◊ Kalman

60-70 will not take anywhere near as long as 1-60. Based on my current experience, 61 was literally about 4 hours, with 1/3 of a bar of rested XP. 62 is looking, even with the absolutely *camped* status of Razorsaw yesterday evening, like maybe 6 hours with minimal rested. I'm guessing around 4 days /played to hit 70.

It's no more a barrier to entry than the 1-60 grind is right now. We all know people who've brought friends into the game, or rerolled fresh, and were raiding relatively quickly; why would it be any different for 1-70?

 

GrizleyCQ

I doubt it.

Its certainly a smaller issue for retention than not allowing for progression. For people who have been sitting at the level cap for two years its time for some form of progression other than gear.

In your scenario where you have someone joining a high level guild to be with friends the newbie will likely play at his own pace until he decides he wants to do endgame stuff now, at that point hopefully his friends will help him level up. A level 70 charecter running all your epic quests and giving you some nice items on the way up will cut your 500 hour figure to 300 or less, probably not much more than it took the first 60s to level up.

According to that site that tracked leveling progress I was the um 9th? 60 after release. My /played was 9 days and change. If I was leveling up with help now I'm guessing I could do 1-70 in that time. Actually I'm going to be leveling up a shaman in TBC so I'll let you know how that goes. Of course with everyone else leveling to 70 I'll have little help till they finish that.

 

Mist

I would double or triple rest gains from 1-40 at the least. It wouldn't allow someone powercatassing to level a char any faster, but it would probably help casual players leveling a lot.

 

◊ Eej

Well, one thing is that yes, it's a lot of time spent, but does anyone else here remember how fun it was to level to 60 for the first time? It's not like it's going to be dreadful and boring grinding all the way to 60, the leveling process is very enjoyable and the quest system so polished that I don't see this as a barrier. Rather, the real barrier is once you get to 60 and you don't get into a raiding guild, so you sort of sit around doing nothing all day.

That being said, it's entirely possible that if you want to help a friend level quickly, you just run around tap leveling for him. If you're at 70, tap leveling will be ridiculously faster than it is right now. Instead of 1-60 in less than a week of real time, it'd probably be four days, depending on what class you're using anyhow.

 

Felippe

Actually, I would say simply adding more quests with more good rewards would go a long way towards making the leveling experience more enjoyable.

Granted, increasing rested xp would be easier, but the former would be more enjoyable.

 

Vhad

What would be the purpose of that? The 1-60 is an excellent game in it self, no need what so ever to reduce that time. If anything it's going to be easier getting to do stuff at 70 with the focus on 5 man zones etc. The pre raid gear is pretty good compared to the initial state of wow where pre raid gear was pretty damned awful.

What!?

 

• frmorrison

Just a note, if you know what you are doing 5 days /played to get to 60 is easy.

I agree, since the expansion is a start over since everyone gets new gear (unless you have Tier 3), a new player doesn't have that much of a gap to bridge (just 5 days of playing).

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

◊ Kalman

I'm saying 4 days without powerleveling, playing the game "as it was meant to be played". The 1-60 equivalent would be 12-18 days, I think.

 

Aphyrax

New players tend to not know what they are doing on account of them being - new. I agree with the OP that this will be an issue going forward, especially when the level cap goes up again. Right now I would estimate that it takes the average gamer 15+ days to get their first character to 60. Even if 60-70 is somewhat faster than 1-60, we are still looking at 25 days /played. Thats quite a bit of time.

Futher, time investment is only part of the deal. Being able to get people for the mid level content is another big factor. How popular will BRM be come expansion time?

I do not know how many people have not hit the level cap yet but I would guess a good portion of the casual gamers (aka the good customers since they play less and pay the same) is still below 60. With expansions mostly adding content at the top end, will this game become stale for newcomers, undercutting its long-term popularity?

 

Nite_Moogle

1.3 levels (fully rested) not knowing where the hell I am going in gear that is already borderline replaceable in 5 hours does not extrapolate out well to it taking another 5 days to get to 70.

I'm guessing this topic arose from the "5 to 60, 10 to 70!" banner that showed up on either thott or wowhead. They're just trying to sell something, they don't even have the 60-70 grind down properly yet :P For most people 4-5 days from 60 to 70 is going to be a casual ride. If you hit the quests and/or instances hard I really wouldn't doubt under 48 hours would be possible depending on rest XP abuse.

 

• squiffy

Frankly, there is an absolute tonne of content that everyone will be able to level off of very quickly if current XP rewardrates stay true.

