There's been a lot of talk about "dictating" how people play the game, but the reality is that you are going to dictate how people play regardless. The rate of xp dramatically changes the state of the world whether you choose to run slower or not.
x1 will force people to take substantially more time to reach 60.
x5 will depopulate lower level zones and dungeons and will ruin the vanilla experience even if you choose to run at x1 yourself.
There is no "choose your own speed" as the max xp rate allowed affects the entire state of the world. Running at x1 on a x5 server is just handicapping yourself for added difficulty, it does not actually achieve the vanilla experience.
This isn't to trash Onyxia, only that I do not believe the server will be much like vanilla at all. It will essentially be end-game raids only, with no activity in lower level zones, dungeons, or PvP battlegrounds to speak of.
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Member
People like you ,with lots of free time are minority. Well, most of us DO NOT WANT x1
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Many of those of us who have all that free time will also be leveling alts...keeping the low levels active. :) There will also be those that don't realize the launch happened, and will miss the first week...or month...or even whole phases. In any case, I see the low levels having enough activity to be fine. I understand the concern...but I don't think it'll be the issue some are making it out to be.
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It's not about having free time. It's about not rushing.
If you don't have free time, it will simply take you longer to reach 60.
As I responded to CanZORLU, it's like skipping to the end of a game simply because you don't have as much free time. When you have spare time, you beat a game in a day. When you are busy, it might take you two months.
I really don't understand this need to jump to the end. When I have been busy myself, I've enjoyed slowly chipping away at my hobbies 30 minutes here, and hour there. When I've had the time, I've also enjoyed grinding out for hours on end.
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If leveling slow is where you find your enjoyment, YOU HAVE THAT OPTION. If you just wanna enjoy raids, you can get there faster. There will always be people joining the server "late" who missed launch, who are leveling alts, and who just enjoy leveling and delete and start again when they hit 60 that you'll have people to group with, regardless if you have 18 hours a day to play, or 1 hour a week. It'll be okay, you'll be fine...you won't be alone at your level.
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To me the solution is to give people more time to level up -- by waiting a while to progress to the next patch -- than to up the xp rate for people to instablast to 60. That way if you have limited time, you can simply play for a few minutes here and there and still not be left behind. If you don't have as much time, it will simply take you longer to get to 60 as you play WoW for short periods of time over several months.
I think the x5 xp people should just admit they hate leveling and want an instant 60.
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Member
Going at x1 on a x5 speed is just handicapping yourself, it is not at all like being on a x1 server.
With x5 people will blast past low levels, so yes there will be a limited pool at low levels.
You have to choose whether you want a server that is all end game raids - where people instablast to level 60 - or something that is more like vanilla/classic where there is an actual leveling process. It is not possible to do both. That's why regular warmane has a x7 speed server and a x1 speed server. They are entirely different and running x1 on Icecrown would be nothing like playing on Lordaeron.
As I said above, and it bears repeating, x5 people just hate leveling and want to skip right to 60.
That's fine if its what the people want, but I think Onyxia should be advertised as mainly an end-game, raid only server. Not really a vanilla server.
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I don't hate leveling. And I think there should be a time investment in characters and progression. I just don't agree that it should take 5-8 days /played to reach 60. 5x means that's only 1 day or so. Higher rates aren't as much a benefit to the no-lifers racing to 60 as it is for the average player who can't play 8 hours a day, but still wants to get there. Except it also means that the server doesn't stagnate for week(s) while the no-lifers have nothing to do waiting for the average player to catch up so a full raid groups can start pugging.
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Perhaps at x2 speed, but x5 is far too fast.
You can have a top heavy, almost end-game-only raiding server or you can have an actual leveling server that fits with how WoW was originally played. Not both.
Either way we can just agree to disagree.
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Member
A quick analogy.
