The slippery slope has finally ended.

[Trubo]

They should have everyone who buys a level 90 have some sort of 'mark of shame' on that character so everyone can see they took a short cut. Maybe the public humiliation will be enough to deter anyone from ever endorsing this awful idea. Blizzard will surely kill it when they can't turn a profit.

Using your statement as an example you should have a mark of shame whenever you buy food (whether it be from restaurants, grocery, butcher, etc.) as you took the shortcut in getting that food rather than spending the time to harvest and prepare it yourself.

[Mormolyce]

Transitive property....if you can only win by playing, and you have to pay to play, you have to pay to win.

Haha... wait that was a joke right? I can't even tell anymore.

[Trubo]

I feel the same way but I also would love to play with all my old friends who quit playing in late bc and at the end of wrath. They all say that they are excited to come back *BECAUSE* they can skip the xpacs that turned them off from the game in the first place.

Couldn't agree more. This is merely providing a way for people to jump into the relevant content of the expansion they purchased faster so that they don't get bored of older unrelated stuff and drop sooner. Leveling the traditional way still exists for those that enjoy that experience while an alternative for those that don't enjoy going through old content again and again have another method available to them; it's win-win.

[Ordinator]

Using your statement as an example you should have a mark of shame whenever you buy food (whether it be from restaurants, grocery, butcher, etc.) as you took the shortcut in getting that food rather than spending the time to harvest and prepare it yourself.

Surely a better analogy could have been thought up. Even though I'm sure my way of thinking is the most correct.

[Elian]

Where are they officially selling level 90's? Oh wait, they aren't. They are offering to those who buy the Digital versions of WoD their free 90 ahead of time. It might be max level now, but won't be when it was originally going to go in effect. Also your level 90 is three raid tiers behind so you don't have an advantage.

There is no slippery slope. It's people trying to string together to support whatever theory they can come up with and use it as "facts" for their theory.

"and in the near future we’ll be testing out a feature that gives you the option to purchase a character upgrade directly" and
"but you’ll start seeing pieces of the process soon on the PTR"
from http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/124...port-1-16-2014

why waste resources testing something in PTR if they are not going to implement that in game. After reading that report im 95% sure that this feature will be available in game, unless a huge player outrage over this.

[Rioo]

No. Look at it this way, imagine never playing an MMO, and knowing WoW is the biggest, are looking to get into it. But wait, Wow has, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 expansions. Thats beyond daunting to any new player. The free level 90 is for those that want to start at the new content that they're buying the expansion for and get right into the action.

There will be very few long time players actually paying for a level 90, they know the ropes of the game and for the price, the time it takes to level really won't be that big of a deal.

When the players are happy to pay Blizzard 20 € for a mount I'm sure they'll pay whatever insane number they put on the boost service to avoid leveling. After all, people are getting new accounts just to be able to speed up leveling with RaF already.

[Trubo]

Surely a better analogy could have been thought up. Even though I'm sure my way of thinking is the most correct.

Both examples are absurd scenarios that illustrate the same basic thing; exchanging money for a service that normally is a time investment.

[notorious98]

Surely a better analogy could have been thought up. Even though I'm sure my way of thinking is the most correct.

Yes. Of course you feel your opinion is most correct. Doesn't make it any less of a subjective opinion though.

His analogy is equitable.

[theWocky]

This mentality is what makes me question what sort of people some MMO players are.

That they put so much "achievement" in leveling a character through waves of NPC's and grind to max level - like they should somehow feel "special" for essentially wasting time. MMO's are about playing with other people - friends - and if everyone is the same level, it just makes it that much more accessible.

Yes, there are going to be some "nubs" at level 90 to 100 - big deal. That's the only downside.

Leveling from 1-85 teaches you very little - nothing that can't be learnt from 90~100.

So, OP, why would you want to deliberately punish new players who just want to experience the games with their friends after being gone for a while?

Oh, is this like some "old school" initiation - "you must suffer because I suffered" ? Quite frankly, it's a form of elitism that should be eradicated because it's petty, juvenile and quite frankly ridiculous.

Rather have everyone at the same level of an expansion. More people to participate at higher level will make this probably one of the best expansions ever.

There won't be the resentment of returning players of having to catch up to their friends, can't do dungeons with their friends.

There is enough content for the expansion for level 90's, so why not just boost everyone up to lvl 90?

ALL expansions should do this. You buy an expansion, you should start at the minimum level of that expansion. You can then choose to go back and do the rest.

