Leveling is good now.

[WindupAtheist]

Rough guess, I'm leveling 3 times faster than I did last year.  A bit of that is because I was on a PVP server and was dicking around ganking and getting ganked part of the time, but that can only be a small factor.  Leveling feels "right" to me now.  Here's hoping that as time wears on and expansions come out and the level cap continues to increase, they only keep increasing the speed of it to keep the time from newb to endgame consistent.  Pile on the content and let me get my ding-levelup crack all the more often.

Between that, PVP rewards, the solo-friendlieness, and the precedent set with BC of making routine expansion gear really uber, they seem to be doing a damned good job of making a game that a newb can jump into years after release with a realistic expectation of eventually being competetive in the endgame against established players.  Without being a super-catass.

Anyway, yeah, faster leveling = win.  If you're like me and found even WoW's old "fast leveling" to be a grind, give it another shot.

[Selby]

I am now almost 49 and this is with only playing 2-3 hours a night.  I went from midway through 47 to 4 bars from 49 just questing last night in the Hinterlands.  Leveling is definitely sped up compared to what it used to be.  This is a good thing.  The only problem I have is quests go grey too quickly for me to complete them all, whereas I used to have to run to both continents several times to get quests to actually go on to the next set.

All in all, minus the gankage I experience due to playing a victim class, this is one of the best times I've had in WoW since release.

[MrHat]

"Victim Class" - nice.


Ya, it's faster, but you still will hit a huge wall @ 60.  HUGE.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, with the leveling speed there's just no way to do all the quests without a lot of them turning gray.  But shit, that's a good thing in my book.  I don't want to do all the quests, and the fast leveling means I can pick and choose and only do the ones that interest me.

For example, I always hated Westfall, so this time around I just skipped it entirely.  I skipped Arathi Highlands and most of Wetlands too.  But I did pad my XP early on with some of the dwarf and elf zone quests.  Choice is good.  And if I ever get around to making an alt, there will be things for him to do that my main never did on the way up.

[Dren]

"Victim Class" - nice.


Ya, it's faster, but you still will hit a huge wall @ 60.  HUGE.

This is true, but I find the quests and activities in BC much more palatable than pre-BC.  The quests are localized better.  The rewards are more appropriate and useful.  There are challenging yet fun 5-man instances to do right away with appropriate and easy to obtain quests related to them.  There are optional world PvP areas if you feel like it.  Travel times and needs go way way down.  You spend a much higher percentage of your time doing the quests rather than riding on the back of a mount afk.

You can basically "own" each zone you hit before moving on and that was/is a pretty good feeling going through the BC content.  Yet, there is enough of the other things that keep you coming back to those zones later (heroics, higher level instances, resource collection, world PvP, etc.)

You really never run out of appropriate level quests to run either.  There always seems to be a surplus.  If you run instances, you'll notice this even more.

If you do like many have suggested and just go get some upgrade gear at 58-60 in Outlands then return to the old world to whip through the higher end quests, you can get to 62 pretty quickly and then find massive amounts of quests to do in Outworld upon your return.  That works quite well.

[fuser]

I have been leveling a lot of chars, just before the quest XP boost/level XP reduction, and it's indeed very quick now. I rerolled a mage a week or two ago and leveled with questing in ghost lands and quests up to 26 then started AoE grinding + quests. Very effective and quick(44 last night).

[Nebu]

If you do like many have suggested and just go get some upgrade gear at 58-60 in Outlands then return to the old world to whip through the higher end quests, you can get to 62 pretty quickly and then find massive amounts of quests to do in Outworld upon your return.  That works quite well.

This is sound advice, especially on a pvp server.  I've found that once I near the upper range for an area/zone that I'm left alone more often than not.  Hellfire is mostly people that are 58-60 and the marsh is 61-63.  If you're a hair above those ranges, you'll do well questing as you can decided to kill players you see or simply ignore them knowing they are less likely to attack you. 

