Fast forward to 80.. I hit 80 puttering around in ZD / SB (alternating when i got tired of the scenery) I had not even touched Icecrown or stormpeakes, and had only one round of wintergrasp under my belt. This was doing just questing, only 3 dungeons (uk, nexus, drakwhatever between ZD and grizzly) I still haven’t scratched the surface of the quests available to me. I’m just now opening up the sons of hodir questline. (very fun so far) have activated a few areas of icecrown and working on my ebon blade rep, they have some fun dailys by the way.

I haven’t even started work on the oracles/wolvar rep chains beyond the initial quests.

I guess now i need to decide between fully fleshing out my current 80 main, and bringing my alts all up to 80. (I prefer the term “situational mains”.) (Hi, I’m Katt, and I’m an altaholic.) 1 bank, 1 dk, 1 mage, 1 druid, 2 huntards, 1 lock, 1 pally, and 1 priest. (only the priest and the bankrogue are under 40, only the lock and the pally are under 60 )

I will whole-heartedly agree with your assessment here. I see big problems for maintaining interest. To me, WotLK feels not like an expansion with 10 new levels but simply new content to replace BC.

Here’s my specific issues:
- I think the game is too easy now and has been ‘dumbed’ down too much. This means, I think that instances don’t even need pure tanks to complete….boo. There have been some 3 person group quests that can be solo’d. Gimme a break – I fondly remember HAVING to wait for help with certain mobs. Maybe I’ll find some hard challenges but so far – not a one. Perhaps heroics will change my feeling but then again – I didn’t want to be doing Heroics 2 months after a release anyway.

- The rate at which you level / gain XP is out of balance, completely with the content and scope of the zones. I’ll bet I could be 80 (currently 77) even if I skipped entire zones – let alone completely roughly 1/3 the quests available. I understand that rested XP and getting ALTs to 70 was important – but why, oh why, did they leave Sonic-boom-like XP available for the release of this expansion ?
Note I also seem to think it used to take progressively more XP per level , getting a feeling of accomplishment. Not only do I think you can get that Next-level too fast – I think that it’s also possible to get to 80 w/o ever leaving dragonblight. Sorry but I remember XP ‘drying up’ in BC and before forcing folks on- (if you wanted to level).

- Agreed about the thrill of the chase / drop. It’s why I got hooked on these games to begin with. EQ1 did this for me. Just one more kill…famous last words. A chance that you might get that Named to pop…to perhaps get what you need. The thrill – yes, exclaim out loud thrill, that came with finally getting an item… Making everything ‘easy’ such that you can either craft or Quest your way to Naxx readiness is great…with a but. Again I go back to , it’s too easy, and ..dare I say it…it takes too little time/effort. I felt getting Kara ready – despite having to farm for drops – was more satisfying. Anyway -I have mixed feelings on this last point…….

To summerize – I feel like Outlands zones were pulled out, replaced with Northrend, levels 70-80 did not need to be provided – rather I feel cheated with the work needed to get from one to the next. It all boils down to difficulty and time , to me anyway. Prior I got a sense of accomplishment – now I just just get…… that Next Level.

To me anyway, I feel like I’m redoing what I’ve already done 100 times before – with some very fresh paint on the walls. I hope this changes as I get to 80 but I fear that it won’t. Granted I thought I wouldn’t be 80 for 6-9 months…shows what I know.

And for the record, I do not want to level a DK, my 80 druid tank is to much fun for me, I don’t want to learn how to tank as another class, but I almost wish that blizzard would allow me to start say a healer, at 55, and lock my option for a DK, I wouldn’t mind one bit. then I could actually run heroics with 2 toons, instead of being 1 tank trying to run with 1 of the 3 healers in the guild, and the 15million DPS classes. Maybe I should make another Druid tank, instead of a healer…. LOL!

There is so much new content, so much fun content, even in the “old world”, for those of us that are new to the game that Blizzard is going to have to try real hard to screw it up for me. I mean, yeah, Northrend sounds like it will be great and I do want a bike. I’ll eventually get there. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the journey. The journeys, plural, of characters in various race/class combinations questing in various zones all heading the same general direction.

And there’s more than just quest/story related content . . . there are battlegrounds! I could eat up months of playing without levelling at all just playing the battleground games. And there is social content! I love the holiday events. The player interaction they involve, some of which is relatively pointless relative to the “game”, but are just fun to do. That are both especially enjoyable with friends and also provide a vehicle to make friends within the game.

