A change of pace

For the most part I can assume that most readers of this blog have at least one level 70. That being said, I think even if you don't, you probably know enough about the game that you will understand this topic.

Blizzard really has a knack for including well thought out game mechanics, and really thinking through how the game will be played and how to keep the players interested. Even though the level cap seems so far away when you first start out, there is no lack of a means to get there that will keep you motivated.

We start out in our race's starting zone and the levels fly by. On your first character it seemed to take a while, but now you can probably get past level 10 within a couple hours. At this point you also get your first class specific quest and it usually gives you a new ability.

Moving on to the next zone the leveling goes a little slower, but you have a lot more quests to do, and those help keep you occupied. Storylines start developing more, and if the game hadn't sucked you in already it probably is starting to now. This zone lasts roughly another 10 levels and by the time you leave you are around level 20 and many classes get another class specific quest.

Now the game has you. You've spent talent points, learned lots of new skills, and are about to be heading into contested zones (where the other faction can attack you on PvP servers). You also have some options here. You can move to the closest zone, or there are a few other zones in the same level range you can choose from.

There aren't really more quests for you at this point than previously, but with more zones to choose from you can actually quest in multiple zones to make up for it and gain those levels. It's nice to have a change of scenery, and you will be getting them more often as you go.

This tends to be the way it goes through the zones from now on. Some zones are larger than others, and span wider ranges of levels. STV is considered a level 30-45 zone whereas going into the higher levels you run into Silithus which is only for levels 55-60.

Why make the higher level zones span less levels? Easy. That change in scenery I was talking about earlier? Well since the amount of experience needed to reach the next level increases as you go, you will be gaining levels very slowly compared to when you first started. Sure you tend to find more quests to do, but they don't completely make up for the slower leveling rate.

But it doesn't stop there. You also have many more zones to choose from, and the increased speed of your mount makes them feasible options. Finished Winterspring and still need to gain a couple levels? Head over to Silithus and finish those up. On the same token you could also go to the Burning Steppes or EPL, it's your choice.

The Burning Crusade continued this trend with Outland. If you played to 70 you know what I'm talking about. The leveling is much slower. Just look how many quests those zones offer, and instead of the 5 or so levels you would have gained before 60 you only gain 2.

Outland has 7 zones, and you only need to 10 more levels (12 if you went in at 58). This is because it takes so long to gain a level that by the time you tired of the zone you have only gained 2. Luckily, at this point you are ready to move on to the next zone where you can start the process all over again.

Wrath of the Lich King has even more zones, and still only 10 more levels, meaning you still probably spend the same amount of time in each zone, but they will give you even less levels.

This isn't some sort of trickery on the part of Blizzard to keep us into the game. It's about smart game design. What fun would it be if we were still spending 5 levels per zone? That would mean each expansion would only have 2 or 3 new zones, and is that really worth all the waiting?

What I'm really saying is that after seeing how this all works it makes perfect sense, but for me it only makes sense after the fact. I guess that's why I don't work for Blizzard...that and computer programming is much too tedious for me.