Concern of WoW...

[Jooka]

Will you be making adjustments to the leveling speed?

From evaluating the current leveling speed in the beta, we do agree that it is a bit too fast, but we do not intend to make any major changes. We feel that players will enjoy making multiple characters if leveling doesn't take too long, but we’ll be making slight changes to the leveling curve sometime after players reach level 30.

dont expect a big change to leveling speed ...

[Ravensign]

I think the problem with the "better" versus "worse" player issue and the "playtime = uberness" argument is that they are not correlated.

Yes, some people are better players than others, but that doesnt necessarily coresepond to uberness, better gear, or access to more exclusive content.

Someone that can play almost 24x7 and follow orders is more valuable to a raiding guild than someone who is the greatest Shaman of all time, and can play 3 nights a week at random. Therefore the 24x7 guy is going to end up with high end gear, and falsely correlate that in his mind to being a better player.

[Thorbadin]

I've played Diablo2 extensively, and I can't see a similar loot system being implemented in a game like everquest, or a loot based mmorpg whose best items are generated by raiding or other large encounters.

Adding random effects to items(IE: having a 32->40 window for haste on your CoF) demeans the item.

Contrary what Ukerric says, people still have some degree of community with random items, just not as much. Someone's IAS gloves, or their dual leech rings(from diablo2) have personality just like frostburns or an SoJ.

Random itemization is okay for the low and mid end, but leave solid 'uniques' in the high end.

I don't think it "demeans" the items that much. It didn't really do it in D2 at least. The stronger the item, maybe the lesser the random in it can be, but I thought was going to be that way after reading about it somewhere.

A Flaming Sword, can have from 15 to 20 fire bonus, in all cases it's still a flaming sword. You have more options with that thought.

Thorb

[Masamunae]

Leveling speed is fine the way it is. Just to actually make people want to group it might be good to drop quest exp slightly, and raise grouping experience, so there is actually a good reason to get some group and just go kill stuff. Also take into account the fact that boats and zeppelins aren't in the game yet, and those are going to take alot of time. That will make traveling alot more difficult and you won't have as wide a variety of quests at your disposal instantly like it is now.

As for items, it's still beta, and this is blizzard, nuff said.

[Hardcore Cracka]

Originally posted by Jooka

Yeah. The endgame content isn't even in yet. Calm down.

[softwillow]

Item randomization doesn't necessarily mean people won't be able to comprehend which is better and which to strive for. I loved Diablo's loot method, although it was too random. If they tightened up the range a little bit, it would work well and the item descriptions would serve as the yardstick on what was a good item and what isn't. Even though a person wouldn't know the exact stats of the "godly sword of the lich-king" the description makes it clear that it is an end-game randomly generated weapon. The more ranks of descriptives, the more people will be able to differentiate the quality. Using a pseudo d2 example:

Blue = +1 to 3 to cold resistance (5 loot points)
Indigo= +4 to 6 to cold resistance (10 loot points)
Navy= +7 to 9 to cold resistance (15 loot points)
Azure = + 10 to 12 to cold resistance (20 points)
Cobalt = + 13 to 15 to cold resistance (25 points)
Cerulean= +16 to 18 to cold resistance (30 loot points)
Sapphire = +19 to 21 to cold resistance (35 points)

static = +1 to +2 electricity damage (5 loot points)
sparks = +3 to +4 electricity damage (10 points)
Shock= +5 to +6 electricity damage (15 points)
electricity = +7 to +8 electricity damage (20 points)
Crackling Energy= +9 to +10 electricity damage (25 points)
Thunder= +11 to +12 electricity damage (30 points)
lightening = +13 to +14 electricity damage (35 points)


A player would know a Sapphire Sword of Lightening is better then all the other swords out there that give cold resistance and electricity damage (except maybe another Sapphire Sword of Lightening) and it is a randomly generated item.

And in conjunction with what previous posters said, put point/level values on each attribute, so that a mob drops an item that is within an appropriate level. I.E. Elite level 60 mob drops an item worth 40-60 points -or- a lvl 60 boss mob drops an item that is worth 50-70 points.

This is all a pipe dream though, since whatever system they have is going to stay. Random items plus unique items, like in Diablo 2, is the way to go.

[Shinrai]

Randomized items are fine if the game is all about farming like diablo-2. In a MMORPG it makes more sense that X drops X's sword or X's shield which has stats tailored to fit the theme. In addition your next upgrade should come from beating the next set of content, not farming a single mob till you get the maximum result out of the RNG.

Then again I don't see item variation as being quite that critical. Lots of warriors in EQ had a BoW (before that BoC) or even epic blade and didn't seem too mind too much. Indeed it let you look at a warrior and instantly see they were a raid tank.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Venven
Off-topic:

Leveling in WoW so far is way, way, way too easy.

I have a level 60+ Prophet in Lineage 2 as well, and that took me over 20x as long as getting to level 50 in WoW.

While I'm not 60+ there yet I have to throw in that time consumption has nothing to do with difficulty. In fact, I am bored to death while leveling in Lineage 2 because even red conning monsters (+9 levels) provide absolutly no challenge.