Leveling is broken in WoW.
As it stands, within World of Warcraft there are two “starting experiences” you can choose from, but if we’re being honest Blizz only wants you to go through Exile’s Reach because after you get done with that you will go straight into its accompanying expansion, The War Within…no, Dragonflight…Shadowlands? Oh right, Exile’s Reach was to ready new players for Battle for Azeroth but instead Blizz launches new players into Timewalking, where players can choose an expansion (thats not the current one) to level through but dont get too comfortable in that expansion because once you reach that 10 level range of the newest expansion (70 for TWW) you will be kicked out of your leveling and will have to head into the newest expansion. Hopefully you weren’t captivated by the villians of TBC, Lich King or Cata, or excited for the faction conflict in MoP and the resolution of that story in WoD, or how about getting to enjoy your class fantasy in Legion, because as soon as you ding that minimum level you WILL be kicked out like an unwelcomed visitor at a wedding.
This problem is only exacerbated with Blizz’s newest content: Lorewalking, because Blizzard, if they wanted to admit it or not, recognized the shortfall in Timewalking and the horrible way that not only destroys player leveling but completely comprehension absurdly difficult to do because you are only able to go through ONE expansion out of: TBC, WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion, BFA, SL and DF; NINE expansions. Now, can you manually go to these leveling areas and simply NOT do Timewalking, of course, but new players are being guided to do Timewalking, and then to the recent expansion. To “correct” this shortfall Blizzard decided to come out with Lorewalking which, in theory, will show players important lore moments in WoW, except those “important lore moments” are already in WoW, how do I know this? Simple when you do the Lorewalking content you REDO quests you have already done before. You REDO dungeons you already have done before. The only “new” thing in Lorewalking is the specific scenarios where you playing as someone else. Blizzard threw a band-aid on a wound of their own making.
Fixing this is simple: take out Timewalking and Lorewalking. Stretch out levels again to their pre-Shadowlands numbers, because levels are not just a number next to a player, they are an indicator of how long you have been playing but, ideally, where they are at in WoW’s story and incorporate a Main Story Quest that will guide players through the story and major lore moments in WoW. But that might be “too hard” for a company that earned $15 MILLION on their Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur mount, so the “easy” route would be for them to simply let players, who get done with Exile’s Reach, just go through BFA, SL (horrible i know), DF and then make their way to TWW.
Does this solve the lore problem? No, thats a hole of their own making, but doing either of these (preferably the former) would go a long way to ensure players know the lore, even if its only a little, and make levels worthwhile, because how do you tell the difference between a level 80 who has been playing since Vanilla and a level 80 who has been playing for a week? You tell me, because ideally when playing an RPG if you’re the max level and in the newest expansion, that was an indicator that you knew what was going on, but in WoW, things like story comprehension for players are left by the wayside in favour of chasing the ESport dream with Race to World’s First, Mythic Dungeon Races and Arena PvP.
That was my little rant, I leave the floor for you guys. I don’t usually leave forum rants but the Legacy of Arathor patch was such an abomination of congealed waste that I needed to vent about it. This was just about the Lorewalking part that I believe is another problem Blizzard made for themselves and I may make another forum post about the Legacy of Arathor proper next week because that abysmal leftover of storywriting abortion is too insulting to not talk about.
anyways thanks for reading.
