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Darkmoon Carousel increases XP and reputation gains
WoW Insider received various reports via Twitter and email of a bonus to reputation and experience granted by taking a ride on the Darkmoon Carousel. Further investigation indicates that this is indeed the case. The carousel works similarly to the maypole-styled stick during the Fire Festival, in that the longer you spend spinning the longer the duration of your buff. The buff is named WHEE! and increases experience and reputation gains by 10%. It's very fast to build up, and you don't actually have to ride the carousel itself to gain the buff, just be near to it. If you want to stand on it but not mount one of the carousel mounts, that's just fine too. To access the Carousel you'll need at least one Darkmoon Ride Ticket in your inventory. Fortunately, these can be bought 5 at a time in books from Kae Ti, the NPC in the tent through which you enter the Carousel. If you have a Darkmoon Ride Ticket in your inventory already, one will simply be subtracted from your total as you walk into the Carousel area. Don't confuse the ride tickets with Darkmoon Prize Tickets, which have an almost identical icon, but are rewards rather than access tokens. The Prize Tickets are a currency and appear with your Valor points and the like, while the Ride Tickets stack in your bag. If you get onto one of the carousel's mounts, and can't seem to get off, type /leavevehicle into chat. You can also keybind this function via the WoW Key Bindings menu. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Elaborating on XP gain and leveling alts
This week I want to elaborate on experience gain, the honor party, and other ways of leveling alts. I received some great feedback from last week's article that suggests to me an interest in a much wider discussion of power-leveling. But before I get to that, let's clear up XP gain in Runes of Magic. Most MMOs that I know of -- including RoM -- dish out XP based on the character's level and the level of the mob being slain. If your character is the same level as the mob, the game will give you an adequate amount of XP as a reward. If the mob is higher, you'll get even more experience, but you'll get less XP as you out-level a mob. If you've played any MMO, you're probably aware of this. In RoM, you'll stop collecting XP from mobs 10 levels lower than you. Naturally, fighting mobs slightly higher than you can be more efficient. You can continue to fight increasingly higher-level mobs, but at some point, there's just no way you'll be able to survive, which is why you may want to get a higher-level player to take you just about anywhere in RoM to power-level you. When a high-level player starts towing you around, though, the XP you gain will be based directly on the amount of XP that player would get from any mob he kills. Read on to see more about this and alternative ways of power-leveling.
Breakfast Topic: Shunning the Endgame?
From a lore point of view, everyone loves the endgame. Illidan, Kael'thas, Yoggy, Arthas/the Lich King; it's great but not everyone actually wants or has the time to spend hours in raids. A friend of mine once told me that 'WoW starts at 60' although that probably should be switched out with the current level cap. I'm sure for some players this is not the case though, far from it. As Blizzard makes the game more friendly to twinks and leveling toons by letting you disable XP gain and supplying mounts ten levels earlier, it makes me wonder if people are going to shun the endgame in favor of enjoying everything else Azeroth has to offer.Let's imagine for a moment that you can't/won't raid any of the Wrath content. What would you do instead? I'm talking the little things in life like rolling a new toon and exploring all those newer locales that you missed since leaving to Northrend. Are you going to turn off XP and just see how it feels? Rather than do the endgame, are you going to give PvP or PvE a go? Go for that really tough achievement? What about a little role playing? Would you finally level up that second profession or give first aid, cooking and fishing a go?
Turn off XP gain for classic raiding
The ability to turn off experience gains is coming in patch 3.2, and is rightly being touted as a feature to enable twinking (to go along with the new battleground experience system). However, that's not all that turning off XP lets you do. Remember how people have been asking for classic realms with the level cap set at 60 (or 70)? Yeah, here you go. Level a guild of characters to 60, pay 10g to turn off XP gain, and raid the old world to your heart's content. Nethaera mentioned as much in a blue post yesterday, constituting the first supportive mention of classic only raiding that Blizzard has ever made, as Adam noticed. She does mention that this may change during testing, like everything, but for now: classic content lovers, rejoice! Don't forget to loot your core hound. Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Midsummer Fun: Ribbon dancing
We've already covered the buffs you can get from the bonfires scattered around Azeroth during the Midsummer Fire Festival, but how about trying a little pole dancing too before you head out? You may remember the Ribbon Poles from past years' Midsummer Fire Festivals. They're still there, and you can still "dance" at them by right clicking on the pole. However, instead of the +30 fire resistance buff of previous years, you'll get a new Ribbon Dance buff that will give you an extra 10% experience bonus from killing monsters. It starts at only a 3 minute duration, but if you dance longer, the duration of the buff will gradually rise to 60 minutes. If you're under level 70, it's well worth the trouble, especially if you combine it with the new buffs from the bonfires. The bonfire buffs will help you kill mobs faster, and the Ribbon Dance buff will get you more experience for each kill. Like I said before, I'm suddenly not sure if I should be saving up Burning Blossoms to buy new treats with my level 70s, or just using all these amazing buffs to level my alts. I may just have to set aside enough time to do both.
