Expansions and the Level Cap.

[lamaros]

So Blizzard is releasing an expansion this year which will raise the level cap to 70 and introduce a whole lot of new content.

This content, with a few exceptions such as the introduction of new races and the new access of the factions to Pallies and Shamen, is for players who have reached level 60: New talents, new skills and spells, new areas, flying mounts and dungeons.

Cool. I'm looking forward to it.

Blizzard also says that this expansion has taken too long, and they hope in the future that they have expansions out more often.

I have a question, and a worry or two:

Will future expansions follow the same route?

If they do will we get to a point where creating a new character and leveling him up to reach new content will be a grind? I'm planning to make a Blood Elf (Mage or Pallie) in the expansion but I am not looking forward to that stretch between level 20 and 60 where I have to do the same instances over and over again (I don't quest much, I've done them all already and find I *really* cannot stand most of the 'kill x' grind). I want to try out as much of a new experience as possible, I don't want to wade through the stuff I know by heart before I have to get to it.

How will this affect players new to the game in the future? All of a sudden you won't be able to deny there is a grind, and with every expansion it will get bigger and bigger. Will this turn people away?

As the level cap gets higher and higher will there be friction between those who just want to play at the cap and those who want more content in lower areas? Will blizzard cater to both these groups?

[caladein]

I don't really think (hope more like it) that they don't graft on another Tristfal/Silverpine for their new races and instead make them into full fledged zone progressions like the original races. Maybe a few new instances in whatever the mid-levels tend to be.

WoW is still probably the best game I've played (apart from EVE) where a new player can actually have a decent time. Battlegrounds are great fun (if you can avoid the twinks), all the quests are rather well crafted, and the lower instances are probably some of people's favorites. It'll be a grind at times, and it'll take a while to hit that level cap and do all the cool stuff there, but hopefully WoW can continue to do a decent job of being fun along the way.

Hopefully...

[Kail]

I'm a bit worried about this, too.

Expansions for previous MMOs (I'm recalling EQ specifically) tend to get slammed in the gaming rags if they only (or mainly) include content aimed at the top level players.  I've heard two major areas that the expansion will hit:  new level 1-10 zones for the new races, and new level 60-70 zones.  I haven't heard anything about new mid-level instances, or "now we're doubling the number of quests in all the existing zones" or anything at all about the mid-level game.  It's not going to be a huge deal for the newbies (who haven't seen the old stuff yet) or the super-hardcore (who are probably going to want to get back to raiding as soon as possible), but I can't help but think that a sizeable portion of their current population is going to roll an alt as one of the new races.  Then, when they get to level ten, they'll get some "well done, now report to the Barrens for more fun!" quest, and their eyes will glaze over.

I shudder to think of the number of level 19 Blood Elf Paladin twinks that will live in Warsong Gulch this winter.

Of course, maybe there's some big content for the mid levels that I just haven't heard about yet.  Who knows.  At the very least, they're going to have to throw in a few new quests so that the new races won't all be eternally stuck at "friendly" with their home cities.

[Fordel]

I was under the impression the new BE/Draenei zones will go up to at least the 20ish level range before streaming into the old zones. I'm half certain I read it on the WoW Forums from a blue... of course said forums are still down :\

[Driakos]

There are at least two zones each for Draenei and Blood Elves.  One is roughly 1-10, the other is roughly 10-20.  The 10-20 zones have an elite mob section as well.

[stray]

I didn't realize this at first (silly me), but it's a big ripoff. Especially considering how long it took to make it. Everything about this expansion shows just how unimaginative and lazy Blizzard really is. Besides the two new races (which are just fluff in this context), this expansion merely adds new things to explore in the game, instead of new ways to explore it (and a big bulk of those things won't be seen by many people anyhow).

Those "things" come at a cost too: The 60-70 grind will be about as long as 1-60 (or twice as long as 50-60). You don't have to wait for another raise in the level cap to realize it's already grindy.

But of course, if you're one of those suckers who clamors for new MMO "content" (which, personally, I never understood), it'll be cake to you, I guess. So chomp away. I just don't want to hear any more bitching about EQ or ToA from now on. Or proclamations about how WoW is "so not grindy!!" -- Because it will only get worse (I shudder to think how bad it'll get once they finally implement Hero Classes).