I hit 70 on my warrior in Netherstorm, with doing maybe 5 instance runs along the way, and zero grinding for XP. I still have an absolute load to do in Netherstorm, and I haven't even explored Shadowmoon valley yet.

I understand Blades Edge is also now more populated, with an additional quest hub so my 66 Druid (who is maybe 50% through Nagrand) will likely hit 70 without needing to go to either Netherstorm or Shadowmoon.

From what I've experienced, the leveling curve from 60-70 is very well paced and you never feel like you need to grind anything, nor (now) run out of content.

 

spronk

The people who read these forums are a small minority of players - the hardcore who theorycraft, min/max, and try to get the best possible gear and enchants for every single slot. Most of the 7 million WoW players are like my wife - logon a few hours a week, chit chat, quest a bit, and think more about how all your equipment color-coordinates rather than how powerful it is.

For them the expansion is wonderful - lots of new places to visit, stuff to do, and items to bedazzled by. Plus the winged instance design is absolutely fantastic for quick WoW sessions, compared to the slog-fests of todays instances and raids.

I know people who took 6+ months to hit level 60, and they will take the same amount of time to hit 70. No rush.

I leveled to 70 within 2 weeks of realtime on beta by the way, my leveling was accelerated somewhat but I think it'll take people a good 2-3 weeks. I think its reasonable to assume the first week or so is going to be miserable, with constant server hangs, crashes, and reboots.

By the way, this is also one of the reasons why Blizzard constantly pushes out new servers. People who roll on older servers feel left "out" of the community and raiding/PVP/instance cliques. Fresh servers provide a great way for everyone to start at ground zero. Many people level to 60 and then reroll on newer servers to experience the fun of creating a community from scratch.

 

Jonno

Both my brothers play WoW, one having started with me at release and the other only just started a month or two ago.

Rather than try to catch up to us at 60, he has been having so much fun in the lower level WSGs and places like WC that he is still in the high 20's where if he had tried to level he would be near 60 by now.

The 1-60 game is fantastic as I'm sure the 61-70 game will be too. There is no reason to want to bypass it just to hit max level if you are new to the game.

Issues like lack of content, lack of gear upgrades and mind-numbing repetitive content for non-raiders once you hit the level cap are retention issues. Having 70 levels of pure fun in front of you aren't.

 

◊ Quigon

Getting my first toon maxed on EQ didn't take a whole lot longer than on WoW. The difference is I play way more now, and EQ wasn't nearly as captivating or fun when it came to "grinding" it out.

Anyway, I wanted to say that levels 1-60 were intended to be completed in roughly 14 to 18 days /played and via full quest routines. That can be narrowed down easily under 6 days with solid grinding and knowledge, but the intention was over 2 weeks played. I get the impression they're aiming for 7 days played for 60-70... so that would be about 50% of the time it took you to get to 60 in the first place, had you not gained gear or knowledge in the "between." Hope that made sense.

 

probiscus

One thing I found pretty interesting, that one of our re-rolls *just* missed out on - is the PvP gear available to someone who decided to re-roll a new class, but of an existing race. With a co-ordinated PvP group that newbie 60 could have gotten HWL weapons and at least 4 of the R13 set in the first couple days of 2.0.

As far as I can tell, the only twinking for the paladin/shaman re-rolls is going to be via the re-roll jewelcrafters/blacksmiths/etc. Admittedly I don't know how motivated I'm going to be to help run LBRS/Scholo/BRD when I'm level 65 and have been grinding straight for a weekend.

Fortunately, speaking as horde, the paladin re-rolls we're expecting are all exceptional players, and paladins stack disproportionately well when grouped - so it should be easier for those guys to powerlevel themselves. Regardless, I'd expect to be hitting 70 prior to them hitting 60, which means I guess I could level my shaman alt from 60+ along w/ those guys X_x.

Going back a paragraph or two, is anyone setting aside resources for re-rolls, whether it be blues, mats, crafted gear, etc? I just leveled mining to 300, w/out buying mats for smelting - my initial goal was to save all the ore to sell to jewelcrafters, but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to donate some mats for twinking the re-rolls. I obviously haven't given a lot of thought to this, but does anyone else have plans along the same lines?

 

Phlis

Another benefit to rerolling as a Blood Elf and Draenei: The quests will already be done by someone else. This may not seem like much, and it goes against "the spirit" or the game, but by the time a BE or Draenei is 60, no matter how fast they go, Allakhazam and Thottbot will have updated their quest sections. Along with the fact that "most" of the population will be out of the 61-63 zones, this makes the 61-70 grind a lot faster. In the two weeks of play time it takes to get to 60 a quest guide from 61-70 will be out and you'll be back into the raiding game that much faster.

