Blizzard details $60 level boost in upcoming 'World Of Warcraft' expansion

[Shawn Knight]

World of Warcraft fans around the globe are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Warlords of Draenor, the latest expansion pack in the popular MMORPG. The expansion increases the character level cap to 100 and gives players the option to boost one character to level 90 immediately so they can start on a more level playing field.

But what if you want to boost a second, third or fourth character to level 90? Well, that’ll cost you $60 a pop – a decision that’s left many up in arms.

As Blizzard lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas recently told Eurogamer, they knew that as soon as the boost was announced, there would be demand to boost more than one character and it’s awkward to tell someone to buy another copy of the expansion just to get a second level 90 character.

$60 per character certainly seems like a lot of money but Hazzikostas said a big part of it was not wanting to devalue the accomplishment of leveling. Leveling can take dozens if not over 100 hours and they didn’t want to diminish that with a cheap boost.

If they wanted to sell as many boosts as possible, they would have lowered the price to like $10 but then, hardly anybody would ever level a character again.

Like others before it, the decision won’t appease all players – that’s simply not possible. Some are interested in the boost at a lower price point while others are fearful that it might ruin the game completely.

What’s your take on the level boost?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/55808-blizzard-details-60-level-boost-in-upcoming-world-of-warcraft-expansion.html

 

[Mister_K]

Ancient news, I don't see an issue with this, you can already pretty much do this.

 

[veLa]

I'm more of an FPS guy so I don't care for too much for MMORPGs. I also never liked having to pay for a game $60 for a game disc and then not being able to play because they want to squeeze another $15 out of my wallet. Although I must give props to Activision-Blizzard for keeping WoW recent. Each expansion pack literally breathes fresh air into the game and that allows long time player to continue to enjoy the game. I also totally understand why they have to make the level boost cost so much. If you could do it for every character, there would be no point to even playing the game since you'd already be a boss.

 

[Bannhammer]

I'm glad they're charging money, without it there would almost literally be no reason to explore the world in World of Warcraft, seriously almost everything in game can be done through a menu, which in my opinion has killed the game.

I think Blizzard's breathing new life into the game is more of a ploy to attract the lowest common denominator and boost subscriptions, and in the process alienate and lose their core crowd. I recently re-upped my account and the whole game is so far from what it had been (not need to GO to the dungeons, sense of community is all screwed up and an incredibly dumbed down talent tree) I can hardly stand playing it. I think the massive drop in subs was because they somehow managed to take all the fun out of it.

To get back on topic here it shouldn't affect the game too much as the only people I can see buying this service are older people who don't have time to level and want to play. It wouldn't work years ago where after hitting the max level you really needed to buckle down and do even more work to really experience the game, but now a days all the end game stuff is practically given away and you can pretty casually play it (though I don't see why you'd want to).

 

[TomSEA]

This is one of the reasons I stopped playing MMORPG's. To me, leveling up was all part of the process and the adventure of playing the game. But for many, many others - it was a "race to the top." And that created problems like macroing, gold farming, etc., that ruined the game for people who just wanted to play it straight up.

It seems so asinine to me to pay $60 to insta-level a character. Why are you even playing the game? What's the point if you already bypassed 95% of the content and own most of the major gear and weapons?

The whole thing is just stupid.

 

[Mister_K]

This is one of the reasons I stopped playing MMORPG's. To me, leveling up was all part of the process and the adventure of playing the game. But for many, many others - it was a "race to the top." And that created problems like macroing, gold farming, etc., that ruined the game for people who just wanted to play it straight up.

It seems so asinine to me to pay $60 to insta-level a character. Why are you even playing the game? What's the point if you already bypassed 95% of the content and own most of the major gear and weapons?

The whole thing is just stupid.

leveling up your 2nd, 3rd or even 4th character through is nothing exciting or fun, you have done the content its simply much better to skip through via this option. People have been skipping content for a very, very long while know. If you wish to play the game slowly and experience the fun, over and over well there is nothing stopping you.

Why? Who wants to go through the same boring content again and again? This isn't SWTOR where quests are all different and interesting. I don't understand how questing is 95% of the content? Most of the content is at levels cap (or previous expansion dungeons and raids).

 

[SchrödingersCat]

This is one of the reasons I stopped playing MMORPG's. To me, leveling up was all part of the process and the adventure of playing the game. But for many, many others - it was a "race to the top." And that created problems like macroing, gold farming, etc., that ruined the game for people who just wanted to play it straight up.

It seems so asinine to me to pay $60 to insta-level a character. Why are you even playing the game? What's the point if you already bypassed 95% of the content and own most of the major gear and weapons?

The whole thing is just stupid.

I'm with you for the most part, but I think we've hit a point where many (most?) gamers know what it is to grind and they don't want to do it anymore. That element of gaming isn't fun and there's nothing adventurous about repeating the same fetch quest for the 20th time and there really isn't a race to the top at this point. I think many WoW players are in it purely for the end game content and this is another way to make it easier for them to get there (Blizzard has made it a lot easier to level the normal way too).

I bet a lot of people will come back, pay the $60 for a high-level character, explore the new expansion and then abandon the game again in 2-3 months.

 

[treetops]

I spent most of the time with my max level characters in wow waiting around for a raid to form and travelling. World of waiting. Another thing people forget is that wow is 11 years old or so.

