The slippery slope has finally ended.

[Deleted]

The slope is still slope, because it will always be a slope. No matter what they sell. They might sell HC ilvl boots and bracers, and people will see that it is only a time saving thing, since you can mindless mine & herb for 200 hours (no need to learn how to play the AH, easier than leveling, only time consuming!) and get enough gold to buy them on the Black Market. They might sell HC tier and weapons, titles, reward mounts, and hey, it will be no more than a time saving thing, because you could again mine & herb for 1000 hours and buy boosts from HC guilds.

They just need to slide slow enough.

[Aoyi]

My only real concern with this is this likely means they are no longer developing the starter zone experience for players to learn their class in WoD. Now they still might do this, but it sounds like they consider it to be less important now. That's less content being developed for the expansion that would ease new players into the experience.

For those that didn't see or read about this during Blizzcon, they had planned to have a boosted character starting zone (similar to the death knight opening) where you slowly gain your skills through the experience. When you completed it, you'd leave the zone with all the abilities of a level 90. That really appealed to my wife who stopped playing when MoP released, but considered coming back.

[Dole4011]

This is the end of the slippery slope? Skipping the drudgery (to many people) that leveling is?

You can be HORRIBLE and level to 90. This is a convenience, nothing more. It doesn't lower skill cap, it doesn't offer prestige, there is no elite gear.

The BMAH is the closest thing I've seen when it comes to play to win. However, it was so selective and expensive and minimal that it didn't really make much of an impact. And it was with WoW gold (admittedly that can be purchased, though not in keeping with the EULA).

[-Superman-]

My only real concern with this is this likely means they are no longer developing the starter zone experience for players to learn their class in WoD. Now they still might do this, but it sounds like they consider it to be less important now. That's less content being developed for the expansion that would ease new players into the experience.

For those that didn't see or read about this during Blizzcon, they had planned to have a boosted character starting zone (similar to the death knight opening) where you slowly gain your skills through the experience. When you completed it, you'd leave the zone with all the abilities of a level 90. That really appealed to my wife who stopped playing when MoP released, but considered coming back.

I am more interested to see the phased lvl 90 starting zone. Old world content is hardly appealing anymore, especially to a few of us who have been doing it for 7 years on hundreds of alts who have likely lived to lvl 40something and been deleted.

[slime]

My opinion is that it is a necessary evil. I like populated queues, a robust AH and consistent development. Understandably, new subscriber numbers are not high and if market research shows that people feel daunted by the level climb from 1 to 100, they probably won't subscribe.

Do I think this will be good for the quality of the player base? No. Am I forced to play with easily identified boosted individuals? Nope.

In short: It is beneficial for the economy of the game and has no negative impact on me.

lol. How incredibly short-sighted of you.

[Drobu]

I hate leveling after 1-2 characters. Please take my money.

[Berethos08]

My opinion is that it is a necessary evil. I like populated queues, a robust AH and consistent development. Understandably, new subscriber numbers are not high and if market research shows that people feel daunted by the level climb from 1 to 100, they probably won't subscribe.

Do I think this will be good for the quality of the player base? No. Am I forced to play with easily identified boosted individuals? Nope.

In short: It is beneficial for the economy of the game and has no negative impact on me.

I don't think an option to pay to skip the level climb is going to lead to an influx of high level subscribers. As a new player, would you really be that interested in paying for the game, knowing you have to pay for the subscription, and want to put out however much additional the character boost would cost? Most would consider the boost that comes with the purchase of WoD to be enough, and it's tough to predict when during the new player experience said new player would put down the money for the latest expansion (some might up front, some might as they level, some won't until they are close to that level..especially relevant with WoD, since we're not getting expansion only classes or races this time around). I'm not even sure I'd consider this feature one for new players at all - it feels very much geared to current or potentially returning players.

There are positives to boosts like this, but I don't believe a population boom is one of them.

[Stormspellz]

leveling is not hard, or even that time consuming at this point, just outright mind numbing boring, even if it was true max level (WHICH ITS NOT LVL 100) its still not a big deal, leveling doesn't teach you anything about 5mans, raids, or even your class, In fact as early showed, its a culture shock going from the face roll to actually having to use your brain to pass content is just bad form. Not necessary because it was hard, but due the extreme of the switch between mind numbing faceroll to "wait i have to interrupt things?"

[Kazmodius]

No they're not. Don't make things up.

They actually are, he doesn't make things up, they said the BETA was soon(tm) and also said that pre-purchasing WoD would instantly give you your mount/pet/ and 1 90 boost while MoP is still current content. The paid option will probably get out by WoD.

I guess their philosophy with this is since we're not making more content like the lazy ass they are, they gonna give you another 90 to gear through the LFR process and further if you can so they will keep their people a couples more months.

[Tzalix]

It's still a bad slippery slope argument.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if anybody, ever, can log onto WoW and legitimately buy themselves a set of late-game epics with real-cash, I will give you my piano, one of my legs, and my wife. Write it down.

