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."
You did 50-60 in 6 hours...?
Active WoW player Jan 2006 - Aug 2020
Occasional WoW Classic Andy since.
Nothing lasts forever, as they say.
But at least I can casually play Classic and remember when MMORPGs were good.
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.
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.
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
- - - Updated - - -
Most in my guild hit sub 6 hours. I'm slower, and played in a group as resto.
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.
- 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!
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.
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
Im still in bastion but to me, this is the most boring starting experience from cata onwards. Idk. Maybe im just getting old.
DRAGONFLIGHT BETA CLUB
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.
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.
As I play, one word keeps coming to mind: uninspired.
I don't hate it but I am far away from loving it. But, whatever, the leveling experience is a small part of any expansion. I'll hold off on final judgements until I see how the game flushes out at max level.
Thinking back:
I liked the leveling experience of MoP, WoD(really liked WoD leveling), Legion, and even BfA.