Blizzard comments on Outland and Northrend leveling in Cataclysm
Community manager Nethaera commented recently on players' concerns that the new Cataclysm leveling experience from levels 1-60 now severely overshadows the relatively old Outlands and even Northrend content. The gist? Questing and leveling in Outlands and Northrend is leaps and bounds better than the original World of Warcraft, and updating the 60-80 leveling experience is not high on Blizzard's priority list.
I have been leveling this warlock past few days and the new quests are more than superb, I have been enjoying leveling like crazy. I started in the human zone and right now Im in Redridge, the story is incredible and fun. This is the first time I level without even noticing which level I am and without even looking to my exp bar.
My point is that, sadly, the fun ends at 60 and a horrible tedious journey starts, especially from 70 - 80, it is a boring nightmare.
Blizzard, is there a way you could make leveling from 60 - 80 as fun as the "new" leveling? Or anyone know if there are plans to do this?
I have heard that 80 - 85 is also very fun, but I dont know because I havent reached there yet.
We know that for many who have gone through Outland and Northrend before, it may not be as fun as the first or second or even third time you've gone through it. We understand but also believe that in general, the quest flow is much better than what was available in original World of Warcraft. Between that and the increased rate of experience gain, you should be able to go through these areas relatively quickly. Would we like to update Outland at some point in time? Sure. It's a possibility. But it's not on our immediate radar. There's still a lot more to be done in World of Warcraft.
MId game is broken. Blizzard know but they happen to care more about doing nothing that actually working on something players are requesting.. sad blizz.. very sad
Broken implies that it doesn't work at all. This word is thrown around quite a bit, but just because something doesn't work how you feel it should, does not mean it's broken.
We definitely aren't doing "nothing" since we are currently focused on getting patch 4.1 worked on and moving on from there to more Cataclysm content.
We do appreciate those who have given constructive feedback on their feelings on leveling from 60-80 and as I mentioned earlier, we do have accelerated experience gains for these levels. As someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, getting flight early on also helps with getting around these areas and completing quests in a more efficient way if that's what you're looking for.
To make any other changes to the way the leveling zones and quests work within Outland or Northrend would take a significant amount of additional development time and isn't a simple undertaking as many have seen with Cataclysm and the changes brought about with it. If and when we feel the need is there to revisit the content in Outland and Northrend we will (again as we've exhibited in our willingness to address "old" content with the changes to Azeroth itself), but now is not the time for that.
While I agree that the Outlands and Northrend leveling experiences are less engaging at the moment versus the absolutely amazing Cataclysm content, it is mostly because Outland suffers from second-child syndrome and Northrend is still too fresh in my mind. The content is hardly broken, however. Nethaera is right about development time -- look at how long and hard Blizzard had to work on the original world to get it up to snuff.
I recently completed Outland and Northrend on an alt and did not spend much time, really, in either place. The increased experience gains and relatively easier time due to heirloom items made leveling a breeze and only required completion of three zones in Outland and four in Northrend. Any content is going to seem dated and repetitive if you just ran that content. Maybe this is the double-edged nature of the amazing leveling sword -- such compelling content engages the player so well that they speed through it, and 1-60 doesn't last as long as it should.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
