Category: World of Warcraft

Blizzard possibly have for the $60 price tag on World of Warcraft’s upcoming level 90 boost? According to the studio, it’s so that the accomplishment of actual WOW power leveling isn’t devalued. Ion Hazzikostas, WoW’s lead encounter designer, told Eurogamer that the idea behind selling the boost separately was so that players didn’t have to buy additional copies of the Warlords of Draenor expansion to take advantage of the included free character boost to level 90 on multiple characters. So instead of spending the $60 on an expansion and juggling multiple accounts, players can spend the same amount and use it on a toon on their existing account.

At the same time, the team didn’t want to diminish the hours and effort that players have invested in leveling nor create a world where no one levels. Hazzikostas explained, “If our goal here was to sell as many boosts as possible, we could halve the price or more than that — make it $10 or something. And then hardly anyone would ever level a character again.” Instead, the aim is to allow those who want a second or third alt but don’t have time to level it because of other real-world commitments the chance to have it.

WoW Insider recently posted a Breakfast Topic asking readers for their speed leveling tips. Of course, leveling at top speed isn’t everyone’s preference, but WoW Insider readers seemed to have quite some insights into the fastest way to get from level 1 to level 90!

We’ve been through the responses and picked out the most regularly mentioned and most intriguing to create this reader-inspired guide.

1. Rested Experience.
2. Heirlooms and other XP boosts
3. Recruit-A-Friend
4. Professions
5. Rares
6. Mob Farming

Many commenters had their own specific WOW power leveling routes, which we haven’t the space to reproduce here, so do check out the comments on the original post. One thing which merited some comment was the best color of quest to focus on. Readers were divided on whether it was better to focus on green-yellow quests, so quests which are relatively easy to complete, versus yellow-orange quests that are a bit harder. It likely depends a lot on your skill, your location and your heirlooms! Leveling with a friend allows you to progress through much higher level zones, so bear that in mind, too.

World of Warcraft starts off as initially a level grinding game. The road from level one to level cap can be a long, at times tedious experience.

It all depends on how one levels. Some level casually with friends and are more into the social aspect of the game. But many simply go at it alone and get discouraged at the amount of WOW power leveling required. But leveling alone can be less painful, as long as you go into it with a plan. Grinding can be efficient, and can despite the time invested gain levels and cash in the process. There are three ways to go about this: grinding off mobs, off of quests, and off of constant instance running.

Grinding Mobs For Experience

Killing set packs of mobs can be a quick way to level and gain extra items for resale and disenchanting. Simply find groups of similar green level creatures with as empty bags as possible (other than food, water, and healing items). Also keep in mind that doing this will require return trips to town as your bags will become full.

The plan is to find grouped mobs, or mobs in close proximity to each other. Once you have a set group of mobs, try to pull them into a group of 3 or more, at least in a group that you can handle. This is where area of effect capable classes shine. Aoe down the mobs killing them together in a group.

Farm Green mobs, or mobs that are around 4-5 levels beneath. These mobs overall will give the most experience grinding. Grinding yellow or even orange mobs can gain more in the long term, but take longer to kill. The goal is not mob quality, but mob quantity. Killing 3 green mobs at once will gain more experience then killing one yellow mob in the same span of time.

This method will net you a decent amount of money and sellable drops as you wont have competition between other players nor money drops auto split between others.

Questing

Questing can net lots of experience – as long as you finish them in groups. Many who quest are tempted to turn in a quest once complete. Do not do this. Instead pick quests up in groups and try to do them all at once especially ones that are in the same area. When you have the full list complete then turn them all in.

Try to do this while fully rested; this method will gain lots of experience (and even more if you wear heirloom gear), and can also abuse the rested bar as it does not use rest for quests, just for mobs. Unless you are rep grinding, drop gray quests. They do not give much if any experience and take up space for a green+ quest. This method will net you a greater amount of money as quest rewards tend to be of decent quality both monetarily and wearable wise.

Instances

Instance grinding can be a sure way for rep grinding for factions, and the experience from elite mobs is great despite being in a group. Monetary rewards are also good since bosses drop decent amounts of gold and winnable items that can be disenchanted.

Maybe WoW needs to take a lesson from Elder Scrolls Online on this one, where they took out the tutorial island and made it optional. Maybe WoW should take out level mechanics from end-game content. Maybe everyone should be “level-synced” to the same level when doing things like raiding or PvP. Problem solved. Then you could level at your own pace, have fun with the leveling and the questing, and still be able to participate in the “end-game” whenever you wanted.

I think the need to be max level devalues WOW power leveling tremendously. Leveling can be a lot of fun, especially if you don’t have that “I must be max NAO so I can raid” pressure looming over you. It’s like building a model rather than buying an assembled toy: the building of it can be a lot of fun, so long as there isn’t a huge crowd of friends with their built toys waiting on you to finish building yours so you can play with them.

I mean, Blizzard acknowledges this directly with their reason for including a level 90 with the new expansion:

To get everyone straight to the action, when you buy the expansion, it will come with a boost to level 90 for one character on your WoW account.

It’s right there. You want to be in the action, you want to be playing the game, but you can’t until you get to level 90. So they’ll do it once. Once? Shouldn’t they just set the base starting level for new characters to 90?

Or, even better, why not give players a drop-down box: whenever you make a new character, it can be any level between 1 and the highest other level character on your account? That way you can level if you want, or end-game if you want.