P.S. What's a "Grundy" anyhow? Spellcheck is fighting with me.

[lamaros]

There are at least two zones each for Draenei and Blood Elves.  One is roughly 1-10, the other is roughly 10-20.  The 10-20 zones have an elite mob section as well.

Considering that is about.. what... Say as a reasonably fast player I level to 60 in 10 /played days, and I level to 20 in about... lets round up to 1.

So there is some new content for (at best) 10% of the way.

Yeah that hardly counts.

What does count is the new characters, the new main cities, and the new, hopefully, factions and faction related quests and such they bring in to the game, because they affect everyone and will remain important once you've past level 20. But unless they add content across the level ranges you've just going to feel shafted once you get past the new bit and have to go back and do the same quests youv'e already done before.

I'd like to see it get to the stage where there are more instances for lower levels, and more interesting quests. The more quality content you can get into the game the whole way from 1-70 will make the grind disappear, because at no point will you be thing stuff like "oh great another collection quest" or "oh great, nothing else to do but run SM again". If there's enoguh stuff that you can't do it all in one character then you'll get much less of a grind out of replaying. Currently it's when you get to around level 50 that you begin to have options in this regard, and from 60+, from what I see of the expansion details, there will be many options too.

But I think they could flesh out pre-50 a bit too, that way even if there isn't always new content  in every expansion at least there will be enough so you dont get bored of always doing the same thing.

[stray]

A casual player probably gets through 1-20 in 2 or 3 days (at least that's what I've observed from myself and a few others).

That's definitely not 10% of the way though. With the expansion cap, 1-70 is like doing 1-60 now, but twice.

[lamaros]

A casual player probably gets through 1-20 in 2 or 3 days (at least that's what I've observed from myself and a few others).

That's definitely not 10% of the way though. With the expansion cap, 1-70 is like doing 1-60 now, but twice.

In the current game would you agree that 1-20 is about 10%, or less, of the time /played to level 60? That's all I meant. The numbers are obviously different for everyone.

Just some numbers:

A fast player gets to 60 in 10 /played days. So to get to 70 it'd be 20. A slow player is at least 50% slower than that. So call it 30 /played days to 70.

At 2 hours a night it would take them a year to reach the level cap. So if they were actually casual.. why would they ever buy the expansion? Or any future expansions?

I just hope the Blizzard people wake up from this EQ dream they're having a start thinking about these things. But of course it's kinda fucked down the whole leveling road already, levels are just a slippery slope into a grind and there's not much they will probably do now. I mean, not increasing the level cap beyond 70 would seem very unlikly, and what else can you do?

I'd like to see it stay at 70, and just have new content and fun things like the Arena, which could add a whole lot to the game without ruining what's already there, but then I've long accepted that WoW is not the game I want it to be so I don't expect much from it.

[stray]

Yeah, I'd agree on that. Probably even less. I'd think that average/casual people could get to 1-60 in 15-20 days played.

I really can't express enough how disappointed I am that they're literally doubling it though.

[Rasix]

Maybe I'm not seeing the link, but where has it been said that 60-70 will be as long as 1-60?  Or are you just guestimating?

I doubt Blizzard would abandon their quest-to-progress model.  So, that'd be 10 extra days played worth of new content/quests (Yes, I level fast.  Yes, that's with a non-twinked mount and tradeskills)?

For me, personally, that'd be great.  I don't have the time anymoreto raid and I really enjoyed the sub 60 portion of the game (questing/leveling/instancing with 2 buddies aint bad).   

[Calantus]

Raising the cap doesn't bother me from a newbie point of view. Newbies really should be trying to enjoy the game on their way up and most people do have fun doing it. The EQ1 grind was a grind because you literally had to grind through it. With rested you never have to grind in WoW (without rested you need to grind some). It sometimes gets grindy when taking alts/rerolls through though, but I don't think that's an important concern.

What I hope they do is fill out some of the zones some more. Azshara really really needs more quests. The same goes for alliance hinterlands, and a few other zones that don't immediately pop up in my memory. Some of the zones also need to be tuned a little better and their quests a little less spread out both geographically and level wise. They could also add some more quests and bosses/drops to some of the instances on the way up like BFD and RFK/RFD, something that makes them more worth doing as right now they are very often skipped (I'd tentatively say the same for ULD, but it gives crazy-ass experience from quests, drops could be better though). While 1-60 is good, it really could use some work if they are expecting a new wave of levelers.