It doesn't affect you, so why make a big thing about it ?

[stgeorge78]

The game will be selling full sets of gear soon - there were icons in the store for it. They don't create those for "fun" - it's all coming and it was all in the SEC filings for the past 2 years. You guys just refuse to believe it. Blizzard is completely 100% sold out for total profit and they plan on wringing every last coin out of WoW they can because they are not sure about Titan.

[thunterman]

I don't think they have the balls to sell 90's before WoD. Once its launched I'm ok with it. I hate leveling, I've got 8 level 90's now and I really can't muster the effort to level the other 3. You would be levelling to 10 below the cap, not on the cap. You would still have 10 levels of fresh exciting content to go though, I'm all for it. If you dislike the idea you just don't buy it, same as the mounts. It doesn't effect anyone negatively. Just the people that want a shortcut have the option, I can only play a few hours a week, and about 90% of that time
I'm raiding, I'm damn sure I will be buying a couple 90 boosts.

[Whidbey]

The slippery slope is a lie

[Rekx]

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

yes. yes they are.. lol. its not official yet, but read the front page. its only a matter of time because..

That's not even remotely selling them.

it is extremely close to selling them. buy xpac, transfer 90s, win. so in essence, they will be. so, bliz is almost definitely going to simply sell them since people will go around and transfer and whatnot anyway.


edit: on topic sort of. i dont really care if they sell 90s. i mean, i think its kinda "cheating" in a way for people to just buy near max level toons. but, i also understand its just a big nuisance to level anyway. so F it. its really just a time saver if anything.
i wont personally buy a 90, but thats because i already have 7, haha.

[LilSaihah]

If WoW was like TBC now, it would be much less popular.

how do you know that
are you a wizard

OT I think actually selling level 90s is shooting themselves in the foot because they are actively disincentivizing themselves from making new sub-90 content.

[Ordinator]

Leveling from 1-85 teaches you very little - nothing that can't be learnt from 90~100.

I disagree. Leveling is the absolute best way to learn your class. When you earn a new spell 1 by 1, you put it in context with all the spells you previously have, and it also helps with setting up key binds to a degree.

When people pay money for their 90, they have to figure out how each spell will work with another all at once. I really believe that anyone paying for a 90 in a class they never leveled before are going to be awful. You just can't know your class inside and out that way.

[Trubo]

The game will be selling full sets of gear soon - there were icons in the store for it. They don't create those for "fun" - it's all coming and it was all in the SEC filings for the past 2 years. You guys just refuse to believe it. Blizzard is completely 100% sold out for total profit and they plan on wringing every last coin out of WoW they can because they are not sure about Titan.

There were also icons for what people believed to be the MoP Legendary Weapons that were datamined back in what, 5.0? How about all of those mounts/gear that also have a datamined existence beyond just Creature Model/Armor/Weapon/etc (Titansteel Defender for example) but never make it into the live game?

how do you know that
are you a wizard

OT I think actually selling level 90s is shooting themselves in the foot because they are actively disincentivizing themselves from making new sub-90 content.

Probably because they learned from Cataclysm how bad of an idea it was to create an extreme amount of low level content for a late expansion game.

[notorious98]

how do you know that
are you a wizard

OT I think actually selling level 90s is shooting themselves in the foot because they are actively disincentivizing themselves from making new sub-90 content.

What new sub-max level content have they ever come out with? The redesign of Azeroth? Pet Battles?

[Trubo]

I disagree. Leveling is the absolute best way to learn your class. When you earn a new spell 1 by 1, you put it in context with all the spells you previously have, and it also helps with setting up key binds to a degree.

When people pay money for their 90, they have to figure out how each spell will work with another all at once. I really believe that anyone paying for a 90 in a class they never leveled before are going to be awful. You just can't know your class inside and out that way.

People reach max level without fully understanding and/or utilizing their toolkit as it is, mostly because of how trivial that leveling content is in terms of difficultly because things die too quickly; good luck as a Feral Druid maintaining a 40 second Savage Roar while making sure every target has a 5 CP Rip and Rake rolling on them. Learning is most effectively done in upper-end PvE and PvP content.

[Deleted]

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

They are really. You will be able to buy a new account, battle chest and all the expansions, including WoD, and then buy a character transfer to your account for the character you boosted to level 90. That should be about 70-80 bucks.

[helmaroc]

It's not like it's level 100 sheesh. Chill out people.