plaguelands.comWorld of Warcraft cranks up the Ez-Mode
WoW players can finally stop pressing their stylish red ‘More Ez-Mode’ buttons because leveling between 20 and 60 just got a lot easier come the 2.3 patch.
* 15% reduction in experience needed per level between 20 and 60
* Overall experience gained by questing between 30 and 60 boosted
* Say goodbye to the difficult to kill elite mobs that chill outdoors in the sunshine, they’ll also have same if not better quality loot drops
* New quests (approx 60 or so) and a new goblin town smack dab in Dustwallow Marsh (levels 30 to 40)
* Dungeons will be retuned to a narrower level range. (example: SFK currently is 18-25, but will be gimped to 18-21)
* Dungeon quests will yield a higher experience reward and dungeons will also see revamped loot tables
Removing the challenge. – Check.
Dumbing down the game. – Check.
Serving 9 billion. – Check.
Welcome to World of Warcraft. If you don’t believe me, check out the, these really aren’t fake patch notes.
What I like most is the content additions to the mid-game, added content is always a good thing and unless it’s an expansion, the mid level don’t see much if anything. Also the revamped loot is good because there are too many worthless drops from dungeons – where all the loot and faction rewards should be the primo le creme loot. I’m on the fence about the leveling changes. To me leveling in WoW isn’t hard or that tedious. I come from a different generation where the experience bubbles crawled even in plow mode and when you died a lot of it went bye-bye unless you got a rez from a spirit healer called a cleric, few and far between, and pestering one was just as bad as aggro and a blacklist. Even if you got a rez, you lost a decent sized chunk of xp unless the cleric had a fancy rez stick that gave you back most xp from what that silly mob tooketh from you.
Wow’s leveling curve will always feel shallow to me. I’m in no rush to level a character to the big bad 70 either, fuck the raid game. The faster I hit 70, the faster I’m going to become bored and put WoW in the recycle bin – the change is only up to 60, so that’s a good thing, there is more grouping action and saving the princesses going on in that level range and I prefer that over the dreaded raid game.
Reasons why the leveling change is welcomed…
Pickup groups, where are they in the ole’ world and if you find one, there’s a good chance they will suck.
Pickup groups aren’t that easy to come by, especially if you want to hit a dungeon that is languishing in the middle of nowhere. Not only that, every other pickup group I joined before going inactive a few months ago had some high level asshole in it. I want to play and be challenged in a dungeon with other players in my level range. Not join up with you to find a bored level 55 hunter friend trifling the ranks. If I wanted that, I’d arrange a private showing.
You already completed all the content you are doing now on another character, over many characters for that matter.
It’s been 3 years, it’s not your fault a ten year old just got their copy from Uncle Timmy. Redoing the same content is stale and boring; you will have more fun flicking breadcrumbs up your nose, I did. It’s Blizzard’s fault, say it with me. It’s true, the world is so static and while the quests were entertaining the first time through, you can’t help but start to feel annoyed after the third or fourth, or fifth time through, Stranglethorn vale, anyone? I can’t take it anymore. Send me a pretty postcard of the new digs in Dustwallow. I don’t want to visit just yet.
You don’t read the quests.
I loathe every fiber that is the quest hater being. Yea, I really don’t like players who won’t read the quests and somehow I end up grouping with them and can’t read mine without them calling me a lore fag because I’m ’slow’ or they talk shit on quests because they’d rather play whack-a-mole without being told a little bed time story. Oh, so you did read them at least once. Alright, I agree with you that after the first time it’s not easy rereading mundane quests. None of the quest writers are Pulitzer Prize winners and the interactive storytelling is weak. You may pay attention to your favorites that might poke you in the brain reminding you that it wasn’t bad the first time, but for the most part you just want to move on and turn in your severed heads with shaggy red beards and be done with the next rat-tail pizza delivery sans the family drama stolen heirlooms, Undead ate my baby and stuck it on a pike in front troll-town, waaaaah.
