Recruit-a-friend Bonus fun

[Musashi]

I found out one of my old guildies was playing again, and he managed to convince me to try this.  We just leveled together in 2 days, 8 hours /played from 1 - 60.  He's sort of a maniac when it comes to leveling dudes quickly.  I'm, shall we say, not.  So I'm pretty sure that it could be done even faster.

The bonus is 3x XP when you're leveling in range of each other.  And it includes all quests you turn in.  It's pretty much insane.  Don't like that one zone?  No worry, you can easily skip it.  In fact we skipped most of STV, Badlands, Tanaris, Azshara, Felwood, Burning Steppes, Winterspring, we did the cauldron quests in WP, then with only a little bit left we brought our bone chips, dark iron scraps, and savage fronds to the dudes in EP and hit 60.  The cauldron quest final turn in was worth 40k xp.  That's like half a level at 59.  The turn ins in EP are worth over 20k each for just buying shit off the AH.

The leveling ease under this program is compounded by the fact that you're usually doing an area that's just under your level of power.  So it pretty much takes all the pain out of it.  For instance my friend was doing a raid on his main, so I did the entire quest line in Searing Gorge while he was away.  It was easy because I was like 51 when I started and the level range of the zone is 48-50.  Then, literally, like three hours after he got back, we dinged 60.

Lastly, when the guy who gets recruited gets ahead of the recruiter, the recruit can grant him levels.  In the drop down when you right-click on his portrait has an option to 'grant level.'  The recruit can grant the recruiter one level for every two he earns up until level 60.  I tell you, watching him go "Bong, Bong, Bong" in succession didn't get old.  Also you can both summon each other once an hour.  No matter where you are.  REALLY useful. 

If you're thinking of re-subbing, and you don't care about buying a new account, I highly recommend this.  If you're like me and you wouldn't mind having a couple alts, but the thought of leveling them makes you emo suicide, then it might even be worth it to you to go ahead and buy a new account and tie it to a friend so you can level as many alts as you like with ease.

Protip:  If the recruit loots all the painful drop quests, and the recruiter skips them, then you only really have to collect enough for the recruit, as he can just grant the levels he gets ahead.  So essentially, as long as you level together, you only ever have to loot enough drops for one guy.

[Kitsune]

My roomie and I are doing this now.  My plan is, instead, to simply level some of my lower level characters with him to get a couple of his characters to 60, then just insta-60 a new character for me to screw around with.  That way, not only do I get the duoing characters to 60 on easy mode, I get another random 60 straight out of the box, and he gets a couple 60s to start with (and a free Death Knight if he wants it), putting him in a good position to catch up with the rest of the game.

Getting a free month's game time and a free zebra doesn't hurt, either.

Not that I care about a stupid zebra, but that's one free mount closer to the 25-mount achievement.

[Rendakor]

I did this with my girlfriend when she finally decided to give WoW a shot. Made the trip to TBC much less painful.

[DraconianOne]

WTFHAX?

Insert appropriate passive-aggressive comment here

[skolor]

I did this with my girlfriend when she finally decided to give WoW a shot. Made the trip to TBC much less painful.

In something similar, in September My girlfriend and I decided we wanted to start playing again (I had a 70 priest, she had a rogue), but didn't feel like trying to get into a raiding guild together for the 3 months we had before WotLK. We did this, going at a relatively slow pace, playing one evening and saturday every week. We hit 70 two days before WotLK, and the two new characters are now our mains.

As a note: 3x xp is not all good. It is a pain in the ass doing professions and trying to keep up with gear.

[DraconianOne]

As a note: 3x xp is not all good. It is a pain in the ass doing professions and trying to keep up with gear.

You never need to worry about gear with RAF levelling. There will be at least two of you doing it so you can breeze through most content and you can survive on limited quest greens up until you're 58/60. Once you're there, you can get into Outland and gear up very quickly just from doing the initial few quests in Hellfire Peninsula.