[fuser]

If you do like many have suggested and just go get some upgrade gear at 58-60 in Outlands then return to the old world to whip through the higher end quests, you can get to 62 pretty quickly and then find massive amounts of quests to do in Outworld upon your return.  That works quite well.

This is sound advice, especially on a pvp server.  I've found that once I near the upper range for an area/zone that I'm left alone more often than not.  Hellfire is mostly people that are 58-60 and the marsh is 61-63.  If you're a hair above those ranges, you'll do well questing as you can decided to kill players you see or simply ignore them knowing they are less likely to attack you. 

Actually thats really good advice. Stay out of the Outlands for a level or two, to hit up the boosted quests and the plaguelands are a ghost town. Honestly there's so much junk green gear on the AH for the 58-64 range its cheap to upgrade without even visiting the Outlands. I started just running instances over and over in the Outlands while doing old world quests on my rogue to get the gear. When I hit 64 started questing in the Outlands quickly doing all the quests solo.

Plus once you hit 70 that leaves a lot of outland quests worth decent $$

[SurfD]

yeah, generally, if you can get a decent number of instance groups on your way up, you should be able to hit 70 on just Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, and some chunks of Terrokar and Nagrand (with maybe one or two of the good chain quests in SMV or Netherstorm).

I have 3 70's and each one has managed to pretty much completely ignore Blades Edge, Netherstorm, SMV and a good chunk of Nagrand, which makes for a HUGE chunk of change when you come there at 70.

Another thing i would reccomend is that you chose a side (aldor or scryer) and spend a level farming your low level marks / signets early on.  Main reason for this is you get both Aldor / Scryer rep AND Shatar rep for turning them in up to the rep cap for the low level ones.

[Dren]

Another thing i would reccomend is that you chose a side (aldor or scryer) and spend a level farming your low level marks / signets early on.  Main reason for this is you get both Aldor / Scryer rep AND Shatar rep for turning them in up to the rep cap for the low level ones.

Yes, I wish I had done this on all my alts.  I'm on my fourth and will do this.  I did the same thing for Cent rep.  Saved up all the plant parts from other alts, etc. and got to honored with those alone.  Now all the quests will get me to revered, no problem.  I'm doing the same with Spore rep.

[Jayce]

Me too!

Hellfire Ramparts to Friendly, then quests.  Bog lords to neutral with sporregar and enough plant parts for friendly with CE.  Then all Z-marsh CE quests, with enough Sporeggar ones to get me where I wanted to be (friendly).  Cabalists in Bone Wastes to Honored with Aldor (and friendly with Sha'tar).

I'm 70 now with 95% of Nagrand and all of BEM, SMV and Netherstorm ahead of me.

Edit: also, I didn't do the 60 Azeroth quests until 62 or so. I wish I had now.  I especially like Silithus.  It's very fleshed out considering that 75% of level 60s spent a few months there before the expansion.  It's eerily empty though.  The Plaguelands seemed more populated.

[Nebu]

Silithus is very empty on Venture Co also.  I can't really blame people for avoiding it though.  Some of the quests there are downright stupid.  Collect 4 sets of an outfit that drops in single pieces in an uncommon fashion.  God, I HATE quests that eat up my bag space.  It makes me stabby. 

[Dren]

Yeah, lore-wise Sithilus is nice, but everything else is just annoying.  There is a lot of travelling.  The insects are just not fun to fight even though they are now all normal instead of elite.  The insects typically drop zero loot too.  I'd at least want to get some vendor trash to sell...  The trash stuff and number of drops from EPL is much much better.  Also, if you are a miner, the veins are much easier to get to.  The ones in Sithilus are buried inside hives! (Mostly)

Plus, most of the higher quests are associated with the 20-man and 40-man instances there.  Fail.

[fuser]

I can't really blame people for avoiding it though.

Never even knew it existed till now and looking it up on wowwiki. 

