Leveling vs Raid Loot Wins- A question of time

[Venkman]

There's nothing wrong with liking WoW, but this statement is flat out wrong. Without a PL, I can level a character in DAoC from 1-50 in less than 1 day played, ENTIRELY SOLO, and without any help whatsoever (no cash, no gear, no nothing). I could never get from 1-60 in WoW solo in less than 24h online... unless something has drastically changed.

Sorry, but these misconceptions irritate me. DAoC PvE sucks, but it's currently one of the shortest trips to the endgame you can find (<24h solo, <8h with help). I sometimes wonder why it exists at all.

I understand the irritation, so appreciate being corrected. Seriously (as in, non green text :) ). As you note, discussing gameplay systems requires current knowledge.

My impression from both yourself in other threads and from my brother-in-law who's bigtime DAoC too, was that PLing required the aid. His approach is to dual-box. If that's not the case, bully for DAoC that sheer knowledge alone can get you to 50. To your point, this calls into question the need for PvE at all, but then you do need a way for people who just start DAoC today to get into the game at all. It's a veteran reward really, the knowledge you and the like have to bang out alts at "whim" (comparatively).

I've heard accounts that WoW 60 can be done in 24 hours /played as well, but I think that does require friends.

It's probably not a brilliant idea for Blizz to start selling level 70 templates in the existing game, but in some other game it might. Well, really, you'd have no levels in the endgame-game since the idea would be superfluous

A DAoC-esque /level command to bang out level 40 alts in WoW would probably do the trick. I don't think WoW would benefit from /level 70 alts, as the game becomes very equipment dependent post-50, and seems to rely on more BoP (WoW's soulbound) equipment in the 60s more too. But at 40, which is likely a twink anyway, that's enough to get ready for the grind through to 58 for Hellfire and the Tier 0.5/1 equivalent stuff that drops/rewards there.

"Leveling" at the endgame is ability/equipment based. I've never seen any comparative study done, but I've always wondered if the time to getting a serious upgrade from a raid could be compared to the time it takes to achieve a new level in the pre-endgame grind.

But that really doesn't matter, because the requirements for raiding in the first place (lots of time, minimal AFKs, maximum accountability to 10+ others) alienate many anyway.

[Nebu]

While I see the value in the /level system, for DAoC it didn't seem to bring the beneficial effect that many had thought.  Initially, /level was introduced to give anyone on a ToA server that already had a level 50 a command to start at level 20 instead of level 1 on subsequent characters.  The result was empty starting zones and a very newbie unfriendly experience.  Soon after, this carrot was extended to /level 30 on servers with a large realm imbalance.  Interestingly people rolled these level 30 characters en masse, but never really seemed to develop them to the endgame.  Soon after the implementation of /level, free levels were being given based on realm/server population status.  Now a player could get level 20 free and a free level as often as every 3 days.  This was the leap toward removal of the pve grind.  With the addition of instanced dungeons in catacombs, the days of the grind were over.

One side note: On the Bossiney cluster (non-ToA rule set) there is no /level command.  It really hasn't had much effect on the game.  I expect that this is due to the fact that there are VERY few new players joining the game and most veterans can level to 50 so quickly, especially with the aid of a friend/group.  Free levels are still granted every 3-7 days depending on realm balance, but I've made several characters where I got to 50 before I could even take advantage of this. 

I think that people in this game now either roll a toon specifically to play in the battlegrounds (stopping at levels 24, 39, and 49) or will grind out 50 in a few hours.  It's really about getting into PvP as quickly as possible.  In a game that is more PvE focused, I don't see the reasoning behind offering a /level service.  The climb to the end IS the game unless you're a diehard raid junkie. 

[Venkman]

Whoa, how'd this thread come to life?

I was thinking of breaking this out to a different thread from our VG discussion, but decided against it because I sorta answered my own question (comparing time-to-reward in Raids with leveling-speed is pretty impossible given that Raids encompass so many other variables).

The above post is a legacy of the original reply to that other thread. I did not mean for it to become a new discussion. Trippy et al, please delete.

Thanks for replying though :)

[Nebu]

Sorry D. 

I should have recognized that myself, but the new thread threw me off.  I wouldn't mind this being denned unless someone has something interesting to add to it.