[Phred]

There are at least two zones each for Draenei and Blood Elves.  One is roughly 1-10, the other is roughly 10-20.  The 10-20 zones have an elite mob section as well.

But I think they could flesh out pre-50 a bit too, that way even if there isn't always new content  in every expansion at least there will be enough so you dont get bored of always doing the same thing.

I don't know if any of you who are complaining have run any characters up lately but they add new content which is usually unmentioned in the patch notes every patch from what I've seen. Not a lot but every character I've leveled has found new quests that weren't there when I ran up a previous character. I don't know about adding new mid level instances. It seems like a waste of time to me. There's enough to cover all the level ranges and if you are at the point of finding them boring maybe it's time to stop rolling new alts.

Every survey I've seen shows a huge spike of max level players with a fraction of that number spread throughout the lower levels, and the main complaint on the boards seems to be about the lack of things to do at 60 that don't involve raiding. The number of people complaining about a lack of new mid level instances is barely noticeable. God forbid they spend even more time on this expansion making new mid level instances. It's taken enough time already.

As to the no new ways to explore zones, I guess questable flying mounts and zones that can only be entered on them don't count. Or a town that has to be captured via pvp in order to get quests and talk to merchants in it. Sure sounds like having to dredge deep in the barrel for reasons to not like the expansion to me.

[stray]

Maybe I'm not seeing the link

Initial info was from a PC Gamer article (not online....how convenient heh) that, in turn, was quoting a Blizzard rep from E3. The only thing I can find on the net is a Gamespy preview (which briefly mentions the same thing).

I never said Blizzard was abandoning "quest to progress" though. I'm just saying the experience requirements have doubled. Whether you'd want to do shitty quests or do a shitty grind is your prerogative (grinding will probably be faster, however).

Anyways, I just can't find a compelling reason to get it. It's simply not the product for me. The only thing I have to look forward for 60-70 is 10  talent points and 5 training sessions (for the same amount of time it currently takes to get to 60 at that). More grind, but without the milestones! As if grinds with milestones weren't bad enough.

For everyone else, level 70 might carry more meaning (seeing that there will be something like 10 raids in total after the expansion). Your carrot is bigger.

Scratch that. You carrot actually exists. I don't even have one.

...

Well....That's not totally true. Blizz looks like they're trying to enhance world pvp and whatnot, so no doubt lvl 70 players will probably get new Outland bg's like Sillithus. Being able to play in these future/hypothetical BG's would be a "milestone" for me (the more places to PvP, the better). It's just not enticing enough though.

Lastly (just in case): Please, I don't want to hear anyone tell me that the 60-70 experience is meant to be enjoyed. That milestones don't matter. Like I said earlier, I don't play MMO's for "content" (at least not in the sense that some of you perceive it). Content and Questing is a bad, bad joke. If want to have "adventures", I'll play better (single player) games, try to meet strange people, or get drunk at Disneyland.

[edit] Corrected something...

[Ironwood]

What do you play MMO's for ?

[Calantus]

I think you accidently deleted all the "in my oppinion"s you had in that post Stray.

[stray]

What do you play MMO's for ?

The space, what I can do to it, and what others can do to me (whether that be in crushing, monopolizing, creating, etc..).

Large scale combat is the biggest attraction though, I think....But I've been known to enjoy bullshitting or just sitting around watering the lilies from time to time too.

...

As far as mmo expansions go, an ideal one for me would resemble Jump to Lightspeed.

Yeah, yeah, SWG sucked. We all know that. I'm just talking about the general idea behind JtL (more depth, not breadth).

I think you accidently deleted all the "in my oppinion"s you had in that post Stray.

You are mistaken.

[Simond]

Sounds like you don't want to be playing WoW then.

Edit: To clarify, WoW is a Diku therefore expansions will mostly consist of bigger foozles to whack, phatter lewtz to collect, the occasional new race/class/etc. and so on. Expecting expansions to completely change the direction of the game is...unrealistic, at best.

[Ironwood]

Sounds like you don't want to be playing WoW then.

What he said, basically.