Played from 2004 and quit raiding/game just after Onyxia (picked up the game again late 2005).

[Fordel]

Sithilus is horrible. Land of Mobs with Knockback and charge.

[Selby]

Sithilus is horrible.

Yes.  Silithus can eat a dick.  My least favorite zone of all of them probably.

[Merusk]

Sil suffers horribly from being fleshed-out at a time when people were bored and clamoring for 'something to do' other than running Scholo/ Strath/ UBRS for the 150th time. So, Blizz gave them 'something to do' that took an ass ton of time.  Unfortunatly they haven't fixed that since it was first developed.

[Fordel]

Sithilus suffers horribly from being horrible. The End.

Those are just some of the most annoying old world mobs ever created. You could cut down the time requirements 10 fold and it would still be horrible. You can't go anywhere in that zone without some random mob charging you from 50 feet away around a giant crystal into another pack of 5 of the very same mob, so you get sling shotted back and forth for a minute straight while you try to do ANYTHING that resembles actually playing your character.

To add insult to injury, Sithilus was supposed to be the 'pvp' zone of the old world. lolsand etc 


Just say no to Sithilus!

[Jayce]

Wow, I really kicked an anthill here!

Go Silithus!

[cmlancas]

On the horde side, I did Dustwallow Marsh/(whatever the gadget city is there) quests yesterday. Very well written, and fun. Like, actual fun. 

Granted, it was somewhat empty, but it was more fun than I was having in STV.

[Righ]

Silithus always was and always will be complete bollocks. When the game was launched the mobs had no loot table. You could kill as many as you want and  never get a drop nor skin a corpse. The original concept was for there to be one legendary random zone-wide drop with a one in some fucking huge number chance of dropping. This random drop would unlock the gates to the instances and make the person who got it a server famous wunderkind. I presume that in an attempt to ensure that the legendary key didn't drop before they had coded thing, they turned off loot for the whole zone. At some point in time they changed their mind on how to open the gates - perhaps they considered what would happen if somebody got the key to the instance and tried to eBay the account or hold the server ransom - and decided to turn on some loot. For about three mobs. The rest remained barren until they essentially superimposed a brand new zone in the area. The new Silithus was based around a fucking miserable server-wide grind to open the gates along with personal grinds for reputation to enable access to loot associated with the instances. And the instances sucked too. Well, the 40 man instance completely sucked, the 20 man instance had a little amusement value for the first run or two. I was astonished that they made a raid instance more mind numbingly boring than Molten Chore and a reputation grind more painful than the Thorium Brotherhood. But they did. A low point in WoW's history.

[Fordel]

I would say nuke it from orbit, but from the looks of the place, it's already been done.

[Simond]

I would say nuke it from orbit

Well, it is a bug hunt. 

[Dren]

Talking about all the past issues that WoW has gone through, I do have to compliment Blizzard on learning from their mistakes.  They do seem to come out with better plans at each major release.  The ironic thing about it is that is it really just seems like they gave up on the old MMO mantra of making the game painfully hard to keep subscriptions and just worked on the things people were asking for in the first place.  I think they made this turn around the time of the Q20/Q40 debacle. (See Righ's good description.)  They still had some notion of the cockblock for Naxx, but I didn't say they were fast learners!  It almost fully clicked for TBC, but didn't come to full maturity until they dropped all the crazy rep/heroic/etc. requirements to even enter certain places/content.  With their latest change for probably the quickest lvl'ing in the industry to get people to where everyone knows they want to be is yet another example of finally understanding the customer.

I'm still amazed so many other MMO's continue to water down their games to keep the mud nice and thick so players can't move very fast.  They do this right in the face of the majority of their own customers telling them not to do that.