Depending on what you're going to do, professions are fairly easily done at 60 as you can farm most of the mats you want in little to no time.

The only downside to the 3x XP is that you won't be earning a lot of gold at all and will almost definitely not be able to afford your mount at 30 unless you have a kindly benefactor or are playing a class that gets free mount/travel form etc.

[Rendakor]

Agreed on the lack of gold thing; I had to finance both my alt and my gf's character with my main. Not just the mount at 30 either; there were times when we didn't have enough money for training. 

[Koyasha]

One of the most amusing things is if you level up a few characters normally, then take all those stored up free levels and grant them to a character, taking them from 1-60 in a few minutes. 

Protip: you retain the same percentage of exp as you're granted a level, so kill a few mobs and get to a couple percent of the next level (it can be level 2 or 3 or whatever, take the time to get it ALMOST THERE) then when you reach level 60, you'll be a couple quest turnins away from 61.

Then there's the really hilarious part.  Paying something like 200+ gold to get your skills from level 1 to 61, followed by training weapon skill from 1 to 61.

[skolor]

You never need to worry about gear with RAF levelling. There will be at least two of you doing it so you can breeze through most content and you can survive on limited quest greens up until you're 58/60. Once you're there, you can get into Outland and gear up very quickly just from doing the initial few quests in Hellfire Peninsula.

Depending on what you're going to do, professions are fairly easily done at 60 as you can farm most of the mats you want in little to no time.

The only downside to the 3x XP is that you won't be earning a lot of gold at all and will almost definitely not be able to afford your mount at 30 unless you have a kindly benefactor or are playing a class that gets free mount/travel form etc.

I don't know about that. 30-40 was really bad for us gear wise. When moving from the level 25 zones to the level 30 one (STV), there was a tangible drop in our quality of gear. We were both still wearing stuff from the Draenei island and some of those things just at, or slightly above, our level would tear through us if we weren't careful. I remember quite a few times being fairly desperate for a new weapon, and going out and buying a Green one from the AH.

Training was also a problem, especially around 50-60. We would regularly be sending over a couple of hundred gold to get training with.

And as a note, James' guides at www.wow-pro.com are really great for leveling above 60 (They're decent for below it, but I've never managed to follow them for more than 5 or so levels at a time, which makes them lose most of their benefit). Its especially good with the new addon he put out, I couldn't believe how easy it was leveling up my Death Knight with them so far.

[Chimpy]

Basically, from what I remember one of my buddies saying, if you do the refer a friend thing and level together, you only train spells you use. So if you are running with 2 priests, one who heals and one who is shadow, the healing priest does not buy any damage spells, and the shadow priest doesn't buy any non-shadow spells (except maybe redemption hehe). Then when you get to max level, you go and buy all the other spells en masse.

[Merusk]

You never need to worry about gear with RAF levelling. There will be at least two of you doing it so you can breeze through most content and you can survive on limited quest greens up until you're 58/60. Once you're there, you can get into Outland and gear up very quickly just from doing the initial few quests in Hellfire Peninsula.

Depending on what you're going to do, professions are fairly easily done at 60 as you can farm most of the mats you want in little to no time.

The only downside to the 3x XP is that you won't be earning a lot of gold at all and will almost definitely not be able to afford your mount at 30 unless you have a kindly benefactor or are playing a class that gets free mount/travel form etc.

I don't know about that. 30-40 was really bad for us gear wise. When moving from the level 25 zones to the level 30 one (STV), there was a tangible drop in our quality of gear. We were both still wearing stuff from the Draenei island and some of those things just at, or slightly above, our level would tear through us if we weren't careful. I remember quite a few times being fairly desperate for a new weapon, and going out and buying a Green one from the AH.

Well your problem is that you're moving from a zone that was put in with BC and its gear upgrades into one of the original zones.  The Dranei/ Blood Elf areas definitely have superior gear and rewards compared to the original zones.   However, it wasn't terrible when folks were leveling originally.. tho thats possibly because you could run instances for the upgrades in there as well.