[Lastgope]

They actually are, he doesn't make things up, they said the BETA was soon(tm) and also said that pre-purchasing WoD would instantly give you your mount/pet/ and 1 90 boost while MoP is still current content. The paid option will probably get out by WoD.

I guess their philosophy with this is since we're not making more content like the lazy ass they are, they gonna give you another 90 to gear through the LFR process and further if you can so they will keep their people a couples more months.

Please read at least the first few pages of the thread...... Darsithis has explained EXACTLY what he said, that the OP said they were selling 90's RIGHT NOW! Which is a fallacy.

[Sylreick]

With it being as easy as it is to level to 90 (about a week from 1 - 90, steady gameplay), it doesn't matter much that they're giving a free 90 to players. It's not that difficult to learn the class abilities or anything either, and most people relearn their character once they hit max level anyway. Only problem I have is giving new players that boost; people ought to go through the leveling experience on at least one toon.

So, a free 90 and even paid 90s aren't that big of a deal. Since you could easily avoid paying that price and take that short time to level without it. Convenience, sure many people would jump at the chance to let their money make them lazy, blizz knows this and would be smart to put it up for cash. Others would simply continue doing it as they have been doing it in the past.

[Deleted]

I hate leveling after 1-2 characters. Please take my money.

If you hate leveling and in general if leveling is a bad idea.. too boring etc. why does it have to be paid service? It's like paid bug removal or pay so you can use 4+ button mouse while playing. If there's a problem with the game they should fix it and not offer an option to pay money and skip the problem. That's not a solution, it's a greedy bandaid fix.

[IKT]

They might sell HC tier and weapons, titles, reward mounts, and hey, it will be no more than a time saving thing

No it wouldn't as that would be paying to win, you're not saving time by defeating the purpose of the game, at that point you may as well save time by not playing, since you are effectively buying your way out of the 2 primary progression paths, pvp and pve. Remember the phrase 'the game starts at max level', that's what we're talking about, fuck the pre-game fluff, I've leveled 5 characters and I hope never to level through vanilla - mop again.

If Blizzard were to start selling PVE or PVP gear with stats you would find no one more vocal who would be on your side against that than me.

[JonnyBeoulve]

It's all about money.

As a 27 year old gamer, I like the new direction. I don't have time for time consuming, elitist MMOs anymore. They had their place, but they aren't attractive when you can play WoW and be entertained day and night.

[Zaqwert]

I can't wait to see what the fanboys say when Blizz start selling epic gear in the store.

"Well, it's not the best gear in the game, so it's not pay to win"

World of Warcraft: The game that's so fun to play people pay money to skip almost everything in it.

WoW is officially nothing more than 1 raid now.

[Deleted]

Personally, I am not absolutely horrified by the concept but I only started playing WoW properly a couple of months ago. I currently have only one 90, my Feral Druid, and a Mage which is almost level 90 now. I am looking forward to boosting a Warrior or Paladin to have more options to play with, as all my friends (long-term players) are character capped now and I don't want to force them to delete an existing character just to level with me. I plan on leveling my Shadow Priest, Monk and Death Knight to cap myself for the experience.

The only problem with power-leveling to 90 is that players may not fully understand their class and will have to go back and level professions and the like. However there is a plethora of good information out there now for people leveling new classes, also going back and grinding professions is not absolutely dreadful and means that there will still be a value for the old mats for those people who do still choose to grind/ new players.

The line would be crossed for me if they started selling gear. An ideal system for me would be to sell the level 90 boosts but boosted characters only receive a basic level 90 set and then go from there, this would avoid the problem of selling gear in the store for new 90s.

[Sylreick]

If you hate leveling and in general if leveling is a bad idea.. too boring etc. why does it have to be paid service? It's like paid bug removal or pay so you can use 4+ button mouse while playing. If there's a problem with the game they should fix it and not offer an option to pay money and skip the problem. That's not a solution, it's a greedy bandaid fix.

It's not even that the leveling content is bad or boring or anything like that. It's that people have done it to death with multiple toons, and they really can't be bothered to do it for the umpteenth time. So these people that don't want to deal with leveling again or perhaps server+faction transferring, will just opt to buy a max level character on their friends server or faction or bring an alt up to raid level to run with friends. This doesn't kill the option of doing it the "old fashioned" way, and it's still available (not to mention it would save money).

[Heladys]

Oh, here's the "Super Moderator" to defend everything Blizzard does.

"Oh look here's the predictable poster come to whine about nonsense"

Don't having your statements minimized into absurdity feel great?

[Mr. Casual]

im still missing the big deal. For most wow players we have multiple level 90s so there is nothing new to experience while lvling. So whats wrong with skipping that part? WE can all agree that most of the game is about the options and experiences at max level so whats wrong with starting closer to that goal. For the ones who like the journey of leveling, nothing has changed for them. IT might even be a better experience leveling now because you will be doing it with people that like and want to do it rather than forced to do it. I have 5 level 90s at the moment and im sick of leveling so this is a welcome change. If it goes through like people assume it will where we can buy 90s at will. As of now all it is 1 level 90 character for buying the new expansion, far from the big deal people make it to be.