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I haven't touched my boosted character
I went and pre-ordered Warlords of Draenor along with everyone else a couple months ago (well, most everyone else, it seems like). I'd been thinking about which character I wanted to boost up to 90 and get maxed professions with for a while, and after a fair amount of time I took the jump and maxed out my rogue. After the boost I played around on it a little bit. Did some timeless isle, ran some troll raids, and that was that. She just sits there now, not moving, not doing anything in particular. I've parked her next to a pet trainer. Occasionally I'll log on to her and battle the trainer whenever I remember to -- so that's a nice thing, I guess. But you know what? For me the character became pointless, just a thing sitting there that doesn't get any attention or play time. I might as well have left her at 61, forever toiling around Mount Hyjal
World of Warcraft posts character-boosts-for-dummies guide
If you've preordered World of Warcraft's upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion and are trying to figure out just how to use the free level 90 character booster you've just scored, then you are exactly the type of person who should not use a free level 90 character booster. Kidding. Truth is, the boost is different from previous boosts in several not-obvious ways and can be daunting even for returning veterans, and that's what Blizzard hopes to convey in a new Boosting 101 guide compilation on the official site. The post explains basic gearing, class strategies, proving grounds gameplay, addons, and how crafter boosting works. Apply wisely!
I'm just not that into you, Character Boost
Look, it's not that you're not a great feature -- you totally are. I get that. It's just that you don't offer me anything I need. I don't have a legion of alts hanging out below max level right now - my shaman and four or five of my warriors are level 90, another couple are in the mid to high 80's. It wouldn't take me very long to get them to 90 if I cared, but I don't, and having another 90 warrior isn't going to get me interested in playing another one at max level. Frankly, I enjoy leveling warriors. Skipping that doesn't appeal to me. I've considered using you on my level 62 hunter. The thing is, I don't really enjoy playing him that much, and I can't imagine suddenly adding a boatload of spells and abilities is going to make that an experience I'd like more. In fact, if he did good DPS I'd probably get angry, since I know I'm not a particularly skilled hunter, and if he did poor DPS (which I'd expect given my low skill on the character and lack of experience with the last 30 levels he'd have just leapfrogged past) I'd get bored even faster. It's not terribly compelling. I've actually considered getting you just to boost one of my pallies to 90, but not because I want to play him - we could use another paladin for Devo Aura on heroic Thok, frankly. It's a much better cooldown than Demo Banner, and I could also BoP or HoP or whatever it's called now to a healer so he or she could keep on healing through the silences. But that's less about my wanting to play a paladin and more about the game having an incredibly annoying fight designed so that one class just breaks the encounter, and if anything it makes us all feel dirty. It's a case of a feature not being designed for me. I accept that. But it does kind of leave me with a problem - I'm getting it one way or another. Do I do anything with it?
Character boosts available for $60 in-game
The level 90 character boost is now available in-game for $60. The in-game UI is up and running and the price is correct. The 90 boost allows you to take any character from 1-90, and if you're leveling a character that is level 60 or above, you'll get the Veteran Bonus that allows you to max two professions along with the level 90 boost. The video above shows the full process, with instructions. One thing it doesn't note that WoW Insider has discovered on boosting their own characters is that the professions issued to level 60 and above characters need to be learned in-game prior to boosting. If the character has no professions learned, the boosted professions will be randomly allocated by the boost UI, and cannot be changed from within it. Lastly, if you're on a PvP server, there may well be players camping the boosted level 90 spawn point, either for world PvP, or, more likely, with the Censer of Eternal Agony. The guards have been buffed, but still cause no issues for a larger group. Fortunately your hearthstone takes you to the Shrine, so if you're encountering these issues you can use that to escape.
The Queue: Garrosh, Gul'dan, and other madness
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. For a Sunday, you all sure were talkative yesterday! That's a good thing and I appreciate it. MasterX asked: I'm interested in why Garrosh didn't slaughter Gul'dan when he had the chance in WoD. He should know full well he's solely responsible for betraying the Orc, their culture, and later their entire race to the Burning Legion. Just because Garrosh stepped in, doesn't mean he won't betray again.
Warlords of Draenor: Character boost and Shadowmoon Valley gameplay footage
What we have here is video from today's Korean press event, showing footage of an orc warrior playing both on the Timeless Isle in the starter gear you get when boosting to level 90, followed at the four minute mark by a dwarf warrior running around Shadowmoon Valley on Warlords of Draenor's Draenor. We get to see the maps for several zones (most appear to be unfinished) as well as Draenor's position on the map next to Outland and Azeroth. We get to see several mobs, including a nether ray style mob, and the local draenei at the Temple of Karabor. Even better, we get extremely brief glimpses of new level 100 warrior talents! All in all it's pretty tantalizing, and perhaps they're further along than I would have thought - it seems more likely to me now that a beta is a month or two away than it did before I saw the video. Edited to add - The folks at MMO-Champion posted two more videos from the same source, Korean webzine Inven. You can watch them here and here. Thanks to Mintie for the tip.
Do not panic about paid character boost prices
As of this writing it appears that the paid character boost will be priced at $60. Since this was taken down quickly and with no comment by Blizzard, it seems fair to say the following: This was clearly not intended to be visible yet. No announcement has been made officially about the actual price. The pre-orders for Warlords of Draenor are not even available yet, so it's unlikely that the paid option will be sooner than those. In a general sense, this is a non-issue: no price for the feature has been established. We don't know what it will cost, only that when servers briefly came up Tuesday morning, it was visible at $60. I know this because I personally saw it. But that's all we know - that price might have been an internal joke, a default setting, or potentially the price we'll end up paying for the service. Until the actual price is announced, it's not worth getting upset over. In fact, even if the price was announced at $80, or $100, or even more, it's still not worth getting upset over. Here's why.