I had fun while the raid was actually going on but seriously most of the end game pvm is waiting. Unless you get into a good guild and revolve your life around the guild schedule. Even then you wait a lot.

I really liked heroics though, minimal waiting.

Making high end heroics would b a nice way of avoiding revolving your life or waiting forever.

I think they should make a raid simulator to let people practice raiding and if they pass the simulator with the right gear score they can auto match make across all the realms to find raid groups.

 

[TS-56336]

I don't really see the positives in paying to skip 90% of a game. Or am I just weird?

 

[wastedkill]

I don't really see the positives in paying to skip 90% of a game. Or am I just weird?

Multiboxers like me, people who cba to lvl their other chars, people who are too busy to lvl and wanna raid, people who have only 1 char to lvl and dont have time to do it with raiding and all.

Lots of people! Gold selling is still a good way to get gold fast and cheap I remember me and my mate jack spent atleast £3000 on WoW to gold selling to transfers from realm & race xD

 

[Kibaruk]

Well I've played world of warcraft I think back in 2005 and this makes total sense, you had to invest a lot of time to reach lvl 60 at that time, maybe a month of hardcore questing maybe more or less and this is an endgame kind of game, you won't do anything worthwhile until you reach max lvl and you farm and grind your way up to top tier equipment, both for pvp or pve. Now it's not 60 lvls, now you are talking about 90 and I say omg it will be a long time before you can reach instances or battlegrounds or whatever crazy kids are doing today.

You would take too much time to get to the fun zone of the game.

Back in the day there used to be a lot of chinesse farming and "solutions" to level the characters for you, of course all of these were prohibited by blizzard and you could get your account banned. Now it's nice you can be at lvl with at least one class you'll find a lot of groups to quest, do instances, and in no time to start raiding or kicking *** in battlegrounds.

 

[Darkshadoe]

I dont mind this as long as the person doing it has went through most of the game. I used to power level people on City of Heroes but only if they had went and played for a while. If it was someone new to the game then I didnt.

 

[Guest]

Why would anyone have problems with other people paying; If you don't like it what is it to you? You respect someone more for grinding than paying, who cares? If you want respect, level up in real life.

 

[Darkshadoe]

Why would anyone have problems with other people paying; If you don't like it what is it to you? You respect someone more for grinding than paying, who cares? If you want respect, level up in real life.

If they wanna pay, more power to them. Part of any MMO is teamwork. Would you want someone on your team who paid $60 to level up and not know how to play their character? If they aren't going to take the time to grind and learn the game, then what is the point of playing in the first place?

 

[Kibaruk]

If they wanna pay, more power to them. Part of any MMO is teamwork. Would you want someone on your team who paid $60 to level up and not know how to play their character? If they aren't going to take the time to grind and learn the game, then what is the point of playing in the first place?

It's as simple as kicking off party and getting a new guy, that's one of the things from an mmo, it's a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game so you will find players who have been through lvl 1 to 3000 and they will be as bad as someone who has been playing for a week.

 

[Darkshadoe]

It's as simple as kicking off party and getting a new guy, that's one of the things from an mmo, it's a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game so you will find players who have been through lvl 1 to 3000 and they will be as bad as someone who has been playing for a week.

True, but 9 times out of 10 those people who have went though the game have at least learned the fundamentals of the game. I've seen brand new players sit and beg to be power leveled, somebody helps them out, and they just go AFK while its being done. Then, when they get the level they want, not know what they are doing or not even figure out the best way to use their powers and/or equipment.

It doesn't matter to me how they level, but at least be a little knowledgeable about the game and the character you are playing and like you said, there is always the "kick" button.

 

[Kibaruk]

Also once you start doing more "important" stuff in the game, like raids or heroic is as simple as checking what gear they have, there's not much more than that.
They can be powerleveled, they can hire someone to level them up, in the end blizzard is removing those options so it's more about "legally" leveling.

 

[Guest]

They should have a staggered buy option:
$10 to lvl 1 to 50
$20 to lvl 51 to 70
$30 to lvl 71 to 90
The first several lvls go quickly and are fun, as well as teaching you how to use and spec your toon. Upper lvls require lots of grinding and endless questing that I would consider paying to avoid.

 

[Mister_K]

True, but 9 times out of 10 those people who have went though the game have at least learned the fundamentals of the game. I've seen brand new players sit and beg to be power leveled, somebody helps them out, and they just go AFK while its being done. Then, when they get the level they want, not know what they are doing or not even figure out the best way to use their powers and/or equipment.

It doesn't matter to me how they level, but at least be a little knowledgeable about the game and the character you are playing and like you said, there is always the "kick" button.

Good ol days of powerleveling people for gold. Could easily make couple of K back in TBC and some WotLK offering powerleveling service from 1-60.

Prot Pala with mah Skullflame!

 

[reelbigschlong]

Looks like WoW is now the next "pay to win" game. Sad....

 

[Kibaruk]

Looks like WoW is now the next "pay to win" game. Sad....

Pay to level and pay to win are two completely different things. When they start selling tier tokens you can say pay to win, untill that time it's just acommodating to users who have not played in a while and would like to come back to the game, or new players who are probably not going to spend a couple months or more to get from lvl 1 to 100.