I don’t really have a point there. :> Except, maybe, that time is always moving on and no matter what you do you can’t do everything. And you most certainly can’t make sure that everyone else has the opportunity to do everything.

Aside: When I was young this really depressed me. For awhile, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, “God.” (I figured he could get around this limitation.) For some reason, that upset some people. I had a teacher talk to my mother, who told me to choose a new answer. So I started saying I wanted to run a bordello instead.

I actually have an army of alts in the 50-70 region, and I come across a lot of DKs in Hellfire Peninsular. So we know that DKs have to be alts, right? Because you need to unlock the DK option?

Well, I know for a fact that there are several new players who simply leveled to 55, rolled a DK and packed their bags off to Outlands. At first, I was shocked that some of the DKs who were trying to form groups to do Ramparts had no idea that the group needed heals or a tank.. then I realized that some of them are actually not alts, but new mains. Or.. they’re alts, but their mains are not anywhere near 80.

If you want to see how many people are truly new, and how many are just alts, jsut start up a new toon of your own. Even if it’s just going to be your own guild.bank toon. Try getting charter signatures and see how many people are cluelss, and how many say something like “nah, this is my alt”.

FOr me (on Velen, US) it was about 50/50 for folks in the starter area. Half the people I ran into were truly new, and the other half were just getting an alt. I think the ratio would be higher for new folks if you go to someplace out in the boondocks (like the Drae starting area) where there’s no close major city/auction house. Those places will have only new folks and people looking to level/play an alt. You certainly wouldn’t start a Drae if you wanted a bank toon; too long of a hike/boat to get to Darnassus.

Your post was tought provoking and well written. It posed a lot of intersting questions, and I really don’t even know how to adress them.

My response was aimed at folks here in the comments that imply that I haven’t earned my way through the game yet. Indigo Haze is one such.

I made a long n00b rant over on my blog about it, since this got me a tad worked up.

basically, many of them feel that if I haven’t had to grin each and every boss, and walk/joh each and every mile across Azeroth and beyond, that I could not POSSIBLY have a clue how to play my toon.

Really?

As others here posted out, much of the newer content is essentially vanilla-recycled. If that’s the case, why bother learning the SAME FIght twice? Why not just play the newer, updated version?

And to be more “to the point”: if Blizzard kept the levelling speed the same, VERY FEW NEW PLAYERS WOULD BOTHER.

I will be very blunt and say that the old vanilla game was broken. Plain and simple. The only folks that would do 840 repetitions of the same quest, just for rep, are the truly hardcore. While the Winterspring Trainers are an extreme example, it does point out just how mind numbingly slow and BORING the old game was.

If I had been playing the original, I would have bailed after my first three months. I could not STAND not progressing.If the progress

Yes, it weeded out almost all casual players. (and players like myself, who aren’t “casual” and aren’t really hard core either) And for the hardcore, that’s a good thing. At least short term.

The bummer is that, from a business perspective, hardcore gamers aren’t really all that profitable. (compare the sales numbers for the “hardcore-ish” XBOX 360 and the “casual” Nintendo Wii) Simply put, if WoW were to have a chance to continue, let alone grow, there needed to be more people playing AND PAYING.

So, as a result, Blizzard made the decision that it was more important to create a game that encouraged more people to play, and continue playing, than to worry about angering the truly hardcore.

So, while you get slightly ADD folks like myself, that really DO get into the hows & whys of the game, you also get the truly casual players which I believe are the source of *most* of the “damned n00bs”* comments. (I could be wrong there)

Also, I bet there’s just a *little* bit of “dammit, I had to slog for three weeks just to get one level, why don’t these new guys have to suffer just like I did?!?!?! Back in MY day, we…” and you know the rest.

But seriously, if you play a toon for 5 frikkin months to go from 1-80, and if you STILL don’t have a clue, slogging around for another 5-10 months won’t help things. Well, they will quit, but they won’t learn much more.

*cheers!

I guess what I need to do is find a casual raiding guild. I hear they exist. But none of the more vocal guilds want to admit to being anything but hard core.

I’ll probably just end up playing a new alt.

I know there’s a first time for everything, but I assume that people who ask for info about a quest person/objective/location, etc. in trade is new, ’cause WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THAT?!