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Inspite of a few complaints of players burning through content too quickly, I believe WoW's short leveling curve to be one of its greatest assets.  I spent more hours in EQ medding over the course of a week then it took me to get two WoW characters to 18 and 12.

My impression is that this game is going to be more like UO, where maxing out your abilities was a coming of age, not the end of the game.  Maybe that is not the case yet, but there is little point for them to focus most of their efforts on the endgame when the game has been out for only two months.

Are city raids a fairly rare thing?  I saw the aftermath of a Horde invasion on Stormwind's side of the tram over the weekend, which left literally piles of skeletons lying around.  If this is what WoW will become as more players reach lvl 60, I don't see how this can be anything but a good thing (except for maybe the fact that the horde is greatly outnumbered).

I like it because it's going to allow me to get a second character to 60 before battlegrounds are probably in.  I'm someone that needs a change of pace to keep sane in these games.  A shaman/rogue is enough of a contrast to keep me interested.  However, I find that playing one or the other too much lessens my ability with the other.  That, and I keep hitting the wrong fucking hotkeys.

I don't like the end game as is (raiding), but that's a rather long exposition that probably doesn't need to be here and is somewhat personal.

Still, 10 days played (240 hours for you math majors) to 60 at best in most cases is nothing to sneeze at. That's a pretty hefty time commitment that has to be actively played compared with UO which I could script advancement in every single portion of the game.

Do you mean raiding rival zones, or more in the traditional uber dungeon sense?

Totally. It lets me have a job, wife, and kids and still progress in the game in a timespan not measured in years. Plus I like playing alts, so the rest system makes it even more worthwhile to play multiple characters.

Uber instance raiding. It's a big bag of "I don't have the fucking time".

... to deal with insecure, elitist jackasses and their stupid political games just so I can suck away yet more time doing nothing more than the task assigned to me without any chance of variation because so many have done it this way before and it's worked.

As long as WoW has options I'll be playing for a while, but if it goes full-raid for endgame I'll be out in an instant.

I don't think fast or slow advancement matters.  The key is how much content you have.  WoW has about 300 hours worth of content.  Unless you are into alts and are happy to recycle content on an alt.  That's 5 months of play for the 2 hour a night guy.  That's enough for some, not enough for others.  I think it's fine for now for me, though I play a little more than that (I binge on Saturdays).  It will cease to be fine in a couple months.  I have little faith in Blizzard's ability to consistently deliver decent content to keep up with my playstyle based on their past rate of content production in past games and in the WoW beta.  If I am correct, WoW will just be a fun game to play for 5 months, which is a pretty good bargain for the price.  It won't be a place where I set down roots.  Though that may be a good thing. 


WoW raids have potential, but right now they are a big bag of fucking bug infested crap.

I agree, though I guess it depends what you want out of a game like this ... I certainly don't want any one game to take up years of my life.

I spent 45 minutes defending Tarren Mills last night with my n00b mage (she wasn't overly effective, but some of her spells landed). I anticipate more and more PvP participation as all my characters get higher level, which effectively extends the existing content that much further. I agree that they reallly need to step up the pace at which new content is released, however.

Whee! I like kindred spirits, especially after having been chastised for 'not getting' WoW by an 'uber' player.

I don't think WoW has a short levelling curve. I think it has a nice levelling curve to it, just about right. EQ and co, I consider completely absurd (hey, add on a new level cap while yer at it).

I'll throw in a "ditto" here.  Right now WoW has the same casually playable feel do me that CoH does, plus, it's a seemless world with decent loot drops, useful tradeskills, and pvp, which CoH is lacking.  Short play sessions are still meaningful.

I just started last monday, and got to 17 last night in Fenris Keep with some folks who needed to kill the level 24 mage inside.  We had total party wipeouts like 4-5 times, but b/c death is generally painless, instead of getting frustrated and logging or punching the monitor, we just ran back, rezed up and tried some new tactics and finally got it done.  Lack of a painful death penalty is a huge plus.  And, I have to admit, having a more diablo like loot system where you can get "stuff" at a pretty decent clip is definately an attraction.

Other nice touch last night was while I was killing Rot Hide's on the same island to do one quest, I looted a talking head which gave me a new quest in the castle.  Stealthed in, found his body, looted a chest, and stealthed up a tower to find the hidden goody behind a bookcase.  Fun little quest series from a random drop; whoda' thunk it?  Got me enough of an undercity reputation boost to lower my prices for services.

Now I just got a quest I apparently need to use my lockpicks for.

Can't honestly think of any bugs or issues thus far other than the server being down once when I wanted to play.

Level 17 in ~17 hours ain't bad for my casual playing ass.  I doubt I'll ever see 60, but i think this game I play beyond the inital month at least.

Xilren

At level 38 I can honestly say this is the first I've been hit with the 'omg got to level!' bug. Being sooo close to 40 and a mount (speed upgrade yay) is the reason and I can live with that.

I must be doing something wrong. I'm a tad over 11 days, and halfway through level 48. I don't think it helps that I've soloed the entire time, except for the few instances I've hopped into. Living on the west coast, with an east coast guild tends to make things lonely.

But still, I agree with the topic. Short leveling is awesome. At this point, I gain a level every other night or so, depending on how distracted I am by ganking Horde or defending our noobs in Ashenvale/Lakeshire.

You're not.  I had a group of 3 people that I played with consistantly and we did just about all of the elite quests except some of the later instance work.  Being able to complete just about all of the elite quests when they're given is a big boost in EXP.  Plus, we're dirty powergamers at heart. We're very efficient, very fast, and in voice chat usually the entire time (cell phones).  It's really hard for us to group with people because we're constantly amazed at how long it takes people to get their shit together.  Plus, I've always just been a fast leveler.

Still, took me 11 days and change (looking at my played subtracting my 60 time would make it 11 days 4 hours).  Still, it can be done at my pace in 10 if you don't dedicate a decent amount of your playing time to crafting and have decent gear.

Can probably be done even faster if you find an optimal grinding area and are twinked.  But that could get a tad boring, methinks.  My rogue will end up being a quick leveler once he hits 45 due to having a Bloodrazor and a lot of armor I've been saving in wait.

Nothing wrong with going at your own pace.   As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's all that counts.

If/when you are ready to do the Elite part of that Fenris quest, let me know- I still have the quest on my mage's to do list. Also Shadowfang Keep- too many magely goodies drop there to skip it.

Your talking alliance here right? I dont think I know a single horde who has managed to hit 60 in 10 days, and I know some really good players. Most of the people in my guild consider my a very fast leveler, and I am at 12 days played for lvl 57.

But yeah, for alliance 10 days to 60 is about right. The avarage for horde is 14 days.

Didn't I just say I hit 60 in 11 days, 4 hours on Horde? And I fuck around a lot.  I did also say "at best", which means you're being a powerleveling, powergaming, non-pvping (pve server), grinding cockboat at times.

10 is completely doable.  We'll see anyhow with this rogue. He's at 28 with 2 days played. 

I'm really getting the hang of "rest cycling". I'm actively playing a hunter, a druid, and a mage, and I divide my time between them, allowing rest to build for each one to the point where no matter which character I'm playing, I'm always earning double xp.

I won't get any of them to 60 anytime soon, but at least I'm deceiving myself into thinking I'm being more efficient with my playing time.