Overall, not bad changes, but some of it feels like, damn, this is for sissies. No, I don’t want those hardcore days back where my corpse was stuck in some wall and I had 15 different corpses trying to get it back, but damn, leveling in WoW is so easy already. Are the proposed changes enough for me to resubscribe? Nope, no inclination or missed dopamine fixes. I’m sure I’ll be back later though, with all these other mmog delays. Your flight to the next mmog land has been delayed and delayed and delayed some more. I don’t know what WoW could fix or patch that would bring me back right away. I miss the battleground action more than anything.
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- Published:
- 10.09.07 / 6am
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- World of Warcraft
[...] of Warcraft 2.3 apparently is the “please dear god don’t you even think of cancelling before the expansion” [...]
These seem like good changes. My best friend has been trying to get out of the 40’s since march and keeps canceling his account because he can’t bare to spend that much time on a game.
Overall, I think the changes are good. Every fantasy based mmorpg that has over 50 levels is going to take a time investment before reaching the end, so they aren’t for everyone. I have those friends too, you know the crazy cool friend who is a blast to hang out with, you think they will love WoW so they pick it up and never make it past 40 after 6 months because they burnout, they don’t find the game that entertaining, etc. They would still quit after reaching maximum level if 70 was the new 40, but your right, at least they would see more of the game. Speaking about my friends, if they were able to get max level in say around 5 days played they’d quit soon after (unless they changed raiding - because raiding is more time consuming than leveling and you have to clock in to do it) everyone a WoW conversation would come up they’d say stuff like, “I beat that game - it was easy.” haha.
Thanks a lot for stopping by and commenting, Token.
WoW cranks up the EZ mode. Old school MMOers crank up the whine
[read to the end, I'm geezing just as hard as you, not where you might think I'm going ]
“God damn it, I liked not being able to see a damn thing every time I decided to memorize abilities. Being able to see what’s going on around you for more than more then five minutes out fo 60 is EZ mode. I swear to God, you damn whipper snappers have it so **** easy a retarded one armed monkey could play these abominations that you call ‘modern’ MMOs. Why back in my day we spent more time resting for power and health than actually doing anything. And we Liked it that way!”
“***** Griffons? WTF is that!?! What you just run up and say, give me a damn ride …and they do it? In my day you’d spend half a day waiting around on boats to get anywhere. And it was totally ***** sweet. Why half the time we’d get so godamned bored waiting on the boats and riding the boats that we’d start practicing each other’s racial langauges. That’s called ROLEPLAYING, you ***** brain damaged post MTV riddlin zombies wouldn’t get it.”
That’s totally not at all what you said. But when you imply that the road to cap needs to be artificially extended as it is in most of the games, that’s how it sounds to me. I think anything that makes the grind less brutal is a good thing, and I’ve been playing these games as long as most folks. You say that WoW is over once your hit 70? Actually, yes I tend to agree. But I see that more as a fundamental problem with the end game of WoW than a point against speeding up the leveling curve.
The next big hit will be the MMO with an engaging one to cap experience (the WoW innovation), that continues to be fun to an average player (with average employed human amounts of spare time) once they hit the cap (hardcore raiders, hardcore PvPers, and/ or those with so much brain tissue damaged or missing that they find rep grinds fun need not apply). Mark my words.
I will take a pound of swiss cheese with my whine and some crackers. More spellbooks! More corpse runs! Experience loss. bwhahahaa. *whips himself repeatedly*
Hey man, we are the same breed, just for knowing that stuff about EQ makes you super hardcore, more hardcore than any hardcore that is core. I actually don’t imply I want a leveling longer curve, I didn’t mean too anyway. If it was contended, I’d prefer completely new content from 1-60 and more of it to support the curve.
Well, it’s over for me - definitely not for other players who enjoy raiding. I agree, there is definitely room for all variety of mmogs and we need them. Everything from the Webkinz’s moms who can only play a few hours a week to the furry master roleplaying a Squirrel Gaylord in his mother’s basement. Yea, a bit extreme from what your talking about, haha.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to post a funny comment and not a zi’omg you’re an elite prick Krones.
Complaining that WoW is going “ez mode”? Wtf? WoW IS easy mode GirlyMan! Nothing in the game is difficult. Go play EverQuest if you want real MMO challenge.
*puts on crazy Austrian accent* Listen, listen lil’ girl, these things and these you know. I will crush you, I am Ahnold. ahaha. ya, crush.
