Should Blizzard sell level 80? Follow

eThug - Because talking **** in person is dangerous.

Let's stipulate that the original limitation of the thread still applies -- the person buying the service must have one character at level cap already.

I'll continue to take the position that the actual harm of a player starting a character at some point above the normal starting level (phrased in that manner to account for DKs) is no greater than the harm caused by bored or lazy players trying to cruise to level cap. They bot and afk in BGs. They get run through content by friends. They pay -- in gold or in cash -- for being leveled through instances that they don't interact with. Even for the most 'legitimate' of players, RAF, SoR and heirlooms all boost XP, as do various in game buffs (2% in EPL, HFP, Wintersgrasp, Fire Festival) and the buffs will expand in MoP to include more heirlooms and possibly even a potion that buffs XP.

The current system of grinding through years of older expansions is not working as its advocates would hope. If people were really learning their class as predicted, we'd all be complaining less about nubcakes. The game environment is steadily changing to reflect that. The game needs new players to survive and new players don't want a huge run up to current end game. Many of us have multiple characters at or near level cap. We have choices, but new players will also want to experiment. Older players may want to leave established characters with their current guild but might like to have the opportunity to dabble with playing on another server. Several situations come to mind such as where a player is on a low population or unbalanced server or wants to change between PVP and PVE environments. Perhaps having the choice to start over more easily could even address some of the population and balance problems that people complain about.

Allowing a player to pay to opt out of repeating older content, whether they buy in at 80 or 85, strikes a nerve. We've been conditioned to shun things like power leveling characters because up to this point the way to do that was usually through RMT. If Blizzard were to allow a legitimate way to reach a similar end, that's going to look like Blizzard is just giving in to RMT. I'm going to take the position that it is not the same. If anything, it takes away a source of income for the RMT crowd and that is a good thing. On a side note, I'm OK with MoP's Black Market Auction House for a similar reason -- it will remove large chunks of in game currency and I would guess that such transactions will give Blizzard a chance to whack people who through sudden miracle (i.e. botting and RMT) have wads of cash to blow.

It is true that WOW is an MMO, but that means it an evolving environment that needs to be able to adapt to the needs of multiple players and equally diverse play styles. I stated in my first post that I don't see myself using the option because I'm an altoholic (it is my nod to being an old PnP RPG player, I like to see a character develop). On the other hand, I don't see the existence of such an option as a danger to my enjoyment of the game. We've been complaining about PUGs for years ... um ... nubcakes will be nubcakes?

I still say they should just sell an account buff that give you the triple Xp buff (ala RAF buff) that last for like 2 weeks @ 5 dollars a pop. Problem solved, they arent selling 80's, there will still be people in old content (even if its for a shorter time), no one seems to have a major issue with the buff as it stands, and Blizzard makes money.

Pros:
- You're not 'skipping' content, just fast forwarding through it.
-It's both casual and hardcore friendly, casuals are consumers they want content fast enough to keep their interest or they move on to another game. Hardcore want more toons to play but hate having to waste time grinding.
-Blizzard make more money on a feature already in the game.
- Its fast enough to keep new players interested, while still not throwing all their skills at them @80 and saying here now learn to play.

Cons:
-We get noob(ish) players at 80, but we already have those now

As an altohoic, I'd love to see them come up with some way to do this. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to do any more than delay boredom for a few levels or an extra alt. Perhaps that's the price we pay for an evolving game.

They updated 1-60 content in Cata and that seems to have gone over poorly. I don't see them rushing to repeat that any time soon and we may forever see Agility on gear for Warriors in TBC zones. I suppose they could throw in more low level dailies and additional crafting quests (along the lines of fishing and cooking), but to maintain the feeling that level cap is higher than lower levels, scaling would still make those quests trivial. I'd still like to see it, but instead of fleshing out the leveling experience, they'd probably end up fueling the zerg to level cap. As it is, I don't start a new character with anything other than Mining and Herbalism because it means such a hit on XP. It is easier by far to sell mats until level cap and then power level a crafting profession. [As a side note, I really wish they would revisit low level crafting and give it more utility than being disenchant fodder.]

In the same vein, the cross server leveling areas might allow them to bring back stronger fights for group quests, but I suspect it would be pointless because it is still easier to have a high level character come in and one shot something.

I enjoyed leveling too, until it got to classes that absolutely suck low-levels (they really need to fix some of that, for example, Priest) and also when I had gotten to, say, the 12th+ character... then it just gets repetitious. Leveling Post-Cataclysm was awesome fun, esp for my Tauren Paladin... I didn't mind leveling a warrior... and then I did some on a couple mages... but then came my priest... about the 5th level of OOMing every other mob, I was like "blaaaaah, I think I'm doing cooking/fishing dailies for awhile" and that's what I did.

Mind Spike isn't until 81 tho.

And yeah, I foolishly tried Shadow while in the teens... and saw how bad the mana consumption was and gave up on it. I healed a few low-level dungeons, and did the rest on cooking/fishing.

Said priest is now 80 and with the Midsummer Event, I bet he will get at least 81 if not a bit past it. Pondering on whether to try healing cata normals, or tough it out in quests... or just do archaeology.

I already have an 85 priest on the alliance side; mana gets a lot easier to manage once you get archangel....

But thanks for the offer!

Priest was pretty damn boring early on, even after the Cataclysm revamp of skills. While the Mage got Arcane Missiles pretty early on (fun little mechanic), Priest was all Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite ad nauseam.

It's more than just smite! You use Inner Fire and Archangel too! For leveling, fun has a lot to do with how fast stuff dies for me. If I kill stuff fast, I go "Ooooh I kick ***!" It's the inner pyro in me I think.

I see alot of concerns about players who won't know how to play their class. Lets be honest here. How many people before multispec hit rolled a healer/tank class and leveled to max lvl as dps with no exp tanking or healing? Not much difference.

Might put something in there though where you all ready have to have a toon at lvl 80+ to be able to do this. Another option might just be to offer some sort of exp potion with a stupid amount of a bonus (say 1000% bonus). Player would earn 1000% more exp for X amount of time and the potion would quit working once you hit lvl 80.

Edited, Aug 17th 2012 3:14pm by fronglo