There are lots of examples of this, but recently one came back into popular view/debate.  Shadowbane is hitting the reset button, but there has still been no word as to whether they will do what their customers have been asking since forever.  Eliminate the PvE game.  It stinks and just gets afk-powerleveled through.  Why even have it?  Give your customers what they want and have full on PvP from day one.  WoW has shown that if you listen and adapt, your customers WILL reward you.  All the rest have shown that if you ignore your customers and continue to hold to "The Vision," your customers will abandon you.

[Xanthippe]

Talking about all the past issues that WoW has gone through, I do have to compliment Blizzard on learning from their mistakes.  They do seem to come out with better plans at each major release.  The ironic thing about it is that is it really just seems like they gave up on the old MMO mantra of making the game painfully hard to keep subscriptions and just worked on the things people were asking for in the first place.  I think they made this turn around the time of the Q20/Q40 debacle. (See Righ's good description.)  They still had some notion of the cockblock for Naxx, but I didn't say they were fast learners!  It almost fully clicked for TBC, but didn't come to full maturity until they dropped all the crazy rep/heroic/etc. requirements to even enter certain places/content.  With their latest change for probably the quickest lvl'ing in the industry to get people to where everyone knows they want to be is yet another example of finally understanding the customer.

I'm still amazed so many other MMO's continue to water down their games to keep the mud nice and thick so players can't move very fast.  They do this right in the face of the majority of their own customers telling them not to do that.

There are lots of examples of this, but recently one came back into popular view/debate.  Shadowbane is hitting the reset button, but there has still been no word as to whether they will do what their customers have been asking since forever.  Eliminate the PvE game.  It stinks and just gets afk-powerleveled through.  Why even have it?  Give your customers what they want and have full on PvP from day one.  WoW has shown that if you listen and adapt, your customers WILL reward you.  All the rest have shown that if you ignore your customers and continue to hold to "The Vision," your customers will abandon you.

Well-said. 

[Chimpy]

Silithus always was and always will be complete bollocks. When the game was launched the mobs had no loot table. You could kill as many as you want and  never get a drop nor skin a corpse. The original concept was for there to be one legendary random zone-wide drop with a one in some fucking huge number chance of dropping. This random drop would unlock the gates to the instances and make the person who got it a server famous wunderkind. I presume that in an attempt to ensure that the legendary key didn't drop before they had coded thing, they turned off loot for the whole zone. At some point in time they changed their mind on how to open the gates - perhaps they considered what would happen if somebody got the key to the instance and tried to eBay the account or hold the server ransom - and decided to turn on some loot. For about three mobs. The rest remained barren until they essentially superimposed a brand new zone in the area. The new Silithus was based around a fucking miserable server-wide grind to open the gates along with personal grinds for reputation to enable access to loot associated with the instances. And the instances sucked too. Well, the 40 man instance completely sucked, the 20 man instance had a little amusement value for the first run or two. I was astonished that they made a raid instance more mind numbingly boring than Molten Chore and a reputation grind more painful than the Thorium Brotherhood. But they did. A low point in WoW's history.

AQ40 would have been fine without the incessant trash that was harder than the first 4 bosses. C'Thun is still the most well designed encounter (once they tuned it right) as far as interesting and fun I have done in the game. But spending 45 minutes from entrance to killing the twin emps, then having to spend an hour to get from the Twin Emps to Ouro/C'thun killing what is, without a doubt, the worst trash in history. The anubisaths post Huhuran were bad enough given that they were harder than all the previous bosses combined, but at least there were only 5 of them. 12 packs of suck, followed by 3 sets of anubisaths on PCP was anti-fun.

The biggest reason I think most times silithus is a wasteland now is not that the quests aren't good, or that the mobs knockback (which they changed in the first CC rep patch to a stun, no more getting shot across the zone while on your mount). It is the reason I never will enter silithus on my shaman. We all spent WAY too much time there. I spent the better part of 6 months in silithus grinding rep/doing AQ, and I know a lot of people felt the same way. When 60 was the level cap, everyone did silithus because the quests were all 6-10g a pop after they did the XP-Gold conversion.

