alt-leveling
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How to keep leveling when you're just tired of the same old quests
By now, most of us have leveled alts, and probably a lot of them. And while the leveling game was probably fun the first time and even the second, by the third, fourth, fifth and beyond, you're probably painfully bored of doing the same quests again. And again. And again. Sure, there are all sorts of tricks you can use to speed up your leveling, but what do you do when you just can't stand to quest through the same zone again? That's when you turn to alternative leveling methods. These aren't the fastest or the most efficient ways to get to max level, but they do all have the advantage of not being the same old quest grind. So whether you're leveling a character up for the first time or the hundredth, here are our 6 favorite alternative ways to get the XP you need.
Things that were harder before
I did a post this week about raiding in previous expansions and in vanilla WoW, and how people often say those raids were harder and my opinion that it is easily demonstrable that current raids are if anything more complicated than they have ever been. I frankly believe there is almost no room for comparison between the game at 60 and today in terms of raid complexity and difficulty. Part of this stems from the many different variations on what the word hard means in this context. Something can be harder because it is conceptually or executionally more complex (the difficulty can stem from how much is required to successfully complete its mechanics) or it can be hard because it is laborious and/or time consuming. Was raiding with 40 people in classic WoW more laborious? Absolutely it was. It wasn't mechanically harder, but it was more time consuming and took a great deal of effort to organize and plan. It's the difference between working out a complex multi-stage math problem and carrying five thousand pounds of rocks from point A to point B. But there were some points worth addressing. It absolutely has never been easier to level, even without heirlooms, than it is right now. Vanilla leveling to 60 took more time and effort than leveling to 90 does today. Even without heirlooms, one can easily and without much stress reach level 20 in a few hours, level 40 in less than two days, and be level 60 within a day of that, and this isn't spending all day staring at the screen either. This is a fairly casual leveling pace. I leveled a blood elf warrior to 35 in two days of rather casual play, an hour on followed by a half hour reading websites or having a snack or even going for a long walk. It's also far easier to do the following things: Get a dungeon group. You can queue for dungeons at level 15, and from that point on, all you ever have to do to run a dungeon is hit that queue. If you're playing in the tank or healing role you can effectively chain dungeons all day, and even leveling as DPS there are stretches where you don't even need to quest or do anything but dungeon. Run a battleground. While you could argue that doing well at BG running as you level up and at max level takes some time and effort, if you want to risk queueing in whatever gear you have, it's simplicity itself. Getting ready to raid at max level. The game now has catchup mechanisms in place for players who start later. If you just got your alt to 90 and are switching to it for raiding, deciding to give raiding a try for the first time, or what have you it's not the case that your raid group is compelled to run you through previous raids for attunements and keys, much less gearing you through older raids to get ready for the current content. Find something to do. You could even argue that there's too much to do, or that it feels too mandatory. But you can't argue you don't have options - if you don't want to run dungeons, raid, or PvP there are pet battles, daily quests and scenarios you can do. So the question then becomes this: is it better or worse for the game that these things are easier? For that matter, are they easy enough?
Bucket list preparation for Mists of Pandaria
We may not have a release date just yet, but Mists of Pandaria is progressing quite nicely on the beta servers. I have one level 90 character already, and I'm leveling another one through just to see the changes, note any bugs I happen to still see hanging around (of which there are very few so far!) and get another look at the story behind the expansion as it plays out. It's fun, it's keeping me very busy, and sometimes I tend to forget that there's another Azeroth that I really ought to be addressing: the live one, where all my junk is at. I hate organizing things in game, which is really kind of odd because my life out here in the real world is pretty organized. I keep the house very clean and tidy. My library is organized in tidy sections by author, and my kitchen is immaculate. In fact, I get kind of annoyed when things aren't terribly organized or tidy at home. But in-game, I just can't seem to bring myself to addressing what is becoming an ever-increasing issue, and I'm really dragging my feet on getting ready for Mists. Getting ready? Yes, you heard me right -- I've found that if I want a seamless experience when I pick up an expansion and start to play, preparing beforehand is key. Plus, it gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the expansion to come out.
Age of Conan's next update promising alt leveling and travel improvements
Not every update is going to be a cavalcade of new and awesome systems, even though it feels really satisfying when they are. Craig Morrison, Age of Conan's director, has come out and said in so many words that unlike the game's recent 1.06 update, the upcoming 1.07 will largely feature changes under the hood that might not be as obvious to players. But his most recent letter to the game's fans is hardly all doom and gloom -- even with the lack of major new systems, there are still new things players will notice. Travel concerns are one of the two major issues that the next update aims to address, allowing quicker travel to quest hubs and faster returns from the field. The transport is limited to quest hubs, allowing players easier access to where they need to return but not cutting out a sense of exploration. That's hardly the only bombshell the letter has to drop -- subscribers will now slowly accumulate extra levels that they can allocate to their characters, even while offline. The system is intended to help with alt leveling rather than speeding through content, with Morrison stating that it would take nine months for a character to reach max level from this method. It's an interesting approach to helping alts keep up, and Age of Conan's players will soon get a chance to see how well it plays out.
Breakfast Topic: What keeps you hanging on?
For most of vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade, my main was a Druid. I healed, I tanked, I DPS, I raided, I PvPed, I did everything with him. He was a great character, I found the class fun (Yes, even before patch 1.8, thank you very much). But somewhere around mid-Burning Crusade, I just plain burnt out on Druids. I don't know if it was just one too many bad raids, if it was just familiarity breeding contempt, or what, but I switched to a Hunter and never looked back.When Death Knights were announced, I knew that was my new class, and I also knew that my Druid was probably doomed to be level 70 for good. I'd focus on my Death Knight, then my Hunter, then probably my Shaman for heals, followed by my Warlock. My Druid would just languish in Shattrath unless I was really, incredibly bored.
