Blizzard should create a 10-60 starting zone for new players

[Zardas]

Yes, they are available. But that's one of the problems. Some people go to Orgrimmar/Stormwind and they accidentally end up in Pandaria because they took the wrong quest.

They sure could improve the new player experience. At least put a little option to deactivate the "new player" experience and add a little warning when taking the introduction quests of each expansion. Or even better : add a little note on each quest dialogue specifying the corresponding expansion, or even patch.

It'd honestly be a lot better to have a new 10-60 experience, custom-designed to teach people about WoW, and to be as fun as possible for leveling in, than to force people into BfA. I get why they did that, but going into BfA from Exile's Reach is not a great experience, especially with how dull and slow the story-start is compared to other expansions.

Yeah, but as long as it's not mandatory. Exile's Reach is good, but it's stupid that players that want to start wow after playing the three warcraft rts have to skip 7 expansions.

[Eurhetemec]

Yeah, but as long as it's not mandatory. Exile's Reach is good, but it's stupid that players that want to start wow after playing the three warcraft rts have to skip 7 expansions.

I mean, how many players are coming in from WC3 now, in 2022? I'm guessing somewhere between zero and a few hundred per year. This isn't 2004. The vast majority of people joining WoW as new players are either:

A) New to MMORPGs and never played a WC game.

or

B) Coming from other MMORPGs and it doesn't really matter if they played a WC game.

I do think it's dumb that you have to go into BfA, but if they're going to force new players into a specific 10-60 experience, it should be a better one than BfA.

[Kokolums]

i used to love leveling but with the way they screwed it up with chromie time, phasing all over the place, xp boosts and zone scaling makes me barf. i just want simple leveling with other people. i hate leveling in modern wow. it feels like a vocal minority that truly likes this crap.

[Eurhetemec]

i used to love leveling but with the way they screwed it up with chromie time, phasing all over the place, xp boosts and zone scaling makes me barf. i just want simple leveling with other people. i hate leveling in modern wow. it feels like a vocal minority that truly likes this crap.

The trouble is you're complaining about a bunch of different stuff, added at different times, for different purposes, so it's hard to see what you actually want.

If you want to go back to a distant pre-Chromie time situation where leveling for a normal player took multiple days /played, then you are definitely in a tiny minority.

As for "it feels like a vocal minority likes it", well, that tells us a lot about you, and nothing about the game. Because Blizzard wouldn't have made all these changes, year-on-year, expansion-on-expansion, if it wasn't clear that it was helping their numbers. So unquestionably you are in the minority.

[Zardas]

I mean, how many players are coming in from WC3 now, in 2022? I'm guessing somewhere between zero and a few hundred per year. This isn't 2004. The vast majority of people joining WoW as new players are either:

A) New to MMORPGs and never played a WC game.

or

B) Coming from other MMORPGs and it doesn't really matter if they played a WC game.

I do think it's dumb that you have to go into BfA, but if they're going to force new players into a specific 10-60 experience, it should be a better one than BfA.

Not many people fit into this category, but it's still stupid that Blizzard has put work into reducing the possiblities for new players.

[Eurhetemec]

Not many people fit into this category, but it's still stupid that Blizzard has put work into reducing the possiblities for new players.

I mean, why do you think they did it, though?

One major problem with this messageboard in general is that there's this assumption that Blizzard's actions are "senseless", but the opposite is true, now, at least. The further you go back in history, the more "senseless" Blizzard is. But now they're pretty careful about their decision-making re: stuff like this. I get that some people dislike careful decision-making, it can feel more corporate, but it's not just clueless on Blizzard's part.

They limit your possibilities because they know that if they give new players the same choices, those players are going to get confused, and often have a bad experience. A lot of them would try to start with TBC for example, because one thing new players often do find out easily is the order of the expansions, and they'll have a much worse leveling experience with that than with BfA (and I say that disliking BfA's leveling experience!). Or they'll pick one that's slightly harder to get to, and be unable to work out how to get there, for example, so get stuck and give up (new players give up very easily).

So limiting choice makes sense if you're trying to actually retain new players.

[Derekbryer]

Just remove the majority of it. Have a start point that deals with learning the game, a starter class/role quest that helps learn abilities and roles. Maybe end at level 20. The next 10 levels would be current expansion.

After that you are max level and everything else is optional. Split different stories from old zones/expansions into chapters that completing gives cosmetic rewards/mounts. Maybe change archaeology to a more historian/chronicler role and the idea being you use chromie to get first hand experience of old events. Once a chapter is completed you get a bit of lore in a book explaining the events.

