“Leveling at the Speed of Light” or “Two Toons, Two Servers, Two Factions”
Leveling at the Speed of Light
As lonomonkey will tell you, and Rohan will corroborate, leveling in the post Cataclysm vanilla WoW areas is … well … speedy. I am playing on a completely new server. So unlike Rohan, I have no heirlooms to boost my XP gain, but I am now in a guild that gives the XP boost. Even without heirlooms, not only am I out-leveling the zones I am questing in faster than finish them, I am also gaining a level about every 20 minutes of play or so. I wonder how much faster I would level if I had all heirloom items.
My hunter is currently level 34.
Last Monday, I was level 5.
My /played is less than 13 hours.
That is ridiculous.
Rohan gives a few reasons why Heirlooms are unnecessary at this point:
- The XP gain is vastly increased in Cataclysm. You really don’t need heirloom items, at least not until level 60. I haven’t played much past level 61 yet to know how much of a difference it makes.
- Heirlooms take away the joy of the upgrading your equipment micro-game. I completely agree. I look forward to every boss because the beast might have a good upgrade for me.
- I will tack on a third reason. You work so hard to get the currency for buying out the heirloom items. You can now use them on something much more useful. Instead of squandering your resources on heirlooms.
Two Toons, Two Servers, Two Factions
My mage is comfortably sitting in Hellfire peninsula at level 61. The mage is Undead, whereas the Hunter is a Night Elf. They are also on different servers.
I started the mage because I wanted to experience the Horde story. I have been quite impressed by what I have come across so far. I chose the server because two of my friends played on it, and they have since quit, having started their university courses in the pursuit of a Master’s degree.
I started the hunter to be in Gevlon’s PuG guild. His guild is on the Alliance side, so I didn’t have a choice of faction there.
Both toons also have their own dedicated bank mules, though it seems to me that the hunter is making a lot more money than the mage did at his level.
I have decided I will level the hunter during the week, and the mage only over the weekends. With the hunter, the levels are still easy to come by. The mage will benefit greatly from a week’s worth of rested XP when I have a go at it this weekend. I think that is a good strategy.
Pro Gold Tip: Linen Cloth sells like hot pancakes. They are bought out faster than I can put then up.
Miss playing with you Bronte, maybe I will pop on one of those servers some time and chat with you. Or you could give me your real ID
@mizerboy:
1. Dude WoW is free to play up until level 20.
2. Copy your WoW folder into another, leave the original untouched.
3. rename this folder to WoW-EU.
4. In this folder, locate “realmlist.wtf” file.
5. Change the following values:
set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com
set patchlist us.version.worldofwarcraft.com
————————to————————-
set realmlist eu.logon.worldofwarcraft.com
set patchlist eu.version.worldofwarcraft.com
6. Create an account.
7. Add me. My email is in my about section. If I put it here, I will get spammed out the wazoo.
8. Play with me!
gave me an idea for an entry; it’ll be up eventually
@Jomu: Still waiting.
I started a undead rogue last night and I hit 21 this afternoon. The new undead experience is soo much better now. I’m not in a guild but I do have the boa shoulders. I remember leveling back in the burning crusade days; it took me literally 5 1/2 months and I was playing every day. I really do not miss the grind that much, I like to feel like I accomplish something in the little time I play now.
@Chris: I agree. You can bitch all you want about the leveling being too easy now. But it feels more accomplished. I mean I know it should be a healthy balance, but I had several character in the mid-forties because I just couldn’t grind through those painful, painful zones.
Yeah, the leveling rate is a little ridiculous, but for someone who has been there, done that many many times, it can be a boon. I myself toyed with the idea of jumping back in WoW when I had my free 7 days access, thinking about how I can just relax and level up by cherry picking only my favorite zones and skipping what I can. Alas, it’s been so long I can’t even remember where my authenticator is now.
@mmogamerchick: Well like I said to mizerboy, WoW is F2P until level 20, so you could experience most starting + 1 zones for all of the vanilla races in the game. That should give you a good feel for what it plays like now.