[skolor]

Well your problem is that you're moving from a zone that was put in with BC and its gear upgrades into one of the original zones.  The Dranei/ Blood Elf areas definitely have superior gear and rewards compared to the original zones.   However, it wasn't terrible when folks were leveling originally.. tho thats possibly because you could run instances for the upgrades in there as well.

That was my point; leveling now, especially with RaF, can lead to some gear problems, even if you are always in a 2 person group. It wasn't planned out all that well, mostly a "Hey, we're getting too high for this zone. Where to next?" The fact that some zones give most of the gear upgrades at the start of the zone while others have that the end only made it worse. STV seems to be one of the worst places to go in RaF because I don't remember there being any gear upgrades there. Wetlands had a good number, and highlands had some too, but STV seems to just be gold rewards from my memory.

[Merusk]

The logic is probably this:

There's no need to revamp the content since it works fine on normal XP curve (even accelerated.)  Since you're RAFing, you obviously have some benefactor out there that's more than likely 70+  It's stupidly easy for even a holy priest or resto druid to run lowbies through the old dungeons, so you do that to your friend.

If your friend levels on these runs, you get some free dings he can grant you to catch up and twink yourself via the normal route.  That people are using the free levels to insta-level a 3rd character up to 60 is the anomoly that wasn't expected, and they can deal with the downside themselves.

I dunno, I see no need for them to revisit and revamp the old stuff to help the cheese along.  It's designed around getting your alt and your friend to the end of the game sooner, where you're supposed to already be established.  Even at 200g for training, that's less than a days worth of daily quests.

[Chimpy]

STV wasn't designed around gear upgrades, actually, none of the world zones were originally. They were areas with tons of quests to give you XP to get between the level ranges of the dungeons which were where the gear upgrades were. The original premise was that they assumed everyone would WANT to go to every dungeon in the appropriate level range. Probably because that assumption leads to people spending more time playing the game, especially at the mid-level where there is still "no end in sight" while they worked on releasing more shit for the endgame. Add into that the whole fact that their entire itemization philosophy has changed a dozen times since 2004 and you get what people complain about with refer a friend.

[Gobbeldygook]

Add into that the whole fact that their entire itemization philosophy has changed a dozen times since 2004 and you get what people complain about with refer a friend.

A little part of me dies every time I see a leather or mail quest reward with strength.

[skolor]

what people complain about with refer a friend.

Just to point out: No complaining here. It was amazing leveling, and well worth it. Just pointing out some of the downsides to it that will need addressing when you start doing it.

[Kitsune]

My roomie's 90 days expired tonight.  The last three days were an insane whirlwind of questing to squeeze that one last character up to 60.  Didn't quite make it, but 54's not bad.  I am now sick to hell of WoW and am taking a couple days off; I've never been one for MMOGs' five+ hour session playstyles, preferring just a couple hours here and there.

But I got my roomie three outland-ready characters, and another three middle-ish leveled characters to mess around with, and hiked up four of my characters in the process, including a bank mule alt that I'd never intended to level who is now 58 in level 15 leather armor.

The characters that I was actually playing to provide the triple experience were in okay shape, gear and skill wise.  I was leeching money from my main to keep them on the ball, but it wasn't an onerous amount.  Things got a little dicey in the Plaguelands for the cauldron quests here and there, being undergeared 52s against level 55+ undead, but everything else was smooth.

The characters that I raised through gifted levels, however, are completely crippled.  No combat skills leveled, no gear, needing over a hundred gold each to bring their abilities up to level; they're going to take fairly significant work to bring up to combat readiness.  Not as much work as, say, leveling them to 60, of course, but the free ride isn't quite so free.  It's also going to take a fair bit of time for me to work out how to play them; total ignorance about the classes are making me even more useless with them for now.