Then revamp the old world as end game content for the new expansion.

[MrLachyG]

That's a good question, pal. What I've got in mind is something pretty similar to the Exile's Reach experience. Adding also class quests.

No. Class quests are the absolute worst for a new player. The amount of people I’ve told in newcomer chat to abandon the quest that takes them to Shadowfang Keep is TOO DAMN MANY!! They can’t queue for it, nobody is doing a group in group finder for it and so it’s just a waste of time

[Zardas]

I mean, why do you think they did it, though?

One major problem with this messageboard in general is that there's this assumption that Blizzard's actions are "senseless", but the opposite is true, now, at least. The further you go back in history, the more "senseless" Blizzard is. But now they're pretty careful about their decision-making re: stuff like this. I get that some people dislike careful decision-making, it can feel more corporate, but it's not just clueless on Blizzard's part.

They limit your possibilities because they know that if they give new players the same choices, those players are going to get confused, and often have a bad experience. A lot of them would try to start with TBC for example, because one thing new players often do find out easily is the order of the expansions, and they'll have a much worse leveling experience with that than with BfA (and I say that disliking BfA's leveling experience!). Or they'll pick one that's slightly harder to get to, and be unable to work out how to get there, for example, so get stuck and give up (new players give up very easily).

So limiting choice makes sense if you're trying to actually retain new players.

It all depends by how you present the possiblities to the players : if you got a clean and clear UI you can easily lead the majority of new players into the "best" path, while still leaving a way for those who don't want to not follow it.

All they have is leave the two options (Exile's Reach and the original starting zones) in the character creation process, but put a big red warning sign next to the OG starting zone with a "NOT ADVISED FOR NEW PLAYERS".

[Nalam the Venom]

Why focus on leveling experience when they are selling level boosts to skip 90% of it?

Because very few people buy those

[hulkgor]

You didn't read my first post, it seems. I never asked for a brand new zone, just revamping old ones in order to save time and money for Blizzard. Just creating new storylines using old zones (more or less what they did in Legion with the artifact quest chains). I said from the beginning that it should be a revamp. Read my posts again, I think you missed my point somewhere.

Helping players and guide them is better than your "It's common sense, mate".

If you're gonna keep a conversation, at least read other people's posts, otherwise the debate is pointless.

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You don't know how it works for new players, do you? They can't choose, they go to BfA straight away.

I'm pretty sure one of the first quests you pick up when you get into the capital city is "Go talk to Chromie". You only actually start into BFA by manually picking up the BFA starting quest from a specific spot (Tides of War or something), whereas the Chromie one is one of the follow up quests from your arrival, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

[Triceron]

I think they should repurpose old raids into (solo-viable) story-driven leveling content.

Condense the open world questing, and have expansion content be punctuated in the raids. I mean, we're at a point where anyone needing to catch up on the lore should be able to literally go through the story as it was meant to be consumed, including going through major raids that are specific to the expansion's story.

ou never get a satisfying story experience out of going through an expansion if you didn't already experience it originally, or play classic. Even if this results in a condensed version of the story, it would at least be complete. Like, right now Timewalking through WOTLK would only really work for questing.

And in tuning these Story modes, retroactively add some NPCs fighting alongside you. And they can add some new flavor dialogue or some easter egg encounters to make it fresh for veterans.

[Kokolums]

The trouble is you're complaining about a bunch of different stuff, added at different times, for different purposes, so it's hard to see what you actually want.

If you want to go back to a distant pre-Chromie time situation where leveling for a normal player took multiple days /played, then you are definitely in a tiny minority

i disagree. i think what went wrong is Blizz tried to "fix" leveling by listening to all the people who hate leveling. By doing that, they ruined leveling, and everyone who enjoyed it fled. The people who hate leveling still hate leveling, and they lost a chunk of the playerbase.

leveling should be its own endgame. it should take YEARS to complete the leveling content.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Hello, fellas.

I've been thinking about the fact that after Exile's Reach, new players are thrown into Battle for Azeroth leveling, which is not a great start in terms of getting used to the game mechanics. I believe Blizzard should create a 10-60 starting experience, rather than just a 1-10 one. I don't advocate for a brand new zone, instead I believe a leveling experience in old zones that delves into a new quest storyline would be better. Maybe going through several continents and allowing players to get used to the game more easily.

What do you think about this?

This needs a lot of unpacking. What is missing from BFA leveling (or Dragonflight leveling, I predict this'll replace BFA as the default down the road)?

