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Breakfast Topic: Are twinks an endangered species?
Reader Stalzar is worried about twinks. With the announcement of experience gain acceleration between levels 1 and 58 coming down the pike, he is concerned that this means an end of his beloved PvP characters. I have never like twinking much, that process where players maxed out the gear on a low level (mostly level 19) character for the sole purpose of living as gods in Warsong Gulch. I used to be nothing but irritated that when I attempted to get into the battlegrounds my characters were instantly trounced simply because they were not completely dedicated to PvP. I was frustrated, I was bitter.Now that I have grown up a little Warcraft-wise, I realize that this is in a way an adaptation to the battleground system. I do think that the twinks might do better at least as far as their reputation goes, if they played in their own battlegrounds, where they would have equal footing with other twinks. The current experience system allows a character to stay at level 19 for a very long time, enabling them to get the most out of their PvP-ness before sliding into the next bracket. Does this mean that when experience gain is boosted in a future patch the world of the twink will die out? I don't think so. This sub-culture arose because of the desire to be the best at one specific aspect of the game. Will this change things for them? Sure, but I expect that the same inventiveness that went into the creating of twinks in the first place will also spur them to adapt to whatever affect accelerated exp. would have on them. What do you think? Will the twinks survive, or be lost to the annals of WoW history?
Experience is going to get faster sooner
Blizzard's plans to speed up the old Azeroth leveling experience 1-58 have been pretty vague so far, about some additions to Dustwallow Marsh and some kind of general speed increase at some point in the future. Drysc has made things a little bit more clear though: we can expect to see a "pre-expansion change to the experience curve and gain." You won't have to wait until the expansion comes out to finish leveling that alt you've always wanted to play but couldn't make time for. Exactly when "pre-expansion" this will be isn't clear of course, but it's nice to know it shouldn't take as long as some had feared.In addition, Drysc goes on to add that they are interested in "refining (?)" a couple of the old-world instances, namely Gnomeregan and Uldaman, because apparently those dungeons tend to get more people more often during the leveling process. "Refining" those dungeons could mean anything from changing some of the trash mobs to really reorganizing parts of the instance, and the effect could be for better or for worse -- several of my friends tremble with hatred at the mention of those two instances, and would much rather Blizzard removed Gnomeregan and Uldaman altogether than encourage us to go back to an "refined" version anytime soon.For my part, any refining of old-world content is a good thing. It would be good to speed through content that most of us have already seen before, and it would be refreshing to revisit some old dungeons with new twists for those of us who haven't already done them to death. Some players, however, are crying bloody murder -- apparently ones who enjoy repeatedly slogging through hours and hours of the same old content and think that everyone else should have to also.
More rumblings of new Dustwallow Marsh content
Here's a topic I almost feel like I've been talking about too much lately, but there is some good news to report. Neth confirms, once again, that Blizzard is planning on streamlining the experience from 1-58, and then adds something else: there are changes, big changes in terms of "detailed quests," being added to Dustwallow Marsh. And while we heard mention of Dustwallow Marsh before, this is the first time I've ever heard it mentioned in conjunction with 1-58 specifically. It seems like Blizzard is actually planning to bring about new content for people who haven't yet hit 60.And that is pretty exciting. So what might be going down in Dustwallow? Jaina Proudmoore is there in Theramore, and of course she's got some old ties to Arthas, so something might be happening in that vein. Onyxia has taken residence in Dustwallow (when she's not masquerading in Stormwind), and we've also heard rumblings in Outland that Deathwing may be making an appearance in either Azeroth (or Northrend) soon. And Dustwallow is also very near to Alcaz Island, which used to be where a certain missing King was previously seen ingame. Or it could be something completely new, of course, that we haven't even heard of yet.At any rate, it's cool to hear that midlevel content is coming, even if it's in a pretty unexpected place (still no Heroic Deadmines plans?). Get ready to go back to Dustwallow Marsh.
