World of Warcraft’s new leveling system removes the greatest barrier to...

Instead of fancy back-of-box features like a new class or a race in World of Warcraft: ShadowlandsBlizzard is focused on revising old parts of the game. The most obvious example of this is the new character customization system currently in the Shadowlands Pre-patch. But Blizzard has also been completely redesigned World of WarcraftIt’s an ancient level system and one of the biggest game changers we’ve seen in years.

Before leveling pre-patch World of Warcraft It took 80 hours or more for new players to reach a character 1-120. But in the new pre-patch it took me less than 20.

How the leveling has changed World of Warcraft

Raids and dungeons are the highlights of World of Warcraftand many players see leveling as an obstacle to the best content in the game. There’s a reason players want to hit the max level as soon as possible.

In front Battle for AzerothI decided to lead a new lightforged draenei warrior through the level experience. When I hit the max level, my playing time for this character was 60 hours. That’s 60 hours for an experienced player with heirloom items that increased my experience gain.

By doing Shadowlands Before the patch, Blizzard changed almost everything about this process. You have lowered the current maximum level to 50 – and at the same time to 60 Shadowlands Drops. And they added an hour long tutorial experience that walks players from levels 1-10. For levels 10-40 they implemented a new time travel experience that the players call “Chromie time”. Players choose an expansion they want to level through, and Chromie the time the gnome sends it. When you’re done with that one expansion story, you will be at the highest level and ready for Shadowlands.

I was curious about this new system and decided to try it out with a character I was considering playing the lead Shadowlands: my vulgan shaman. Since I’m playing an unlockable race that is not available to new players, I’ll have to skip the opening sequence and start at level 10. I put on my heirloom equipment – the experience bonus has been removed and now only offers bonuses such as more rested XP after logging out or combat bonuses – and traveled to the Mists of Pandaria Extension.

In less than a week, I went through four main zones to complete my leveling experience. I’ve searched through Pandaria before so I was familiar with the route. But I didn’t push for a quick time either. Earlier this week, I reached level 50 after 18 hours. If you add the one hour tutorial you skipped and then subtract an hour for AFK time, I have just under 20 hours.

Upon graduation, I found that I had gone for one of the slowest of the modern leveling extensions and I skipped several time-saving measures. Some players can complete the trek in less than 10 hours under the right circumstances. It is transformed Impressive into a completely reasonable time sink and has removed the biggest barrier to entry in the MMO.

New players to the Impressive wrinkles

I love all of the classes in World of Warcraft, and I have almost a maximum version of each. I am a blatant “altaholic” and have spent a ton of extra cash over the years to buy maximum level character boosts. This new leveling system changes that for people like me. If I want to balance a new character, I can realign it from the ground up in the time it takes for a modern single player experience. It opens up other classes for long-time players who never wanted to bother going through the miserable level experience again.

But the real boon here is for new players. i came to World of Warcraft late – at the end of Mists of Pandaria But I’d been trying for years to convince friends to play with me and level a character. The only reason my group started playing was because of a non-existent leveling bonus called “Refer a Friend” which dramatically increased the leveling speed when playing with real friends. Even with a friend, it was a long, lousy slog.

That 80-120 hour barrier to entry was a daunting wall that forced players to sacrifice dozens of hours before getting to the “good stuff”. And while the promotion usually pays off, many players give up before they get there. But now I can recommend a friend to play World of Warcraft and know they can have a good experience in the time it takes to complete the latest version God of War. It’s the most welcoming change we’ve seen from Blizzard in years, and it’s a huge boon to that Impressive Veterans and the Impressive curious.