[Catscratch]

i disagree. i think what went wrong is Blizz tried to "fix" leveling by listening to all the people who hate leveling. By doing that, they ruined leveling, and everyone who enjoyed it fled. The people who hate leveling still hate leveling, and they lost a chunk of the playerbase.

leveling should be its own endgame. it should take YEARS to complete the leveling content.

They could add OPTIONS. They could do A LOT. Noone has insight at blizz anymore. It's a shell company.

[MoanaLisa]

The only rationale for doing this would be if Blizzard decided collectively that leveling genuinely needs to be something other than a trivial obstacle to get past before raiding. With current thinking—that leveling should be fast, non-consequential, and generally something that has to get done—this will never happen. They don't give one blessed fuck about the 10-60 leveling experience. If they did they would have fixed this travesty a long time ago.

One way to do it would be to take the maps/zones for EK, Kalimdor, and Northrend, not change them a lot, write a new story that would take a player on a tour of the world including soloing dungeons and raids for story-telling purposes and redo the quests. That's a big thing but probably less than what they did for Cataclysm as it wouldn't necessarily require a lot of new art.

Still, ha ha ha. They're not going to do this.

[rrayy]

99% it's coming to console bud. Xbox for sure. Blizzard has been releasing a shit load of console ports, the Microsoft take over is imminent, and they released controller support, new UI, and the special camera mode for people on controller. Even the new race/class is controller friendly.

Huge money on next expansion being on console.

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I get you. But the pitch was "fly in azeroth". I thing that was literally said in the commercials.

Prepare to lose your money. They are NOT porting an almsot 20 year old game to console. Other games are irrelevant to WoW. People need to stop with this.

[Bladesyphon]

The only rationale for doing this would be if Blizzard decided collectively that leveling genuinely needs to be something other than a trivial obstacle to get past before raiding. With current thinking—that leveling should be fast, non-consequential, and generally something that has to get done—this will never happen. They don't give one blessed fuck about the 10-60 leveling experience. If they did they would have fixed this travesty a long time ago.

One way to do it would be to take the maps/zones for EK, Kalimdor, and Northrend, not change them a lot, write a new story that would take a player on a tour of the world including soloing dungeons and raids for story-telling purposes and redo the quests. That's a big thing but probably less than what they did for Cataclysm as it wouldn't necessarily require a lot of new art.

Still, ha ha ha. They're not going to do this.

Nor should they.

As others have already pointed out - BFA works perfectly fine as an introduction to World of Warcraft. This isn't FFXIV, players don't need to have their hands held and shoveled through hundreds of hours of leveling content just to be allowed to play with their friends. A new player first starting the game is given a surprisingly in-depth tutorial experience on Exile's Reach, is then brought over to Battle for Azeroth, which has both solid question and solid dungeon design for a new player, then once they hit 60, they can jump into the new expansion without having to leap through a dozen hoops.

Bonus points - if they're curious about the other expansion content, they can simply go back to that content and play through the campaigns as they desire, or make a new character and level through them - all of it being completely optional, the way it should be.

Options are great, and the one thing WoW has always done well, and continues to do well, is offer players options with how they want to play the game. The last thing Blizzard needs to do is fix your "travesty" by spending months of development time and resources redoing the quest line from 1-60 and force new players through twenty years of truncated content. Let new players have the option to go and see what they want to go and see. Dragonflight in paritcular works exceptionally well with this, as the expansion is an entirely new jumping off point for the game's narrative.

[Sugani]

Blizzard should make the new expansions function with Chromie time right out of the gate from day one. Let new characters level from 1-Max anywhere, including the new zone. Just scale everything. Tie all the dungeon and raids to the significant quest chains in each major zone and make the attunement account-wide. If you're a new player, when they join, have them do exiles reach, then send them on their way to the Dragon Isles or whatever the current content is. I don't see any reason why it can't be this way; considering all the scaling tech Blizzard implemented, it's about time they take an approach like this.

[Amnaught]

Hello, fellas.

I've been thinking about the fact that after Exile's Reach, new players are thrown into Battle for Azeroth leveling, which is not a great start in terms of getting used to the game mechanics. I believe Blizzard should create a 10-60 starting experience, rather than just a 1-10 one. I don't advocate for a brand new zone, instead I believe a leveling experience in old zones that delves into a new quest storyline would be better. Maybe going through several continents and allowing players to get used to the game more easily.

What do you think about this?

I feel like Battle For Azeroth fits this role just fine. It could maybe stand to put Darkshore and Arathi more front-and-center.