Ding Fries are Done

Whether you’re starting from level one, eighty, or anything in between – the leveling experience is going to be different than it was in previous expansions. I wanted to take a minute to explain why, and talk about some leveling strategies that may prove helpful in Cataclysm.

The Old Way
Once upon a time gaining experience in MMOs was a very boring and tedious affair, in games like EverQuest you would find an area populated with creatues of an appropriate level. Kill those creatures, loot them, rest and repeat… Not exactly engaging gameplay, and worse getting gear at later levels was really just more of the same, only you were looking for specific areas where specific named NPCs spawned and that someone else didn’t steal the kill (there were no instances back then). But before this sounds too much like an “in my day we walked uphill both ways” kinda post, let me conclude this history lesson by saying, MMOs have come a long way.

Over the years developers have found different ways of awarding experience and character advancement. Quests for example have become a staple of MMOs, and have definitely been a mainstay for leveling in World of Warcraft. Wrath of the Lich King has over time added some new methods and Cataclysm promises more…

New Ways of Gaining Experience
PVP – Patch 3.2 offered the new option of gaining experience while running battlegrounds, similarly an option was added to allow players to turn this off. This idea promotes more players queing for lower level BGs while segregating twinks to their own ques (the no XP ques).
LFG – Patch 3.3 added even more options by including a Dungeon Finder Tool that would essentially let you que for specific 5 man instances or completely random ones. It also added the ability to play with people across various realms (not always a good thing), but it did mean that you would get a group, eventually.

And then…

Daeleht responded to this post
“This is an intentional change, however the values may not be final. Tradeskill nodes are intended to give you experience when you loot them.”

So now in Cataclysm we have another perk, players gaining experience from Gathering professions. Pick a flower, get XP. Mine a node, get XP. We don’t have a lot to go on for this yet, but Blizzard has made it clear this is intended. I would imagine that the plan is to have higher difficulty nodes award more experience etc like with killing critters. Of course, this is also only applying (currently) to Miners and Herbalists. But it adds another way to gain XP.

Putting it Together
Throughout the course of WoTLK these changes as well as weekly and daily quests that started in BC enhanced the dynamic of leveling, for some players these advantages won’t be noted until they start leveling to 85 because they just don’t play alts. Others however have had time to play with it, I’m one of those others. First, get the idea of Heirlooms out of your head right now. They don’t scale or award XP beyond level 80. There are new XP granting heirlooms that will be available through the new guild vendors, these will scale and grant XP to 85. But it’s very highly unlikely that you’ll have access to them when you’re leveling your first character to 85 in Cataclysm.

Now, in the past I’ve looked at repeated dungeon runs for xp and straight quest grinding, hell the first time I leveled to 60 I did it straight up grinding mobs (I blame EverQuest and the Mages ability to AE and Kite). Now however, with Cataclysm approaching the best option seems to be all of the above. By that I mean, combine various techniques and get XP from the Dungeon Finder as well as quests and killing mobs. Que for battlegrounds as well, even if you plan on raiding. Why, you ask?
Because you’re still likely to get rewards from the PVP system that you will use in PVE. Consider the epic gems of Wrath, you can buy them with honor. Similarly, sometimes you’ll get enchants or other items from PVP that are useful in PVE. I myself have used the honor enchant for my Shoulders since Naxx. The Stamina simply trumps the small amount of Dodge (after DRs) and Defense I’d get from the PVE tanking enchant.

More importantly, by diversifying your leveling experience you’re fighting off the dreaded burn out. It doesn’t become so tedious, and with all of the players that will be leveling it never hurts to find alternative methods of experience while 300 people fight over a named NPC for their quest. Let’s face it, the launch is going to be laggy, there’s going to be a horde of people you don’t know, remember, or even want to be in the same general chat with. Do yourself a favor and prepare for alternative routes to eighty-five…

Thanks for reading…