost, once that's been cleverly disguised, Blizzard has nothing to lose, everything to gain from doing it. This really is the perfect opportunity to streamline the leveling process.


Moving on, exactly which level is the end level has zero bearing on the amount of content an expansion contains. Whether elevendy million exp gained gets you 10 or 20 levels is completely irrelevant for the amount of content you use to give the players the elevendy million exp. Using 85 instead of 90 has several other neat effects however; Individual zones can be made to last longer - you don't need to leave it unfinished because stuff starts turning grey, which also means playing the completionist is more rewarding or at least not as punishing in terms of your exp/gear gains. Instance ranges shorten, meaning that you need less dungeons to cover the entire level range (which, if we're being generous, translates into more endgame dungeons). And, in my opinion most importantly, talent point inflation is easier to control.

Talent point inflation is actually a good point you bring up, that I've sort of been taking for granted since the whole discussion started. My first reactions upon seeing the new level cap were 'cool, maybe this time I won't need 3 content patches for Beast Mastery to be viable and Titan's Grip might finally be balanced'. Call the developers lazy, if you must, but I sure as hell didn't envy the position they were in.

But I'm hoping that less time to be spent on trivial balance issues means more time spent on world design (yeah, I know it's already designed for the most of it), lore and dungeons.

The problem is that from a high concept perspective, raising the endgame cap by 5 levels is something that we here, as intelligent players, are able to appreciate. We can use terms like "talent point inflation" and "narrative cohesion" and for the most part know what we're talking about. But we are not indicative of the audience that Blizzard is selling to.

I think the minute they say that the cap is only going up to 85 instead of 90, there's going to be an outcry from all the casual players who enjoy the leveling process, because 5 is less than 10, and it's a long time before Blizzard will be able to prove that 5 levels can be more meaningful than 10 levels. There'll be an outcry in general that the expansion is going to provide less new content and yet still charge the same amount of money as Wrath and BC to buy it. I think there will be a concern that this expansion pack is getting rushed through production, that Blizzard doesn't care about WoW anymore with all of it's newer games coming out, and that's going to start affecting new subscriptions.

These are not my personal concerns, but I think that there will be a lot of people who take that away from being told "no new continent, only 5 levels instead of 10, but you get 2 new races and can fly in Azeroth now." And I think Blizzard does not want that to happen.

I realise most people in this thread probably love the levelling part of a new expansion but I think we're in the minority. Even in the raiding guilds I’ve been in at TBC and WotLK launch, most people moaned about the levelling part, half the guild was “Freya? Never heard of her” 6 months + into the expansion when we fought her in Ulduar, as they simply had no interest in doing quests and hadn’t been to Sholozarr. Even more levelled purely grinding dungeons, some was due to the overcrowding of zones but for many it was they simply didn’t enjoy quests. A large percentage of the player base simply get all the ! on the map, then follow dotted lines and kill what QH tells them to kill. Reducing the amount of levelling time will be received well by many people, especially as the promise seems to be less levelling content, more max level raiding content (or faster).

I’m disappointed by it, but at the same time excited about the promise of what seems to be a lot of new levelling content for lower levels. I wonder if we may even see zones overlapping the Outlands/Northrend experience. At least for Outlands now it is irrelevant, especially if the idea is new level 1 characters start in the present day, not the time-line WoW started with (with the exception of Worgen already stating it would start at the day the Greymane wall was closed).