Straight up, Best Expansion Leveling Since BC.

[kaminaris]

Careful with all that edge.

OT: I'm not at all a fan of the on-rails style of questing, but I understand why they might have found it necessary to force people through all the covenants. That said, the story is as good as any modern wow writing; which is to say slightly below average young adult fantasy.

I've recently did entire loremaster from vanilla -> MoP and the worst leveling experience was uironically... Wotlk. Disjointed, slow, not making sense, not fun and had the most bugs. Second after that was BC, definitely not fun and plain boring. Then there was a visible gap and MoP/Cata, which was overall pretty mediocre but had some good moments, then WoD which was just super streamlined and not very interesting. Then legion (first modern experience that was somewhat entertaining), bfa was around the same level.
Can't speak for SL as I have yet to finish it. But quite honestly in my book it will be a bit worse than BfA/Legion.

Now the disclaimer:
I did ALL the quests in a timespan of 1 month in order: Vanilla, TBC, Wotlk, Cata, Mop on one character.
And since WoD i am leveling 11/12 characters each expansion.

So overall score would be like:

Wotlk -> Tbc -> ... gap -> Vanilla (maybe due to cata reworks?) -> MoP/Cata -> WoD -> ...gap (modern wow stories) -> SL (probably) -> Legion/BfA

On beta i got stuck 3 times during leveling so I never had chance to finish it.

[WonderZebra]

But R.I.P. Area 52 and Draenor EU, those poor souls got so far behind. Again.

So my issues were realm wide?

[oplawlz]

I've recently did entire loremaster from vanilla -> MoP and the worst leveling experience was uironically... Wotlk. Disjointed, slow, not making sense, not fun and had the most bugs. Second after that was BC, definitely not fun and plain boring. Then there was a visible gap and MoP/Cata, which was overall pretty mediocre but had some good moments, then WoD which was just super streamlined and not very interesting. Then legion (first modern experience that was somewhat entertaining), bfa was around the same level.
Can't speak for SL as I have yet to finish it. But quite honestly in my book it will be a bit worse than BfA/Legion.

Now the disclaimer:
I did ALL the quests in a timespan of 1 month in order: Vanilla, TBC, Wotlk, Cata, Mop on one character.
And since WoD i am leveling 11/12 characters each expansion.

So overall score would be like:

Wotlk -> Tbc -> ... gap -> Vanilla (maybe due to cata reworks?) -> MoP/Cata -> WoD -> ...gap (modern wow stories) -> SL (probably) -> Legion/BfA

On beta i got stuck 3 times during leveling so I never had chance to finish it.

There's some room for preference in there for sure - bear in mind that for many of us the explorations/scattered quest hub style of gameplay is preferable in an mmo to the more curated experience.
For me the real joy in levelling new characters died with cataclysm, and it just became a chore after the first time through. I still appreciate the work the devs and designers put in, but after you've seen it once you're done.
That said I cant see anyone saying bc is the worst as less than counter-culture edgelord nonsense. "I think people like it too much, therefore I must drastically overstate how bad it is."

[Winter Blossom]

Idk, I’m still working my way through, but I couldn’t stand the intro quests in Maw. It dragged on and on, and I’m already dreading doing it on my alts.

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Terrible leveling. I spent 10 hours, did Bastion, not even full and already 55 level. It's just stupid. I want slow leveling. I want 500+ hours of leveling. I want thousands of quests. Every quest should require running to another side of the map and spending a hour grinding stuff. Not just running around and clicking abundant things. It seems that nothing will beat vanilla.

That sounds utterly horrible, tbh.

[MasterHamster]

You did 50-60 in 6 hours...?

[Thenatural]

The leveling is awesome IMO. You also never have to do it again if you don't want to.

BfA: Run to point A, pick up 3 quests. Complete quests. Bread crumb to next tiny area. 3 more quests.

I'm sure I'll welcome threads of fate on my alts but this is nowhere near bad and it's extremely fast unless you have never played a video game before.

[Cariboulou]

But R.I.P. Area 52 and Draenor EU, those poor souls got so far behind. Again.

I played from launch till 02:30 and didn't have any issues on Draenor after getting out of Org. Until then we had major delays on chat and phasing/vendors/etc but as soon as the expansion launched it was fine.

[slime]

So my issues were realm wide?

I got locked out of a server for the night after Bolvar sent me to SL. Could not get back into my main all night.
But I see here I might not have been alone, it was on the Stormrage realm. It has since been resolved and I could sign into him and start Escape from Maw this morning.