No, no. I will play Eve Online. I already played Everquest, remember?
Why the OP post reeks so much hatred or disdain is beyond me.
I welcome anything that speeds my levelling up. The levelling of my first char was OK. The second one started to feel like a grind (I didn’t even hit 60 by the time I cancelled my WoW account). When the TBC arrived, I renewed my subscription and levelled both back to 70, which was not as bad (the 60-70 bit is shorter than the endless 1-60).
I can’t be bothered to level an alt ever since. Getting past the 20’s is endless and boring? speed it up? sure, I welcome this decision with open arms!
Remove the Challenge? no way. the level of “challenge” is the same in the game. Challenge comes from:
- doing a dungeon at its proper level (totally agreed there)
- heroic runs
- raiding
- PvP (not my cup of tea, thank you).
Faster levelling does not reduce challenge. It just reduces the amount of time you need to invest in the game to reach the max level 70.
Dumbing down? no way. the game is as “dumb” or “smart” it was before. The levelling curve took 3 months for a regular, starting player. After the TBC that curve went up to 4 months. Hopefully this will revert it again to 3 months.
I got a year supply of hatorade. I got all flavors, you want one? Only cost you 3 gold man. I actually agree with what you say, I do think challenge comes from those areas of gameplay, but also leveling. I could tear your argument apart by saying, what if leveling to the maximum level only took 12 hours time investment, that does reduce the challenge to get to one of those other challenging points in the game: heroic runs, raiding, pvp. Removing the Elite difficulty state from mobs and keeping their loot the same is dumbing down those are of the game.
I really agree with your other points though, yay! We can be 2 peas in a pod. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Don’t be afraid to come up with a name you mysterious sexy thing you.
Sorry, the OP reeks of MMO elitism. Go back to larping if you want realism. WoW is about the end game. There is only two ways to make WoW challenging, join an elite raiding guild or PvP in the arena. That is it. Leveling to me is about listening to music while I chat with friends, mindlessly having fun. I have 4 level 60+ toons, and I plan to add a 5th with this next change. My “main” toon is hardcore into Arena, and it is alot of fun and extremely challenging. If you are not into PvP, and you don’t raid, then find another MMO and don’t bitch about WoW.
Do you see the window, yea, yea step to it, step it. That bright light, yea, that’s called sunshine, go play in it. Look a pony! I call shotgun.
WoW is about the end game for you and not every other person on the planet. I’m actually not really attacking WoW at all in my post, I say overall the changes are good and I find your elitism comment hilarious, thanks for the guffaw. If you had finished reading my post I said I miss battlegrounds more than anything and I wasn’t playing World of Warcraft. You should really finish reading the post before commenting.
Thanks for skipping to conclusions, Steve.
Why is it that I’m not surprised? In all reality, this is one of the easiest MMOs on the market (You know it is). It doesn’t matter if you’re PvPing, going through dungeons, or raiding. There is absolutely no challenge in that game. I’m sure this is good news for the thousands upon thousands of 11 year old children running around with level 70 characters that their parents bought off of eBay, those too horribly gimp to play something with actual difficulty, and those with little time on their hands, but for the true MMO player, this game is far from enjoyable. This update just proves my point.
This change is good. Period.
(in reply to Jesus 2.0)
World of Warcraft has very challenging encounters. Just saying the leveling curve shows how the little of a challenge the game is just shows that you have never actually made it to the endgame. Which the game is really all about. The heavily scripted bossfights just make most other MMOs look like Kindergarden in comparison. Not even going to touch on the challenges that arena teams are facing.
Get off your MMO elite horse, please?
Challenging if you’ve never played anything else before. Oh, and I have made it to the end-game and I consider it to be childs play among other things. I’ve done my fair share of raiding in various games and by no means is WoW’s encounter’s difficult. As for Arena, I really don’t give two shits. PvP doesn’t mean anything to me.
So no, I’ll stay on my Elite Horse and continue to trample through the noobs.
Define challenge, please?
I’d really be interested to hear.
Staying awake for 32 hours while camping Stormfeather was pretty challenging.
WoW’s better than Sony’s piece of shit games. Better than the rest of MMORPG’s out right now.