There are, imo, far too many people who will come in to your pub, sit beside you and say 'Oh My God, You're drinking !  Have you any idea how fat that will make you and how bad it is for you ?'  To which I say "Fuck Off."  Then there's the professional Mountain Climbers that come into your fitness class and look at the people who are climbing the fake fitness wall and say things like 'That's rubbish, it's not even strenous, look at those handholds, Christ this is so fucking simple and childish !'  To which I say "Fuck Off."  Then there are the University Students, fresh out of Teacher Training, who will take a Sixth Year English Dissertation and rip it to shreds for not 'Seeing the language carefully controlled within the subtext and failing to avoid the Authorial Phallacy'.  To which I say "Fuck Off."

I have no idea why you are playing WoW if that's why you play MMO's.  Nothing changes.  Ever.  There's no point to the space in the same way there's no point to the board in Minesweeper.

I say this with a smile on my face and the greatest of respect :  "Fuck Off."

[stray]

Sounds like you don't want to be playing WoW then.

Edit: To clarify, WoW is a Diku therefore expansions will mostly consist of bigger foozles to whack, phatter lewtz to collect, the occasional new race/class/etc. and so on. Expecting expansions to completely change the direction of the game is...unrealistic, at best.

If there's one thing that's sparking me off to rant like this, it's because of PvP. I can tolerate, and even enjoy WoW because of the PvP (at least for the time being...What with no other shiny alternatives and all). That's what I was there for originally, and that's what I tried to make do with. It's becoming apparent to me, however, that that's an incredibly stupid premise on which to base my participation in the game. Because that isn't the game at all.

It's not so much that I wanted them to completely change the direction of the game though -- I'd be happy if they just enhanced and didn't cockblock what was already there.

I have no idea why you are playing WoW if that's why you play MMO's.

I had this wild idea that they'd start making it an actual Warcraft game. But bigger.

In my mind, you've been in MY pub, bud. ;)

[Ironwood]

We all had that secret hope at one point.

But it's EQ.  Done Right.

Sorry.

(I'm not even going to get into the PvP thing.  It's fun, but retarded.  You'd be better off with Counterstrike, imo.)

:)

[Merusk]

While I do not dobut that the 60-70 run will take longer than 50-60, I think the rep's quote is being mischaracterized.   If I recall correctly the exact quote said something about the AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE REQUIRED to get from 60-70 being the same as from 1-60.  That's the natural progression of their leveling model.   It's also easy to twist that quote into the current "omg another 14 days /played to hit the cap."

I'd be hard pressed to find my PC Gamer mags, tho.  I'm pretty sure I tossed them out a few months back.

Even if it is another 14 days /played it's not a huge deal to me.  My hunter has something like 40 days as it is.. 36 of them at level 60.

[Dren]

Many people got it wrong just like Stray that it will take as long 60-70 as 1-60.  A representative did go on record as saying that is false.  I'll have to search around for the link on that one.  Actually, I thought I read it here.  I'll post a link if I can find it.

I also feel they'll just make it a bit longer than 50-60, which, in my opinion, wasn't very long.

[stray]

That is a big difference, I'll admit. Thanks for the clarification.

[Calantus]

I think you accidently deleted all the "in my oppinion"s you had in that post Stray.

You are mistaken.

I was cheekily implying that what you wanted was not the direction the mass market wants, nor is it the direction Blizzard seems to want to go. Which is true. :P

[Ironwood]

In my mind, you've been in MY pub, bud. ;)

It's possible.  I was probably wasted at the time.


(To continue the analogy, SWG is like when they introduced the No Smoking laws in Pubs.  National outcry and people quitting the pubs in disgust.  Also, before the changes it was REALLY bad for your health.)

[Dren]

In my mind, you've been in MY pub, bud. ;)

It's possible.  I was probably wasted at the time.


(To continue the analogy, SWG is like when they introduced the No Smoking laws in Pubs.  National outcry and people quitting the pubs in disgust.  Also, before the changes it was REALLY bad for your health.)

Did they really do that there?  If so, you've just put yourselves up a rung on my "Spots to Consider Spending Cash At" list.

Because really, I've heard your pubs needed a change to the combat system.  Oh, and no smoking too. 

[El Gallo]

As for the "what happens 5 years from now when I need to level 1-120 before I can find anyone to play with" problem, I bet they will jack up lowbie experience quite a bit as the game progresses.  That's only really a problem once the game starts stagnating or contracting and stops opening new servers all the time.  That may be a while. 