But I didn't really even want to experience the new xpac on my alts before my main so sorta a burst bubble last night, hopefully tonight is better.

[Stormbreed]

But R.I.P. Area 52 and Draenor EU, those poor souls got so far behind. Again.

A lot of my friends did get left behind, but its not far behind.

I was one of the lucky ones, I'm on area 52.

Got some sleep and now working on Char # 2

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You did 50-60 in 6 hours...?

Most in my guild hit sub 6 hours. I'm slower, and played in a group as resto.

[Tojara]

It felt fine to me.

Not sure where it ranks in my top picks, but it's up there. WoD is my favorite leveling expansion by a considerable margin.

The Maw sections were the only real bad parts of the leveling experience, with every single zone being pretty good. Normally I go through an expansion hating 1-2 zones, but Shadowlands doesn't really have a zone I hated from a leveling perspective (we'll see how everything goes when I have to run around potentially doing some world quests).

Took me like 9 hours to hit max level? I didn't have beta, or AAP installed, and just went through listening to most of the dialogue while watching all the cut scenes. I did stock up on gliders though, which are useful when you're playing a DK and your destination is like 600 yards away in the Maw.

[chiddie]

Terrible leveling. I spent 10 hours, did Bastion, not even full and already 55 level. It's just stupid. I want slow leveling. I want 500+ hours of leveling. I want thousands of quests. Every quest should require running to another side of the map and spending a hour grinding stuff. Not just running around and clicking abundant things. It seems that nothing will beat vanilla.

Don’t use mount, don’t run at all, just walk around and you’ll have the fantastic 500+ hours to do 10 levels experience.

Ah, also playing Classic is a good option.

[MasterHamster]

Most in my guild hit sub 6 hours. I'm slower, and played in a group as resto.

What a complete clownfiesta leveling has become, but thank you for your answer.

[Queen of Hamsters]

- I don't like on-rails leveling!
Translation: - I want leveling to be a disconnected, incoherent mess where I mAkE My OwN sToRy!

- I want leveling to be a ChAlLeNgE!!
Translation: - I can't handle content actually hailed as challenging by the devs and players!

[Katchii]

I don't understand how anyone can hail BC as a great leveling experience, period, let alone call it better than MoP, WoD, Legion or even BfA.

Think what you will about the stories of those expansions, but the leveling experience in those expansions was amazing.

With that said, I'm not even done with Bastion, and I agree that it's fantastic and might be better than previous expansions.

[Laqweeta]

- I don't like on-rails leveling!
Translation: - I want leveling to be a disconnected, incoherent mess where I mAkE My OwN sToRy!

- I want leveling to be a ChAlLeNgE!!
Translation: - I can't handle content actually hailed as challenging by the devs and players!

We may not agree on a lot, but I agree with this. I miss the 3 player group quests, where that number *actually* meant bring 3 players or fail.

[Video Games]

Nah. I always play with sound and music on for new expansions and patches but i couldnt for more than 2 hours because the music was either non existent or boring and the story is retarded. Turned them off and started watching youtube. 7.0 is still the best since bc

[Usernameforforums]

Im still in bastion but to me, this is the most boring starting experience from cata onwards. Idk. Maybe im just getting old.

[Orby]

easy there, Flash! Early days... The game is as bout as 'the best' as it is 'the worst' right now, anyone making either extreme statement is null and void especially this early on.

[Scrod]

The idea that we have to do the main storyline to “try out the covenants” is dumb. Covenants don’t matter in world content, and you get to try each one for what, 90 minutes?

For people like me who want dungeons to be an important part of leveling, this is Blizzard saying “too bad, do things our way!”

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easy there, Flash! Early days... The game is as bout as 'the best' as it is 'the worst' right now, anyone making either extreme statement is null and void especially this early on.

This is a fair point. At this point everyone loved WoD and was talking about how great the questing was (and to be fair, the WoD quest experience was very good - the problem with WoD was that after about a month everyone realized that Blizzard had blown their load at launch and there was nothing left.

[Mehrunes]

- I don't like on-rails leveling!
Translation: - I want leveling to be a disconnected, incoherent mess where I mAkE My OwN sToRy!

- I want leveling to be a ChAlLeNgE!!
Translation: - I can't handle content actually hailed as challenging by the devs and players!

Aren't you too busy with writing down the mathematical formula proving how SL is already the greatest expansion to any game ever and that Blizzard is god to have enough time to spare to straw-man the OP like that? Or is it just so obvious that the formula basically writes itself?

And for the record, I don't even agree with the OP.