In the revamped Azeroth, WoW’s pacing problems are much worse

When The Shattering of Azeroth occurred in November, I decided to delete and reroll my mage, Theophilos. In addition to a growing desire to pick up my long-dormant toon, I felt that this would be a fun opportunity to take Blizzard’s new questing and story-telling experiences for a spin.

In a nutshell, my opinions and observations of the process have been mixed.

As I wrote on November 30th, I initially had fun. I particularly enjoyed my experience in Westfall, including the phased areas, the cutscenes, and the new serial quest feature, whereby you did not have to return to the quest-giver at certain points, but could complete them “on the road,” so to speak. All in all, it was interesting to see the changes that had occurred, and then to experience more changes as you played through the quests and learned how we got to this point (and why things are the way they are in Deadmines).

At the same time, I wrote: “Leveling is almost too fast.” etc.

I’d like to amend that statement.

Leveling goes WAY too fast.

With the release of patch 4.0.3a, Azeroth was significantly revamped. Quests and graphics were updated, the landscape changed to reflect the impact of Deathwing’s emergence from Deepholm, and so on. Gameplay was also changed significantly, as spells, talents, resource systems, and other game mechanics were updated and rebalanced. It was with all of these things in mind that I remade Theophilos.

I play him occasionally. I might play him more often, except that the leveling experience has lost its… well, the novelty has worn off and been replaced by strong feelings of disappointment.

Upon completing Westfall, I took him to Redridge. While it’s a fun area, I was unable to finish it. I quickly found myself killing mobs that were almost exclusively “green to me” (aka easy). After completing a mere 16 quests, I moved over to Duskwood. Here, quests/mobs were closer to my level, although nothing was more than a “yellow” difficulty, and within 45 minutes I had already soloed Mor’Ladim and Morbidus, both level 25 elites, at level 25. (Remember Stitches, who always seemed to need a group or a higher-level friend to help with? Yeah…) I stayed in Duskwood until I hit 27, because I was starving for the chance to get as much of the story as possible, while also keeping my herbalism up to speed. When I got the “Duskwood” achievement, I moved down to Northern Stranglethorn…

…where I was dismayed to see that the mobs there started at level 24.

And yet, 35 minutes later, I had dinged both 28 and 29!

When I hit 29, I was pissed. At level 29, players still only need 29,000 experience points to get to level 30. Each quest that I have in my log, which is green to me, awards 2,100 experience. A little napkin math shows that, even if there were no experience given for kills, areas to discover, or herbs to pick up, a level would still only be comprised of 14 or 15 very easy quests.

AS it was, I was a few bars into 27 when I got to Northern Stranglethorn. I completed 12 quests. Those 12 quests, along with the kills to complete them and the herbs that I picked up along the way, got me 34 bars of XP. I now grossly out-level Northern Stranglethorn, and I’m less than a quarter of the way finished with the zone.

* * * * *

The completion of Duskwood and my foray into Stranglethorn all happened on December 26th. I haven’t touched my mage since then – I probably will do so soon, but if so, I will approach it differently.

Sadly, I have given up on trying to play through the game. When I play my mage again, it will be more as a sight-seer. Like, “Hello, Cape of Stranglethorn, don’t mind me… I’m just passing through to kill some of your denizens, steal some of your herbs, and complete a handful of your quests. But I won’t be long, I promise.”

* * * * *

Ok, that was enough of a Wall Of Text intro. I’m 650 words into my post, and have very little substance to show for it.

Here are some of the thoughts that I have, hopefully communicated a bit more clearly.

1. More than ever now, the game is way too easy.

I’m not a hardcore player, but I’m also not new. With that said, my experience with ranged classes is fairly limited. However, I am blowing through mobs with a character that is not pimped out in the best gear. Playing my mage isn’t enough of a challenge.

This could be fixed by skipping areas in favor of harder ones, which I will probably start doing . But this leads me to my next problem…

2. The story is there, but players will level past it way too quickly.

At least, I did. Repeatedly. Without trying.

