I couldn't agree more with Mystic Chicanery -- despite the fact that most players consider the "level grind" to be the most boring part of the game, a stodgy run towards the much more interesting endgame, I've found that I tend to invest myself more in my character while actually leveling up, strangely enough, and it seems to me that endgame is the much more boring part of the equation. While leveling, you get a constant meter (literally) of how much your character is progressing, but after 70, progression becomes much more nebulous, and you have to do a lot more poking around for things like enchants and gems.
Of course, the main complaint with the level grind isn't doing it the first time, it's doing it again and again, and thankfully, as Mystic notes, will bring us ten brand new levels to roll through. But maybe I have a bad memory, because even when I do hit 70 with a character, going back to the beginning with a new class or a new faction is a new experience. And Wrathgoing through the same content a second time makes it faster and more interesting to me -- I already know where the hard quest targets are, and I can catch up on lore or secrets that I may have missed.
Each to their own, of course -- maybe you've already leveled all nine classes to 70 and couldn't imagine going back and running through Stranglethorn Vale or Hellfire Peninsula one more time. But I've found that I almost prefer the leveling "grind" -- it seems more core to me, improving the character constantly with an XP meter, than the current method at endgame of raiding your way through the instances for gear upgrades.
There comes a point where you move past content. There's no reason to go back to it other than nostalgia, or for the off chance on a slow night that the one really awesome drop that particular boss has might finally drop. It's a fact of the endgame... you work, you put in the wipes, you stock up on food, buff pots, elixirs, flasks, and other consumables, you go in over and over again and struggle and finally get the boss down... and then in a month or two it's trivial and you're sick to death of the sight of him or her. Another month and you're saying "Does anyone really need any Vashj drops anymore?" and a month after that, you're done with the instance.
This is fine, and it's part of the moving on process with content: if you're regularly farming M'uru you probably don't need anything off of Mother Shahraz anymore except for maybe bad luck on shoulders. Some guilds were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be completely done with Black Temple and Hyjal well in advance of Sunwell Plateau. Others are just now finishing up with Gruul and Magtheridon and preparing to move into SSC and Tempest Keep, while still others are just now done with those.
It seems a complaint I've heard a lot about Blizzard lately is that 2 years between expansions is just far too long. We'll languish too much without new content, and people will leave for Age of Conan and Warhammer Online and other games, they say.
Myself, I think the length between expansions is acceptable, provided that Blizzard is working on improving and adding new content. To some extent, they are doing this. 2.4 was a tour de force that granted us a whole new area to grind and quest in, and if Blizzard can be out patches like 2.4 on a regular basis, I can forgive them for a few delays in the expansions.
That said, I do feel like they could stand to pick up the pace.
Back before patch 2.3, one of the most repeated calls from players was not for new raiding instances or a particular class balance change, but for new midlevel content. As we've said on the WoW Insider Show, a large percentage of the population of Azeroth is perfectly content hanging around the 30s and 40s and not bothering with endgame PvP or raiding, and previous to patch 2.3, they wanted new content to roll through.
Then patch 2.3 came, and with it, a whole new series of quests, and even a new hub in Dustwallow Marsh. Midlevel players finally got what they wanted, and for a while, the requests for new things for midlevel players to do were quelled.
To tell the truth I'm kind of surprised this happened so quickly -- apparently The9, who runs World of Warcraft in China, were able to drop the Sunwell Plateau patch pretty soon after it came out in the US and Europe. Burning Crusade, we know, took a long time to release over there (it came out months after it did on this side of the world), but either The9 is responding to pressure to release content closer, or patch updates are much easier to localize and distribute.
Either way, grats to The Seven and all of the other guilds worldwide able to topple The Deceiver. Next up, Northrend!
