The time investement into leveling is actually getting shorter by every expansion, the biggest one is ofc 1-70 before patch 2.3 (reducing 1-60 XP requirement)
and than every exp reduced the XP needed to get to max lvl. the lveling time of pure /played remains the same (about 6 full days for non Heilroomed/RaF boosted char) and shrinking. My last alt leveled in 55% boost (Guild + heilrooms) in about 4 days, is not big compared to Vanilla, TBC where it took about 8 - 10 full days (200-240 hours) to reach maxlvl
Gaming used to be that one thing where a persons wealth did not matter - WoW, for one, changed this paradigm for the worse.
Now the excuse is "I don't have time, so I should be able to pay for services that put me on even footing with other people". Yet I see the same people who claim this sitting outside the auction house whining 24/7 how the game is boring, how LFR is bad and how they never get that drop while grinding dungeon/quest/raid for XXX amount of times.
Funny how they suddenly have that time.
Why aren't more people also acknowledging that this service also allows you to instant level professions to 600 on higher level characters?
Most people would rather die than think, and most people do. -Bertrand Russell
Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn’t be noticed - nationality did not really exist, only humanity. But in the camps one learns: if you belong to a successful nation you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity - too bad for you -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
How do you work this out? Heroic gear is just not available to a vast majority of players. Getting to 90 has always been available to ALL players. No one is "unable" to level to 90, but masses of people are not capable of doing heroic mode raids - and I include myself in that (with the exception of a few bosses in DS and ICC). I am unable to get heroic level gear by raiding, and don't see ANY reason why I should be able to buy it either.
Buying 90s is totally different - I can get to 90 easily without buying a shortcut. I am just saving myself time - not enabling me to do something I couldn't do otherwise.
I can level a toon to 90 and still be utterly clueless. Levelling is no hardship so I can use the worst possible rotation and hit max level. How does immediately getting to max level differ from that if I'm going to use the wrong rotation either way?
TBH this was the only reason I pre-purchased WoD on one of my accounts and levelled my rogue.... I levelled her from 30 to 60 first, JUST so I could get max level BS and LW on my horde server (already have all professions maxed on my ally server). If it wasnt for that I wouldnt have bothered upgrading my account to WoD yet, and I doubt I will ever use the paid service. Profession maxing is the main/only real reason why I was excited about this boost.
In MMOs everything is all about time, how much you have and how you can spend it to help you win. The game used to be the more time you invested the more you could spend on doing the things that help you win. By allowing people to essentially to save time with money you are essentially letting them spend more time doing things that help them win vs. someone who did not spend that money. No matter how you slice it, it IS pay to win since the most valuable resource when it comes to winning IS time.
So where do you draw the line? What qualifies as accessible enough to be sold? LFR gear is as accessible as max level, why not sell that too?
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The only difference is an arbitrary line as to what amount of a boost is too much.
Not one argument can be made for selling levels that can't be made for selling gear, they are both parts of character progression, skipping over gear grinding is non different than skipping gear grinding.
LFR gear is also limited by the amount you can get per week. Even if you are extraordinarily lucky with drops you still cant get a full set in a week - most people it would take them several months. This isnt just time - but time spent in an environment where at least some of the people have to do SOME work to get the bosses down. Sure LFR is easy - but the amount of wipes people complain about it's obvious that the "you cant wipe in LFR" people love to say is simply false. Getting gear in LFR requires at least some effort and luck. You could run it week after week and not get any gear. Selling it totally bypasses RND. Selling boosts does not bypass any RND. You dont level normally with a system where your xp per quest hand in is determined by RND.
Apparently at selling 90s with 483 gear. That seems to be the defined line.So where do you draw the line? What qualifies as accessible enough to be sold? LFR gear is as accessible as max level, why not sell that too?
Progression means different things to different people. For some its the expansion of mount collections and for others the acquisition of gear. That for many people is the true progression. If levelling is your sense of progression, that feature is still there. You can still level from 1-90 if you so wish. I don't wish, I don't consider levelling progression since the first time I've done it. Your sense of progression is not the standard to which the whole game should adhere when it is as diverse in aims and goals as the forumbase of MMOchamp.Not one argument can be made for selling levels that can't be made for selling gear, they are both parts of character progression, skipping over gear grinding is non different than skipping gear grinding.