Theophilos does not use elixirs, equip heirloom gear, or park himself at inns in order to gain maximum rested XP. Nevertheless, I have gained an astounding amount of rested XP while parking him in fields, Nesingwary’s camp, etc.

Additionally, experience is gained with each herb picked and each node mined. Being rested doubles the amount of XP you get from these gatherings as well… so, combined with the low XP requirements per level, and the relatively large amounts of XP gained from questing, there isn’t a lot of room for setting up shop for a little while and working through an area, moving to the next successive area, and working through that area without quickly outgrowing it.

It looks like the only way that I will get to learn all of the stories is to take Anacrusa through and blow through them. But I don’t know if I care to do that anymore.

3. The disconnect between 1-60 and Outlands/Northrend.

Blizzard is aware of, and apparently concerned about, the “previous expansion problem.” Once a player gets to level 58, he/she goes through the Dark Portal, which is not only a portal to a different planet, but, as of 11/2008, is also a sort of time warp portal. As of a month ago, Northrend also became a place where you take a journey on a ship into the past.

In addition, there are also XP-related issues with the whole Northrend thing. Even with recent XP-requirement nerfs, the amount of XP needed to reach level 71 from 70 is about 60% higher than the requirement to reach 70 from 69.

This creates a situation where, for the first time since the game launched, the initial leveling experience is new and desirable, and the expansions are old news. Players leveling alts are forced to blow past the new Azeroth content (due to the aforementioned overabundance-of-XP issues), slug through Outland, and then hit a wall in Northrend. To be quite honest, I’m really tired of Northrend, and Mydnas is currently mired there, stuck at level 73 for weeks now.

The alternative option is to try to level through the story, like I did, which means that eventually they will be bogged down in areas where quests and mobs award almost no XP, which is also not fun. I’m certainly not going to do it on any of the toons that I’m leveling, and I’m not sure that I’m going to do it on Anacrusa. I wanted to… but I’m not in the mood now. We’ll see how I feel at some point down the road.

(I guess I could drop 10g and turn off Theophilos’ XP gains for a while; however, that wouldn’t fix what’s broken about it. Gameplay shouldn’t be about having to pay in-game currency in order to turn off the advancement mechanic, for crying out loud.)

Here’s something interesting. I was herbing on Mydnas yesterday, and I stopped in Andorhal in Western Plaguelands. There is an Alliance foothold there, and Thassarian and another undead guy are questgivers. When I checked in with him, out of curiosity, Thassarian made mention of his/our activities in Northrend.

Now, I didn’t take up his quest offer, because I was there to herb, not to quest. However, I thought to myself, what if the player was new? On his first run-through of the game, he might not have much of an idea of what happened in Northrend. For me, someone who defeated the Lich King and completed all of Thassarian’s quests on Anacrusa, it was a normal part of the conversation. However, Mydnas has not even completed Last Rites at Naxxanar, and Thassarian was referring to me like I was his old friend who soldiered with him in the battle against Arthas of Patricidaeron. If she were my only toon, and I was playing the game through for the first time, I wouldn’t know about Thassarian in Northrend… you get my point. There’s a hole in the story.

* * * * *

Conclusion: World of Warcraft 2 fails as a lore-based game.

At this point, I could say something trite, like “casuals have won” or some other QQ. However, I don’t blame any type of player for this. The bottom line for me is that Blizzard made a concerted effort to revamp the home-world of Azeroth with the release of The Shattering and Cataclysm. This massive undertaking dispensed with the old world and many of the old ways, and as a result we are now playing a game that is something of a World of Warcraft 2.

However, one of the holdovers from the old game is the old (super-nerfed) XP/leveling structure, which flies directly in the face of the brand new story updates. World of Warcraft is now effectively a game where you either have to play the game through for the story, and ignore the fact that so many of the mobs and quests/rewards are gray, or go back and destroy all of the content after you’ve hit the level cap if you want to experience the lore and/or earn the Loremaster achievement(s). Neither option has much appeal for me at all – I’ve completed enough quests by ignoring game mechanics and plowing through mobs like I’m the vengeful hand of God, and I don’t think I want to do that anymore.

I’m disappointed.

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