As for somking in bars, that's what goddamn bars are for.  Well, that and drinkin'  If there really are a shitload of people out there dying to hang out in smoke-free bars, go open a no-smoking bar and you will be rolling in money from all those customers.  Fucking nanny-staters have banned smoking in bars in my fair city starting Jan 1st, 2007 :(

[ajax34i]

Maybe my view is simplistic but it seems they're aiming the expansion at the period starting 2 months after it's released, and lasting maybe a year.  I.E. not much there for us out-of-the-box.  Couple months from now, the majority of the playerbase should be in the level range where the content is.

[bhodi]

I can't comment on the 'fun factor' of leveling through an additional 10 levels, getting to the end, experiencing new content, whatever. I can, however, lay some math on you and some thoughts in regards to the length of time it takes to level.

First, blizzard has not outright said how much time it will take, except for an offhand quote in pc-gamer that suggests same amount of time for 1-60, but let's assume for a moment they use the same formula as the main game. They will do this because 1) they are lazy and unimaginative and 2) it's not half bad as far as time investment goes.

read up here for some information.
I'll just quote, since people have done the work for me:

The experience needed to get from level 60 to 70 will require a further 2,537,700 experience points, which is about the equivalent of getting from level 1 to halfway though level 51. This means the total amount of experience needed to get to level 70 will be 6,622,400 experience. (These calculations and the ones above are just taken from the tables above, as it's said above, it is not known if Blizzard will use the same formula for calculating experience needed to level)

Now, large numbers get attention, but frankly they mean nothing. Both quests and mobs scale in XP based on the level. Add to that the all important rest XP, which is factored in as a percentage of the level (5% for every 8 hours resting) and can be stored to 150% of a level. That is a HUGE bonus which no one seems to consider. Add to that the explore experience, the fact that quests don't count against rest xp, and you've got a lot of stuff that will offset this time involved. I'm guessing people will end up taking about 8-12 hours per level of game time, just like 50-60. The more casual you get those levels, the more rest XP you will get to offset the hardcore people just grinding it. All in all, this "year of play" thing is way off base. I expect hardcore people to hit 70 within 2-3 weeks, moderates in 2-3 months, and the extreme slowbies maybe as much as 6 months.

[Tale]

P.S. What's a "Grundy" anyhow? Spellcheck is fighting with me.

Reg Grundys are underpants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Grundy

[Dren]

Fucking nanny-staters have banned smoking in bars in my fair city starting Jan 1st, 2007 :(

Owned! LOLZ!  :-D

Actually, I am just happy with getting it out of Restaurants, but I'll take it all for $500 please Alex.

[Morfiend]

Add to that the explore experience, the fact that quests don't count against rest xp, and you've got a lot of stuff that will offset this time involved. I'm guessing people will end up taking about 8-12 hours per level of game time, just like 50-60. The more casual you get those levels, the more rest XP you will get to offset the hardcore people just grinding it. All in all, this "year of play" thing is way off base. I expect hardcore people to hit 70 within 2-3 weeks, moderates in 2-3 months, and the extreme slowbies maybe as much as 6 months.

You sir, are correct.

[bhodi]

Now the real question is: Is blizzard is going to zero out everyone's rest meter, or is every level 60 going to get kickstarted with 150% rest experience come expansion?

It's been stated off the record and confirmed by a few internal sources that they have already removed the reward experience for multiple level 60 turnins that grant XP (such as the Qiraji Lord's Insignia & Ancient Qiraji artifact turnins in AQ) on their internal test build server. This is completely necessary, since some people in my guild have well over 150 of the tokens. I wonder, since they are changing battlegrounds, if the stockpiling of 20 of each PvP token for xp turnin will be useful either.

If some sort of quick XP is found, you can bet it will be fixed in a matter of hours. For example, when they added that easily stealth-farmable boss lich to stratholme which dropped a staff that sold for 8g and 2 corruptors scourgestones. It was fixed by the very next day (they moved the lich to make him nigh impossible to stealth run), but not before some friends of mine got 30 or 40 stones which bumped their argent dawn faction way, way up.

[Phred]

As far as mmo expansions go, an ideal one for me would resemble Jump to Lightspeed.

But WoW has already put out the parts of the game they put off at release for free.