you know, on one hand, this is absolutely brilliant both from a game designe perspective (maximise leverage of assets created) as well as from the player's (maximise breadth of possible content at any level of progress) buuuut I wouldn't... be me if it wouldn't also bother me that content - the hero's journey of exploration, if you will - feels more arbitrary that way you know, losing the sense of wonder as a newb of randomly wandering into Searing Gorge from Redridge Mountains and getting oneshotted by level ?? fire imps
The level scaling at present still has that issue. The scaling is designed in WoW now so that you can't outscale the content of the expansion area you are in, but all the zones still have a lower limit to them. You would still find level ?? fire imps walking into the Searing Gorge from Redridge if you are level 18. Searing Gorge now has a level range of 40-60, while Redridge has a level range of 15 - 60. It just means that if you skipped a zone, like say Darkshore because you were a gnome mage and never bothered to go to the night elf zones, you can go there at level 55 instead of the Blasted Lands or Silithis and still be able to level just fine. Level caps of zones is per expansion: Starting zones: 1 -10 The original zones (starting level of the zone since CATA) - 60 TBC and Wrath: 58 - 80 (with the starting level of the zones still progressing like they normally did, save that Wrath zones can start ten levels earlier so you can go to either Outland or Northrend at level 58) CATA and MoP: 80 - 90 (with the starting level of the zones still progressing like they normally did save the MoP zones can start five levels earlier so you can do Pandaria rather than track down Deathwing and the Twilight Hammer cult. WoD: 90 - 100 (more or less unchanged, though I think you can't out level a zone until after you hit 103. Legion: 100 - 110 like it already is since that's where the level scaling started. BfA: 110 - 120 eventually.
Oh, that's great, I'd say in that case I'm completely fine with the scaling This is a very smart way of implementing scaling, retaining a sense of progression amongst zones.
Have yet to try it out as my alt fail continues and there's still a lot I want to finish on my main. But yeah, looking fwd to the dungeons in particular. Though since the one main I want to level is 90 and I'm still forced to do WoD..
From what I remember, the leveling in WoD/storylines were alright, and you can probably get out of there long before you get to the Jungle. Plus you can go to the Broken Shore at 100 or so. The Garrisons shouldn't get in the way too much. I have a Death Knight that I think I leveled through holiday content and the Legion pre-event, so that I made it to level 100 more or less just getting out of Frostfire Ridge. Of course that was before the leveling change. You won't need to do the rep stuff nor the level 100 content, thought I don't know what your WoD leveling gear will do when you hit the Broken Shores and the start of the Class Hall Quests. My warlock is the only level 110 I have and he's the one that does most content and raids a little and tries to get at least epic gear and did the legendary ring quest chain. The lock's been around since TBC and started going for better gear since Wrath (aside from CATA, since the raiding died for our guild), but still getting the best gear I can even if one can't raid. On the other hand I've only ever made seven characters total, deleted one because I wanted to reuse his name for my Death Knight. Human Warlock, (main, 110, closest thing to a Necromancer from Diablo II back in 2007) Undead Death Knight (100,...Horde main (originally Overpowered making it fun) An Undead because a undead death knight got screwed over by the Lich King, twice.) Dwarf Hunter (82, first alt to where I understood how to play better, also to have something to do while waiting two weeks before my copy of Wrath arrived by mail) Blood Elf Priest (61, Second Horde main after I found I didn't like the Warrior class, now intend for level boosting since WoD...still not done it) Gnome Mage (32, intend to level with guild members.) Pandaran (A) Shaman (12, made to see if a Pandaran could be made without having MoP yet) Undead Warrior (18,...deleted for Wrath, didn't like the play style, wanted the name)
Wow 7 characters.. I've had to delete them because I hit the 50 max. Glad I have so many now though with the holiday mount req being lvl 20, gotta get that love rocket. I've only had 3 that I've played steadily, one of who was from BC though she's not my main. Goblin shadow priest 100, Orc hunter 100 (the BC one, used to be a dwarf) and my main, orc DK. Got some Alliance 100's and some random "oh I heard this server was good" 100's I made during that loooong boring bit between WoD and Legion. Anyway finally got the Ratstallion, he is MAGNIFICENT. The mountspecial is fantastic. This is a good time to get him, not fighting for eyes against people higher levels or better geared like in the beginning of Legion. It was a lot of fun.
I just read that Christie Golden, author of many Treklits as well as Warcraft novels was hired by Blizzard to write in game content, apparently has written several recent cinematics!