Wrong... Leveling is a lot shorter than it was when all you had to do was get from 1-60. It's the numbers that make 1-90 seem like it takes forever. If you had to race someone in leveling, they were on a vanilla server and you were on a current server, you'd beat them pretty fast to max level. Just because one number is larger than the other, doesn't mean it takes more time. You have to take into consideration that they've nerfed the hell out of leveling and have made it more pleasant to the casuals. Prior to all the nerfs, back in vanilla, leveling wasn't so nice. Mobs were hard as shit and if you pulled 2, your best bet was to run away allowing them to reset. Vanilla was the only time I ever had to CC normal mobs just to survive, barely. Also BoA's make the whole leveling process easier and the quests are easier since you can do one quest, stumble upon another and before you know it, you're running back to the camp w/ 5 complete quests when you initially started w/ only 1.
That being said, I don't have an issue w/ people using the lvl 90 boost. WoW has always been about endgame and that's shown by them balancing the entire game around endgame. When was the last time blizzard balanced the game around level 20s? How about 30's? What about 50's? It's because it's blatantly obvious that blizzard cares about the balancing of endgame. The only people that i'd be against using the boost are people who are starting out... someone who starts out IMO, NEEDS to experience azzeroth and fully explore it. After that, I don't care how many times they want to use the boost, it's their money. Anyone trying to hate on the 90 boost is just trying to justify their hate for blizzard one way or another. Thing is, there's nothing negative about this boost aside from longer ques for dungeons/random BG's while leveling. If someone wants to save a week or two of leveling, they have every right to spend the $60 and save those 2 weeks.
Most likely the wisest Enhancement Shaman.
True, Blizz could. If they wanted to completely undermine every sense of accomplishment in the game, remove all points of their endgame which is where a lot of their development time goes, and alienate the raiding and pvp playerbase. Sure. They could sell heroic gear for £50 a set, Challenge Mode transmog sets for £60 a set. But that's the thing. It would absolutely demolish their playerbase.
By extension all the boost to 90 does is open up more branches so players can achieve what they want to achieve. And considering the boost is to 90 when the level cap is soon to be 100, it isn't even that much of a huge advantage. It just so happens to be now because it is to the cap, and even then the gear is weak.
I'm yet to meet a person who goes "Woo! Level 90! Now I can totally forget this character!"
Level 90 is the gateway to which the main focuses of the game, CMs, PvP and PvE can be accessed. I'd treat levelling as one big tutorial level for the game, made redundant by sites like IcyVeins who can give you a thorough understanding of the class. I don't hold true to the "Levelling gets you to master your class" bull. I've said it before, I got to 90 on my shaman and didn't know squat until I looked up a class guide.
Sorry, but I do not accept that. Paying my monthly sub does not give me the skills to do heroics. It only makes sense that the room for error is less in the top content and I know my reflexes are not good enough. I simply do not have the skills required - and I am totally fine with that and do not see it my "right" to have the gear that content would give me. I think sometimes it is easy to look at something you can do yourself - maybe not even find that hard - and assume that since you can do it - everyone can if they spent the time to try. Unfortunately the world just doesn't work like that (or maybe fortunately). Some things require a skill to do that not everyone has. Personally I think the world would be a boring place if we all had the same skills.
I would also say that even by your own estimation you acknowledge that it isn't available to everyone - not everyone has he ability to put the time investment into it. However my original point about not everyone having the skill is my main point.
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Well.... I did level 4 characters to 85 in cata just for the guild achievement and then deleted 2 of them as soon as they dinged! Of course thats a different thing (and that was 85 not 90 but it was max level)
I actually totally agree, just not when everyone is already paying $15 for a level playing field. Everyone should have equal opportunity to implemented shortcuts with those $15. Reserving character boosting services for people with more disposable income strikes me as unfair and greatly lowers the value of the $15 they charge every month. The same goes for the profession boost.
I also understand that for the vast majority of the people who play this game, it's simply a gear treadmill that starts at level cap. They don't understand how this boost comes across as a bad decision for players who don't just want WoW to be a mindless boss grind to raise the all important number located next to the words Item Level.