We wanted to maintain some of that legacy, but with something that was more consistent and full of people and more modern. “We know people that met their significant other in the Undead starting area, or something like that. “Having the different racial, and in some cases, class starting zones, there’s a lot of comfort there,” Martens says.
The team’s latest and best attempt at completely overhauling the leveling system and new player experience will come with the release of Shadowlands. These are all issues that Blizzard is well aware of and the WoW devs have taken multiple stabs in the past at making the leveling process less confusing. This problem is even worse for veteran players using heirloom gear, which gives an additional XP boost. Regardless of which path they choose, most players see their level go up so fast (even before the recent buff) that they don’t have enough time to complete a leveling zone’s story before it’s time to move on.
While the XP buff has been welcomed by many, it’s also served as a reminder of how broken the leveling experience in WoW has become for new players. From a timeline perspective, new characters start out on the 16-year-old game’s original continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, but complete quests that were designed for the game’s third expansion, Cataclysm. Upon reaching level 60, players then technically go back in time to play through either The Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King, but then jump into the future once they get to Mists of Pandaria and beyond. The XP boost was only supposed to last for one month but became so popular with players that it’s now been extended until the launch of the Shadowlands pre-patch later this year. In late March, the World of Warcraft team at Blizzard responded to everyone being stuck indoors during the COVID-19 quarantine by giving players a 100 percent bonus to the character leveling experience.