Pre-purchase for Battle for Azeroth is available now, as are the first four Allied Races (with said pre-purchase plus at least one character that has exalted with the specific faction tied to the race you want to unlock, with the questing storyline achievements as well. But those are Account Wide.....you only have to do that once for the races you want.) However you will need a level 110 of the faction (Horde or Alliance) on the server you want to unlock said Allied Races because you need to do a small scenario/quest chain to unlock them. They did added four more character slots per server for your Accounts today, though the limit is still 50 characters per Account. I've got the pre-requisite rep grind done for all four races on my main, but I don't have a Horde character at level 110 yet (he's at level 103 presently). However there is the free level 110 boost with the pre-order of Battle for Azeroth. Because I hadn't bothered to use my free level 90 boost from WoD, I noted that on the update it became a level 100 boost to match the one from Legion. So now I have two level 100 boosts and a level 110 boost. Might use them eventually. And there is still stuff to come out for Legion as it leads into Battle for Azeroth.
I have yet to pre-purchase it as I'm having a problem with Wow updating every time I launch it and I want to solve that first. I'm also not planning to play the allied races though I will start one of each just to see the story. I am not big on elves, the only race I was interested in was Dark Iron dwarves which don't come out until BfA as far as I can tell? I may save my boost to see if it fills in a requirement for making a Dark Iron as I don't have an 110 alliance. Also @Ithekro I was fascinated to read you still have those boosts. I have a relative who never used his 90 boost and the option just disappeared so I assumed it was gone forever. Where do you see the boost? Got to level 21 prestige, feel kind of silly with everyone gaga over new races and me still doing this quite pointless grind but I like it. I haven't been this into pvp since Tol Barad which I adored. Having finished all the pvp reps helps, I spent one and a half xpacs only doing Arathi Basin and now I'm free haha.
Oh and I must add have now got my Ratstallion. If you want this mount this is a good time to do it, once leveling commences it will be a lot harder.
The character screens, though they have been doing a bunch of fixes to incease the realm character limit to 16. The level 90 boost upgraded into a level 100 boost. So now I have two level 100 boosts and a level 110 boost, though that one vanished for a bit. I guess WoD is too old it warrant keeping the level 90 boost at that level. EDIT: Finished leveling my Horde main to 110 so I could finish unlocking all the new Allied races. IT took maybe two to three days to get from 100 to 110 leveling relatively normally through all the zones before getting to Suramar. I did have so much rested XP that it didn't fall off until part way through level 107. No heirlooms used, enough though I have some, I just didn't bother. I'll probably finally boost my Blood Elf priest to 110 just to clear my old Horde side backlog, as I had left him in Orgrimar back at the end of MoP at level 61 specifically to boost to 90 to get the boost progression story into Draenor, teaching you how to use the new spells and new gear, and freshly boosted professions (the reason he was level 61). That might use the level 100s for some of my Alliance characters to they can do the Class Hall quests. Though I might just do that for the Priest just so he can get and have the Shadow Priest artifact (cause who doesn't want a sexy voiced knife talking to you?) So many choices. No enough desire (not an alt-o-holic.)
If I had infinite time, I sort of would like to level a character from the beginnning, to get a feel for the current leveling experience. Ideally with a friend, otherwise it would probably be a relatively lonely experience compared to early WoW.
Well right now there are a lot of people leveling. Both because of the new level scaling changes and because of the Allied Races. I heard that there was World PvP battles going on in the Arathi Highlands in the mid-30s range. I haven't hear of natural World PvP (outside of ganking) happening anywhere since 2010 once Southshore got nuked off the map and the revamped Cata World started.
I have hit lvl 25 prestige and got my Midnight Courser which is kinda cool looking, colour wise at least. Now I have to wait to next season to get to 26. I absolutely LOVE Seething Shore, what a trip. I always said when will they do a flying bg and this is just as good, parachuting off the airship, aiming, you can attack before you land, the speed of it all, the really different strategies.. I have gone insane on it.
It is a good BG. I've never been good at PvP, but the dynamic flows due to the Azerite deposits coming and going all the time, rather like having Arathi Basin, but with the Stables or Lumber Mill popping up all over the map and than going away after its capped. I still want more story as we head into Battle for Azeroth. Also Vulpera seem to be becoming a thing. Blizzard hasn't said they will be a playable race, and one can say they could just be a NPC race build on the Goblin model....but with all the recent new animations Blizzard is doing? Either these things are going to be playable, or they go a massive amount of in-game cut scenes were they need that much detail to sell the story.
I'm also not good at pvp, but I've learned a ton over the years. I don't do rated, in part because of internet lags now and then. I kinda wish I could.. or would. It's not my natural thing but having done the pvp reputations, by the time you finish those you have done a LOT of pvp. I do like the teamwork, the myriad changing options for objectives. That's something I enjoy. It would be surprising if HEY GUYS! Vulpera appeared as a playable race.
If it's not Alterac Valley and it's not a stalemate that lasts more than 48 hours, I am not interested