With the levelling speed change, I did not have to do a single quest in Silithus or Plaguelands and still had quests leftover in Winterspring when I hit 60 and headed to Hellfire.

The one thing about the leveling speed change I feared was the huge jump at 60 in terms of how much it takes to level, but then I started doing quests and realized how much LESS grindy outlands as a whole feels. Zangarmarsh is bad, but it is still better than grinding bugs in silithus.

[WindupAtheist]

OMG OUTLAND.  Jesus, people haven't been kidding about the INSANE loot.  Kill ten foozles, have an item ten times better than anything else you could have been using at this point.  I love it.

[Fabricated]

OMG OUTLAND.  Jesus, people haven't been kidding about the INSANE loot.  Kill ten foozles, have an item ten times better than anything else you could have been using at this point.  I love it.

Also enjoy your ding-grats every 15 minutes going away, but being replaced by the just shitloads of content. You will not see that shit you saw in old world where you'd run completely out of quests or have to hopscotch around looking for pockets of tolerable quests to get that last ding or two to move onto a more interesting zone. Also enjoy the properly itemized loot that's actually useful, instead of the shit greens with randomly applied stats.

Be sure to do Ramparts/BF, they're rather fun IMO.

[Tale]

OMG OUTLAND.  Jesus, people haven't been kidding about the INSANE loot.  Kill ten foozles, have an item ten times better than anything else you could have been using at this point.  I love it.

To give you an idea of how generous those Outland reward items seemed on release, they are equivalent to uber raid loot in the original WoW. People spent up to two years of dedicated raiding getting equipped like that, then it was mostly superseded by solo levelling rewards for levels 61-70. There are differing opinions on the merits of Blizzard doing that.

[Merusk]

Once again: If you're raiding just for the lewtz, you're retarded.   

[Dren]

I second doing to the Rampart and Blood Furnace instances while you are there.  I just did Ramparts for my Druid and actually tanked it.  That was all kinds of fun.

I've recently figured out that I just can't stand 25 person + instances.  I have to agree that if you don't like that kind of thing, but go just for a shot at getting some of the lewtz, you are crazy.  I just can't stand standing around waiting for everyone to get together.  Then stand around waiting for everyone to pass out potions.  Then stand around waiting for the buffs to get done.  Then stand around listening to how we are going to kill a boss encounter.  Then have somebody drop connection or say they have to go to bed and then get a replacement.  Then repeat through the buffing and potions again once somebody is summoned.  Then you wipe.  Then you wipe.  Then you wipe.  Finally you go to sleep without getting a single drop and a 20+ gold repair bill.

That is not anywhere even close to fun for me.  Nothing about it is.

10 person raids is really perfect for me.  Sure you have some of the above, but only about 5% of it.  It keeps a game being a game.  PLUS PLUS, you get badges whether a lewt dropped for you or not.

[Mazakiel]

The 10 mans, even ZA, I love to death.  Somehow, even learning the new encounters on those isn't that bad.  But slogging through 25 mans is decidedly Not As Fun at all.  And my guild's probably about to stop the regular ZA runs to add another night of Serpentshrine. 

[Ironwood]

I agree.  It's a wee bit of a shame though, since I'd quite like to see the content and some of my characters are ready for it, but there's just no way I'm doing the raiding thing again.  Not over 10 man.

[Nebu]

I just want to comment (based on the topic of this thread) that I had forgotten how painful level 66 is.  I finished everything I could solo in Terrokar and am doing the safari grinds in Nagrand.  Kill 30 of three different mobs.  Kill 30 of three different mobs of tier 2.  Kill 30 of 3 different mobs of tier 3.  Kill 3 mob bosses.  Hello Grindfest!

[Ironwood]

Er, you're doing it wrong.

Get your ass to Bladesedge.

Seriously, there's 66 quests all over the shop.  Don't be stuck in this 'Got to Catch Em All' mindset.