Originally Posted by
Lathais
I suppose you'll call me a casual too, you'll get lol'd at plenty if you do though, since casuals don't take a week of when expansions come out to level to 60 in 3-4 days and start raiding ASAP. Nor would casuals be as progressed as I am which is 4/4TDQ, 4/4FT 3/5EE. So yeah, call me casual too if you want, but I say shortening the leveling experience almost needs to be done with an expansion. WoW has done it with every expansion as well, including having an entire class that starts at a higher level. 1-50 is no longer the focus of the game, at all. The 1-50 areas are near dead. The majority of people playing in those zones just want to get out of them and get to where there are people. New players see those old areas, dead, and assume the game is dieing.
There are 3 possible ways of dealing with this IMO.
1) Remove 1-50. Everyone starts at 50 with a set of Level 50 gear and you start on SL. If this were going to be done though, it should have been done at SL launch. Heck, you should have been able to buy SL without having bought chocolate and just skip all the chocolate areas. Buying SL lets you create level 50 chars. If someone who loves lore wants to go back and see the old stuff, they still have the option of buying chocolate for $5 and starting a level 1 toon. This is optional however and not mandatory.
2) Shorten 1-50 significantly. Like a 20% bonus weekend, but permanent, all players under 50 receive it, then do the 20% bonus on top of that. In addition a reduction in amount in takes to level as well. Get people through that part of the game as quickly as possible so they can get to where there actually are people playing the game.
3) Now this is my favorite idea. The above ideas would work and I would like them and lots of people would probably be happy with them, but this is better IMO. Make Chocolate Rift entirely F2P. All the old content, raids and everything included. Only thing not free is coming to SL. You gotta sub up for that.
Apparently though, havign this type of opinion makes me a casual, so I am gonna go shoot myself now rather than be labeled a casual.