People said similar things about fast travel in Bethesda games. Don't like it, don't use it. Problem is, once fast travel was implemented, it changed the way quests were designed. Quests started having you run back and forth all over the map (because Bethesda knew you could just fast travel) rather than be neatly contained in one local area as it was in earlier games. Simply "not using fast travel" wasn't an option, as the existence of fast travel changed the way the game was designed.
x5 servers versus x1 servers creates a completely different world and experience, even if you choose to play on a different speed than the default.
If Onxyia is going to be x5 that's fine, but people shouldn't pretend you can "just play on x1 speed" and have it be like vanilla.
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Moderator
I really dislike the "don't like it, don't use it" argument. It could justify something absurd such as a .kill button for everyone
Pretty much nothing about Onyxia is set in stone yet, and closer to launch we'll give more details on what the realm design will be. Personally, I'd love if the end design will be something inbetween, like x1 rates only for the first phase. And then bump it to x3 rates after you got a character to maximum level, or after the start of the second phase even if it's your first character. Then rates would be increased further at the second phase of each expansion, so to keep the overall amount of work to get a character to maximum level about the same, but x1 rates would remain for the first phase in leveling from 60-70, and then 70-80 to your first character. Just my personal idea.
In my view this would be a compromise for both sides, and most likely people from both sides would be divided in being both happy and angry at this.
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Nice, love to hear it. I like the idea of faster leveling rates for alts, and also speeding up the leveling as the end of the expansion approaches so that late comers or laggards can get to max level and experience end game before it is made obsolete.
I even don't mind faster rates at the highest levels of vanilla (45-60 or so) as those were a real slog to get through. x2 or even x3 wouldn't be terrible for me, even as someone who is (obviously) a rabid proponent of x1 rates. I still think x5 is just too darn fast, except maybe very close to the end of an expansion.
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I'm not fond with going 1x from the start (unless you want to promote a realm-first race for each class and each race, and 1x lasts for the duration of the realm firsts races give or take a few days)...but I wouldn't be upset if rates were lower (2-3x) for the first month (or even if it must, first phase) and then increase for people who are slower, or late to the launch/phase, for alts, and whatever else to catch up with. I do think that if rates are lowered for the start of TBC (and later WotLK), lower rates should only be for the "current level content" and characters leveling through older content (<60 for TBC and <70 for WotLK) would be "full" rate or whatever the final, higher rates are intended to be.
And of course, the XP Bar option to set your personal rate (up to the realm maximum) should always remain available...regardless if the max realm rate is 2x, 5x, or 50x.
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I agree with all of these. It seems the "gradual increase in leveling speed" template is fairly agreeable, only the precise numbers that are in dispute.
I like 2-3x tops, as these are around the rested bonus. So it fits in with the original game -- it's like you only played when rested. Once you get into 4+ it veers from the original content too much for my tastes. Now, once a new expansion is about to come out, that's different. It could be 10x for vanilla once TBC is about to drop and it wouldn't bother me anywhere near as much as 5x during the original run of vanilla.
2-3x is fine for me, though I'd like a period of 1x rates, and once a new expansion drops I don't care much how fast the leveling is for the older content.
Another suggestion for vanilla is to gradually increase leveling speed at higher levels. Levels are already gained very quickly at low levels and don't need a boost. Around 45-60 leveling is very slow and faster leveling would fit a lot better.
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Yeah...A lot of people have different opinions on the rates. I don't think 5x is too much. I understand it's too fast for some people, but it doesn't bother me. I tried it on the PTR, and I didn't have a problem with it. And with people being able to choose slower rates (0.5x, 1x, and 3x being the options iirc from the PTR), it lets people play at whatever rate feels right to them...if the leveling rate really matters to them. I also think there's going to be plenty of people who have less time to play (at the higher rates), and start late (miss the launch), or are working on alts, that I don't think leveling dungeon content will have a hard time finding groups, regardless if the max rate is 2x, 3x, or 5x. Even at 5x, it only really impacts you if you're trying to do re-queue multiple dungeons with the same group when players are doing different rates...if the group is level appropriate at the start of a run, they'll be level appropriate at the end even at 5x...they just might get an extra ding or two compared to you.
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