Maybe my perspective will change after years of playing the game too. I’m guessing, though, at that time there will still be new players looking at the World with fresh, wonderstruck eyes like I do for now.

Like Dalaran. The first time I went there at 74, I was lost as all get-out. I wandered in circles for several minutes, before accidentally finding the flight master and getting myself the hell out of there. When I hit level 80, I went back and really explored the city. Found the quirks contained within, and where to go for whatever I needed (banks, prof trainers, portals, battle masters, etc.

Like Wintergrasp. While I was leveling, it was an exp boost that I greatly appreciated. Once I hit 80 and went to actually TRY the battle portion of it, I found it was lots of fun. Whoa whoa, I can use these shards to buy a giant freaking mammoth? Win.

Heroics, rep grinds, maxing professions, exploring the continent (and I mean actually looking at the stuff you’re flying over), finishing out zone quests you skipped, pushing for achivements, timed Stratholme runs, Sartharion + drakes, Naxx, Malygos (man I totally love that fight), titles, money, fun stuff, etc, etc, etc.

There’s seriously tons of stuff to do in this new content. That coupled with going back just to see how much stuff you can solo now at level 80 has made this expansion tons of fun for me.

It is possible the reworking of Naxx provided sufficient data to estimate the amount of work involved of making this a reality.

It would be great to run heroics version of the dungeons I skipped.

**

I disagree with Solidstate as to the lack of developer resources. It is possible, in my opinion, to build a team of a very few senior members and many junior members to develop an heroic version of the old dungeons, especially if they were to be released one or two at a time. The impact as to new content would be minimal.

There is a risk this team would fail miserably and the revamp project never released but that’s pocket change to Blizzard. The potential rewards of such a project far outweight the risks in my opinion.

**

I do not see a mass exodus from WoW happening anytime soon. My impression is WoW is the Wiii of the MMOs and will tap a huge market base that no “serious” MMO can tap at the moment.

Yes, maybe in 6 months we’ll all finally get bored with WoW, after playing it for over 4 years. Then again, Blizzard keep finding ways to keep us entertained and happy and very very busy :)

I don’t know if it’s even necessary to slap much of a new coat of paint on it. Heroic Scholomance that buffs it all to level 80? Count me in! Heroic BRD? Heck yeah!

But a revamp? Or a new progression that picks up where Stratholme left off for level 70+? I’d be there in a flash.

EQ1 did this, and did it well, when they revamped some of the old world zones for the highest tier of players. While I had moved on from EQ1 by that point, talking to friends who still played, it revitalized the interest in the older world content.

I think Blizzard does themselves a disservice by not going back to those old instances, the ones chock-full of lore, substance, and depth, and make them more desirable for the level 80s than just another achievement.

I hope they do something like this – it seems like a pretty low-hanging fruit to me.

I have a friend who had used to always only manage to level his chars to about 40 and give up, but he got one to 55 once. He has since started a DK and is now lvl69. He absoulutely ripped thru Outland, skipped most of it by all accounts. Thinking back to my first experiences of Hellfire Peninsula just after TBC was released….grim times indeed. I had a badly geared Warrior and was resting after each mob it was so tough (+repeatedly dying). Second time round was easier with my druid, but by no means easy…pop and heal every 3-4mobs or so.
I watched my friend nail about 8 mobs of his own level and finish on about 60% HP….that’s when i REALLY understood what had happened to Outland. It has become a transitory place, a means to an end.

Although i am happy my friend is finally catching me, i sort of dont agree with the means by which he has done it. There is just NO way he would ever achieved this sort of level without a DK starting at 55 and the massive nerf of Outland.

Northrend….now then. I agree with earlier posts, and have said this same thing to other players….Wrath is still a baby. Lots of the “staples” of Outland were not included in it’s initial release, such as Netherwing and BT. So while Wrath is in it’s infancy, i’m taking the oppurtunity to relax…i am currently chasing the “Loremaster” achievement…nothing else would ever have gotten me to spend this much time in Azeroth again, but here i am all the same.

Oh and i agree about the heroic gear requirements being far too low…..it used to seperate the clueless idiots from the informed players…..now i’m finding myself in heroic with the sort of Mage who likes to do the pulls…..shocking.