All in all, though, it was a positive deal.  Free mount, free game time, lots of levels, and an easy insertion of my friend into the game.  Plus, there was this gem of a time in Darkshore:

Level 16 rogue challenges you (level 13 hunter) to a duel!
You lose.
You gain a level!
Rogue: gratz
You gain a level!
Rogue: What.
You gain a level!
Rogue: WTF?
You gain a level!
You gain a level!
You gain a level!
Rogue: OMFG
You (level 19 hunter) challenge level 16 rogue to a duel!
Rogue: Wait!
You win!
Rogue: HOW DID YOU DO THAT???
You: Hax.

My roomie 'n I were laughing our asses off that whole time.  It was one of the most fun WoW moments I've had, at least as far as moments that didn't involve any actual accomplishment on my part go.

[Lantyssa]

I still want a zhevra.

They should have made the recruit a friend mount some ugly bear or something.

[Bill]

Why is levelling always reduced to something people consider a form of torture?

Blah blrugh "The Journey" etc.

[Draegan]

I'm considering a come back and I want to level up a priest.  Anyone dual box their way up to 60?  If they did did you follow any particular guides and/or using any particular software?

[apocrypha]

I've dual boxed WoW forever. If you're going to do RAF then there's no need for any guides, you level too fast for them, just quest. Jame's levelling guides are good enough for normal levelling, but not essential by any means.

And I use no external software at all for dual boxing, it's all manual, just a /follow macro for the 2ndary character. Whole thing works best if the 2nd char is a healer ofc  

Oh, altoholic is a useful addon

edit: wrong smiley.

[Xanthippe]

Why is levelling always reduced to something people consider a form of torture?

Blah blrugh "The Journey" etc.

I don't know.  It's my favorite part of the game, particularly lately with the bg problems I seem to have.

[Draegan]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=14471

I havn't heard anything about that guide, but it looks like it uses addons to guide you through a RAF oriented path.  Might be faster that way.  Jame's guide is good, but not for RAFing I think.

I guess I was looking for a program where I can send keystrokes to another window.  I'm running a hunter/priest I think and I want to be able to press a button to get my priest to heal my hunter's pet.

[proudft]

The most popular program for that is Keyclone.  It's like $10 or something.  Those forums will have links to it.   I tried it for a bit with two melee druids, but dual-boxing didn't really click with me.

[Dren]

Why is levelling always reduced to something people consider a form of torture?

Blah blrugh "The Journey" etc.

I don't know.  It's my favorite part of the game, particularly lately with the bg problems I seem to have.

Seconded.  I have no issues with leveling.  I do it when not having fun with raiding/pvp/heroics.  That happens often enough.

[Rendakor]

Leveling through a set of content is, for me, only fun so many times. Having leveled 6 characters to max (or near max) pre-BC and 3 more since WotLK, I'm pretty burnt out on old world WoW. I've only gone through BC and WotLK 3-4 times so I don't mind leveling there, yet.

[Draegan]

So I started dual boxing.

Wow pretty fun.  I have a hunter and a priest.  I downloaded an addon called Jamba which helps me get through things with autofollowing and such.  I use HotkeyNet which sends commands to other windows when allows me to tell my priest to heal my hunters pet or assist the hunter and dpsing.  With triple experience I managed to get up to level 12 pretty quickly after working out all the kinks. 

I'm also using an pretty awesome guide that basically directs you through the game with tomtom.  I ran into a problem where level 5-21 are done in the blood elf area, and my second account only has WOW 1.0 in it and not TBC so one account can't access that area.  Bastards.

The biggest pain in the ass is when I used the RAF to make an account, and upgraded it, I'm still considered a trial account so I can't trade with anyone.  So my hunter is sitting here with 1 silver to his name.  Meh.  I have to wait till the 10 day trial is over.  Supposedly anyway.

[apocrypha]

You don't have to wait the 10 days. If you upgrade it to a full account you lose the trial account restrictions but don't lose the 10 free days. It can take up to 24 hours for the upgrade from trial to full to take effect though.

[Draegan]

Took me 72 hours to get the restrictions off.