 

Northerner

Well, it certainly made sense, although I'd take exception with the EQ comment. My long-retired Rogue was sitting on at least a couple of hundred days /played and when I retired him he still wasn't completely maxed out on AAs or gear. Certainly though, "grinding" out AAs in EQ was a very different experience and one I miss in some ways and don't miss at all in others.

I think the pacing in WoW is excellent the way it stands right now regardless. I can see a small hitch for new players going from 1-70 though, as the transition from a level 60 in greens and a few blues to a 61 capable of doing well in Outland is perhaps a bit tricky. AH greens will help substantially there but it is a bit of a jump upwards in the difficulty curve. The other thing I can see potentially being a pain is the epic mount money. It may be rough on new players never really having a chance (time not levelling essentially) to earn the money for one and it really does impact gameplay a fair amount.

We shall see how it goes but overall I am not exactly too worried.

 

probiscus

1 weekend w/ the guild should contribute enough BG tokens for an epic mount. Right?

Edit: Doh, I guess that assumes that everyone has a lvl60 alt to play to help said re-rolls win 10 games of each BG. This also assumes that you can actually GET a game of WSG/AB/AV within a couple weeks of tBC release :(

 

Dwargue

yes, but that doesn't help.

they redid the way epic mounts work, it's no longer ~90g (i can't remember anymore, it was a long time ago when i bought my mounts) for the lvl 60 training, and 810g for the actual mount.

the prices are now reversed, and the bulk of the cost comes from the riding training.

so while you may be able to get an epic mount for "free", you still can't ride it.

that's the boat i'm in, unfortunately.

 

probiscus

I thought back in the day if you had rank 12/13 (?) you could ride the mount, regardless of whether you had the 'training' or not - is that no longer the case?

I knew about the cost swap, but guess I hadn't thought that it might actually still require the "epic" riding or w/e. Now that I think about it, I think the warlock had his lvl60 warlock mount pre-changes - so I was grandfathered into the 150 riding skill, then I picked up the AV mount, and then last week I got the old pvp rank raptor.

That sucks if you have the tokens but still have to train 150 riding.

 

Dwargue

pretty sure it still does:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/rewards-mounts.html

every one of them says

 

missiletoad

This sentiment came to mind when I read the original post. Some people get stuck in the mindset that they must race to the end of the game to get the most out of it, and while these people are often vocal, I believe they're thankfully in the minority. Old content will be no less fresh to someone starting the game tommorrow as it was to us 2 years ago. A person just starting WoW after BC is released... hey, there's a whole new menagerie of content on the way to the "end"! They've a longer way to go before they reach one pinnacle and (most likely) make the mental shift away from level advancement that we all had to make at 60. Having more content and thrill along the way doesn't seem like such a bad thing at all.

Give me your hand and I will hold it forever... on my nightstand in a box with your love letters.

 

• Snowy

It's not like newcomers are going to think "gee, I just got to level 60, now I have to do more of this?" It'll all be one seamless journey through the magical World of Warcraft. I still fondly remember my first character going from 1-60, one of the best experiences in any game.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Whiteknight

That's not exactly accurate. My Black War Tiger says Requires: Riding 75 on it. I got it prior to the riding skill change, paid 90g for it at rank 11. I've never trained riding and never bought a regular epic mount - and my char is listed as having 150 skill.

Back on topic, I honestly thought the 'epic mount' discussion was referring to flying mounts. It seems that these have a significantly larger impact on gameplay and are honestly out of reach for a lot of players.

 

Dwargue

i think the epic mount issue is entirely valid though.

at lvl 40, the player base had a reasonable, accessible mount. at lvl 60, you hit the cap, and are essentially stockpiling materials and gold. the epic mount was something of a status symbol, in that not everyone had one / can afford one.

given 2 years after release, most players who have been around for a bit, have epic mounts. it has gone from the exception, to more of the norm.

having an epic mount gives a person incredible advantages, be it the ability to outrun mobs before they dismount you, to just being able to cover the distance between quest objectives faster.

a new player who is leveling from 1-70 will never have the time to amass enough money to buy an epic mount, and will be starting the 60-70 at an disadvantage.

the only way i really see of bridging this, is being able to purchase flying mounts at a much lower price (not the epic flying mounts, just normal flying ones) that is more on par with what 90g was to a lvl 40 toon.