My Life As A Gamer: The 9.0 Pre-Patch Leveling Experience In "World of Warcraft"

This week in World of Warcraft, the pre-expansion patch for the upcoming Shadowlands expansion dropped. Since I still have game time, I logged in to see what was up.

For those who are new, this time--"pre-patch" as it's called--is when all of the revised game mechanics and character options are put into the game but anything specific to the new expansion's content is not yet available. (It's actually in your game files; you just can get to it.) There's usually some limited time event that goes on related to the new expansion; this time, it's Scourge Invasion 2.0 because the man responsible for control said Scourge got overthrown and his means of control--The Helm of Domination--destroyed.

Yeah, I think it's dumb also. They literally made that shit up a few years ago because they painted themselves into a corner and this was their solution.

This is also a time for players that skipped the current expansion to come back and see if what's coming sparks their interest while they catch up, since they won't need to bother much (if at all) with anything specific to the current expansion. (Keep reading; I'll get more specific on that.) All of the changes to the leveling process are in now, and having done them they are fantastic.

First, this took me 20 hours to do. (That's slow, by the way, I've seen folks doing this in half the time.)

That's one of the new Allied Races for the Horde: the Vulpera. I leveled as a Hunter not because I needed a Hunter alt (I have two just on that server on the Horde side already.) but because I wanted to test the new leveling experience and playing a Hunter is one of the easiest ways to do it.

So what is this?

It's the answer to a long-standing criticism: new players take way too long to join the party at endgame where the real game is.

This is why the character level range got squished from 1-120 to 1-50 (1-60 in Shadowlands). 1-10 is the Starting Zone experience, and almost all characters now have the option to use the same Starting Zone to get going: Exile's Reach.

Exile's Reach is a tightly-guided tutorial experience aimed squarely at brand-new players and returning players who've been away so long that they might as well be new. All of the tutorial tips are hard-enabled; this can be annoying for veterans leveling an alt if they lack patience (i.e. most hardcore PVP and Raid players; my altoholic bros and Auction House players tend to be more chill). It's also a modern AAA videogame cinematic experience; don't skip the cutscenes the first time through, as you get answers to questions like "Where are we, why are we here, and what are we looking for?" This zone is inaccesible to players past Level 10, aside from any unfixed bugs or other glitches, and Pandaren that opt for this zone must declare an Allegience (Alliance or Horde) before entering play.

The new player experience also has a tutorial experience for using instanced content; the climax of the zone is a miniature dungeon, which you actually can do in groups but are able to solo, and you do queue up for it using the Dungeon Finder tool. This dungeon experience has core concepts in it--tank, heal, DPS, don't stand in the fire (not a joke), etc.--so new players get some in-your-face experience at what it feels like herein. It also has gear rewards whose cosmetic appearance cannot be found elsewhere; this is deliberate and meant to entice returning players to level new alts here, leading to another new feature.

Veteran Players that met a modest Achievement requirement can volunteer to be Guides. Guides and New Players gain access to a specialized chat channel, "Newcomer" with "Guide" or "Newcomer" as tags and you'll be expected to field questions from new players on what to do, where to go, how this or that works, etc. To volunteer, talk to the Guide Recruiter outside the Embassay in Orgrimmar (Horde) or Stormwind (Alliance). It is also expected that requests for help are also to come in this chat channel, and a new--but existing--feature is ready-made for helping.

That feature is Party Sync. It's been in the game for a while (and shamelessly copied from Final Fantasy XIV), and it works as you expect: higher-level character joins a party with a lower-level character, syncs (scales) down to their level, and can now participate with the lower-level character as if at that level (and any rewards will scale back up when desynced). This matters, because the new leveling experience takes the code behind this feature and expanded upon it to good end.

When you reach Level 10, you'll be sent to Orgrimmar/Stormwind. New Players are automatically shunted into going straight into Battle For Azeroth; veterans rolling an alt have a choice, which involves going to the Embassy and talking to Chromie the Brone Dragon (in her Gnome form) and choosing any other past expansion. You'll get the prompt for the introduction quest to that expansion, and everything in that expansion will be scaled to your character's level; full XP for quests, mobs that you kill, etc. all the way to Level 50.

You can also go back to Chromie and talk to her again to swap between past expansions; same intro quest popup happens every time. This can be used to speed-level since these quests often are free XP and not insignificant at that. You will also auto-sync if you join a party with someone synced to an expansion other than yours; this is good if you want to quest in one expansion, but run dungeons from another since otherwise you cannot run dungeons outside the timeframe you chose. (N.B.: "Cataclysm" means you do 1-30 in the post-Cata revision of the old zones, and 30-50 in the new Cata zones like Hyjal.)

You get your mount at L10 now, dirt-cheap. L20 is Fast Ground Speed. L30 is Basic Flight access. L40 is Fast Fight. Flight now only has two levels; any character at the old 280% speed got a free upgrade to 310%. Only L40 is expensive (5K gold, minus Reputation discounts); the rest is dirt cheap.

Death Knights and Demon Hunters now start at L8 in their respective class-specific starting zones; you will be L10 when you finish and exit to level like everyone else.

Alled Race alts start at L10 (incl. Death Knights) and can get going right away.

Any questlines specific to a given Expansion (The Class Hall campaign for Legion, War Campaign in Battle For Azeroth, etc.) will not come until you can fly, and it will be gated after that such that you won't be able to complete what was old leveling content until L40 or 45. Gear that tied to the special power mechanic for an expansion (Azerite Armor using the Heart of Azeroth) is reserved for L50 when that power mechanic unlocks, if available at all (RIP Artifact Weapons).

The overall difficult of play ranges from "You can't AFK" to "Pay attention or you'll get pasted", with the latter more apparent if you do dungeons, but still enjoyable even if you've done that before.

Note for speed-leveling: According to testers, Warlords of Draenor is still fastest overall at 10 hours even with the 90% nerf of XP gain from Treasures, with Legion and Battle For Azeroth tied at 12 hours. I took my time, as I'm a zone completionist and not running an optimized route in the least, so 20 hours from 10 to 50 is more likely for most players and that's plenty fine. This Vulpera alt--wearing the Heritage Armor of his race and using one of the skins for the Legion Weapon for Marksmanship Hunters--is ready for the Scourge Invasion and going into the realm of the afterlife in Shadowlands.

(And yes, his name is a reference to Simo Hayha; he is a Marksmanship Hunter.)

Would I recommend trying things out? Sure. Buying into Shadowlands now? No. Let the vets be the first wave through and let you know if it's worth the money. The Beta is still up, so they're still working on content, and that's worrisome. I'll let you know if (and if so, when) it's worth it.