1-60 In Less Than a Mouse Click

Before I had even read the 2.3 patch notes, I intended to write a blog about easing the leveling requirements for new WoW toons. I'm not going to claim I was prescient, only that after reading some of the ideas being thrown around for Wrath of the Lich King, I thought why not apply that to the early leveling portion of the game?

Not long after the announcement of the Wrath of the Lich King, I read an article in Games for Windows highlighting the proposed features. The article included an interview with the Blizzard developers about the Death Knight, the new character class included in the expansion. The dudes at Blizzard first toyed with the idea of having players turn their level 80 characters into the new class. So, you have your mage or priest or warrior become a Death Knight, through quest chains and dungeon runs I imagine. But then they thought better of that, realizing that perhaps people wouldn't want to part so drastically from the characters. Instead, the developers mention that players will unlock the Death Knight class through a quest chain similar in difficulty to that of the warlock mount quest line. After unlocking the new class, players won't start with a level one Death Knight, but with one around level sixty.

Good stuff, that.

Which got me thinking, with so much of the game's focus on the Burning Crusade content, why not apply the Death Knight class concept to the original part of the game? Perhaps allow players to unlock character slots that would allow them to create a new toon at level 30? 40? Hell, why not level 58 so you can jump immediately into the BC stuff? Or if that seems to drastically generous, then why not allow players to level faster in Azeroth? Maybe have quest rewards be worth more experience or lessen the amount of experience a toon needs to level? Or perhaps both?

Well, before I could actually write that blog, Blizzard was already implementing some of those very changes, and with Patch 2.3 out last Tuesday, players can now level lowbie toons faster than ever before. Here's what the 2.3 patch notes say:

Now leveling from character levels 20-60 is faster, with less experience needed per level in that range as well as higher quest experience rewards for quests levels 30-60.

I've got a 27 pally I've been neglecting these past few months, mostly because I had no interest in the grind it would take to get him to 60. I dusted him off this past week though, after the release of 2.3, and sure enough, that xp bar is climbing faster than it ever has before; after killing a mob, I can actually see the bar inch forward. I think I actually have a shot of getting him to sixty now, especially if I keep him rested.

So I'm looking to level my third 70 toon, only because Blizzard excels at examining and reexamining its game and adjusting it accordingly. It's game design like this that continues to make WoW the premier MMO on the market today.