I know this is offtopic...

[Vahnaynay]

The free level 90 character i think is a cool idea.
Yea someone new gets a new toon, but they still have to go from 90 to 100. Plus, there are some people who play for years and are terrible still.

I see alot of bitterness from people just in mentioning the name WoW.


Haters gonna hate

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Honestly, most players in WoW today are returning players —the game must have had something like 22M players over the years I believe, so the 7M or so that still play it or will play the next expansion did play WoW at some point during the 8 years of existence of the game. You just don't see newcomers in WoW, or very very few, the game is too old for that —I suppose most newcomers to MMO play newer games such as TOR, GW2, Tera, and of course XIV currently (I've seen many players who never touched an MMO before in this game). Of the players that return to WoW, most don't really like to have to grind their way up to the newest, current expansion (for instance Lv90 at the beginning of the next expansion) in order to get to play the new content. That's the downside of vertical progression games, it's just often boring to do the outdated content. Depending on when they left, they may have to go through a whole expansion or two (most actually left during BC or WotLK), and may not really appreciate that since WoW's low-level areas are pretty much void of interest once the expansion is outdated. Remember there's no scaling whatsoever in this game, so your up-to-date friends can't really come and play with you either.

It's a bit like in FF XIV, where most people praise the fact that you don't have to roll a new character to get another class to level 50: you just change your weapon and skip all the content, then proceed on to just "grinding" your way up to 50 through fates. Well, in WoW, it's the same, you just "grind" your way through a zillion quests (nerfed, giving you way more XP than they did originally, but it's still a long road that isn't really enjoyable as it were when it was current content), until you reach the beginning of the new content.

So I think it's pretty smart; it's a way to tell old players: "come back, you skip the old content, you get to enjoy the new content right off the bat". I know it's a valid incentive for me to come back, because even if I have a couple of characters at level 90, I get to try a new class without having to go through all the older content that I know way too much to enjoy re-doing again. It's a "small gift" that may play in favour of my return.

About "learning": it's not really a problem, since all guides are made for max-level characters usually; your rotations will change during your leveling, and eventually it's just as easy to start with a level max character (I know I don't read guides until I have reached max level, it's just useless). The leveling is more of a journey, and again, that journey is only really enjoyable when you're on current in WoW, which will be 90->100 in the next expansion.

[Astrus]

I'm kinda out of the loop as far as WoW is concerned but isn't what you're describing the same thing they already do with the Scroll of Ressurrection [read: reactivate your account promotion] thing?
Last time I was asked if I wanted to reactivate my account I think I was offered a free server/faction transfer and a levelup to 80 for one of my characters [characters with that new class excluded but those have a built-in exp boost].
I also seem to remember a friend who did come back to the game making a new level 1 character and having that pushed to 80 as all his other characters were already at 85 at the time.
So really all they do now is make the service accessible to everyone, not only those who were gone from the game for a certain period of time.
This is not a push to endlevel as some seem to misunderstand, endgame is still an expansion away. That's enough time to get acquainted with the class.

Actually, how is what we're discussing here that much different from people FATE grinding to 50 in a matter of days and only knowing how to aoe?

Experience with the character shouldn't even be a factor as far as that game is concerned. The game used to be really accessible, there's a plethora of guides and addons out there to help those who need the help and, at least when I still played, LFD folks were all either overgeared or terribad with a handful of reasonable people inbetween anyway.

[Naunet]

Honestly, most players in WoW today are returning players

This is likely the right of it. Most folk who are gonna be buying the next WoW expac have already played WoW for at least a couple previous expansions. They know how things work; it's just a matter of getting them caught up to experiencing actually new stuff as quickly as possible. It's a smart move. And like they said in the panel, for most folk, it's just gonna be one of those "Hey, now I have a new level 90 alt woo" things, like how the scroll of resurrection boosts often were used for.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

@Astrus & @Naunet: Exactly. 100% agreed.

From Astrus: "Actually, how is what we're discussing here that much different from people FATE grinding to 50 in a matter of days and only knowing how to aoe?"
—> Indeed. A good player will learn to play its class correctly once she's 50 (respectively 90 in WoW), and a bad player will not learn anyway even if there were a million levels to up. And even then, it's my contention that being a "good" player isn't a innate ability or some sort of gift or talent that some of us have and others don't; it's above all a matter of being open-minded, of trying —reaaaally trying— to understand how a game (or a class) works, and to be humble enough to see where you're doing the right thing, and where you're not. I remember many games where I met players that were undoubtedly very bad, but it usually was so because no one told them exactly what to do, how, and what they were not doing well. In the end, after I explained to them, or referred them to someone who knew about their specific class, they got better. They got good. Some of them went from "painfully bad" to "awesomely efficient".

It always takes practice, but as with most things in life, you have to know what to practice for it to make a positive difference…