I've been farming a lot of ghost mushrooms and gromsblood lately in order to make Demonslaying Elixirs. My guild's farming trash in Sunwell Plateau at the moment and has taken a few half-hearted swings at Kalecgos, all of which ended in much hollering and arguing and waving of hands in the air. But despite the fact that Big Blue is likely to ride our collective ass for weeks, I like to think of myself as a long-term planner with a gimlet eye on Brutallus. So, a-farming I go.
The materials for the elixir are fairly irritating to farm in quantity, and I find myself in a lot of areas I never even leveled extensively in when I was raising my Druid main. Desolace? Paid it a visit to get some fishing done. Blasted Lands? Uh...passed through it on my way to Outland. Maraudon? Did I do that? I want to say I did, but was brought up short at learning of the existence of a scepter that allows you to bypass two-thirds of the instance. I know for sure I've never set foot in Dire Maul North, much less a Tribute Run, I'd never seen the live side of Stratholme, and I hadn't so much as clapped eyes on the Emperor in Blackrock Depths.
We had somehints that this would happen soon and now WoW Insider has confirmed through anonymous sources that the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is in closed alpha status, and that various players are being invited to check it out, under a strict NDA.
Alpha is part of the software release life cycle -- a software product in development goes from alpha status to beta status (sometimes including a "closed beta," where a limited few are invited to preview and test the software, and an "open beta,", where anyone can download and try out the beta), to "release candidates" and then "gold" (the final version, used to print the media to be available for sale). This doesn't tell us anything about the timing of the expansion's release (especially since Blizzard historically takes their time going through this cycle), but it does tell us that Wrath's content is in a playable and mostly completed form -- quests, game mechanics, and items are in, even if specific flavor text, names, and even textures are not.
We'll keep an eye, as usual, on any other news we see coming out of Blizzard, through official or unofficial channels. Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion of World of Warcraft, is in alpha testing. The journey to Northrend has begun.
Update: A word to the wise: this is not an open beta, and any email or site that tells you to sign up for one is still scamming you. When open beta comes down, we'll hear about it on Blizzard's official site. This is just news that the next expansion has moved up a notch in its development, and that we're one step closer to an official open beta.
Yes it's Saturday once again, and that means that we'll go live this afternoon on WoW Radio with episode number 31 of our weekly podcast. This week, the talk will no doubt center around the biggest thing that happened in the last week of Warcraft -- yes, of course I mean patch 2.4. We'll have impressions of the content so far, a look at the official and unofficial changes, and a general breakdown of just what the heck happened to Azeroth on Tuesday.
I'll be on the show along with Turpster, and this week from WoW Insider we'll have Eliah Hecht on the show for the first time ever, as well as John "BigBearButt" Petricelli. It should be a lot of fun -- to join us, tune into WoW Radio this afternoon at 3:30pm EST (and join us on IRC if you'd like -- we'll be on irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel). Feel free to email us questions or comments as well: theshow@wowinsider.com is the address for that.
It's a patch 2.4-stravaganza on the WoW Insider Show today, so come for the 2.4 impressions and wrapups, and stay for the punch and pie!*
Reader Sebastian wrote in to us with an interesting question: what good is patch 2.4 if you don't have the Burning Crusade expansion yet? He has a lower level character that hasn't hit 70 yet (he's on level 46), and wants to know exactly what 2.4 is doing for him. From what we can tell, not much.
You'll still get some of the good interface updates -- so you'll get the buffs to Inspect, the combat log improvements, and all of the other additions Blizzard has made to the UI. All of the talents you have by 46 that got changes will change, too, and of course the improvements to Warsong Gulch are great for characters of almost any level (since almost everyone can go in there). And let's not forget the biggest change this patch: Old Blanchy's Feed Pouch is now an 8 slotter. That's huge.
But no, until you hit level 70, the new daily quests and the Sunwell Instances and the new badge loot won't matter much to you at all. But the good news is that the expansion is only $30, and sometimes even cheaper than that. The weather's getting nice outside, so go mow a few lawns this weekend, and then you'll be able to level up and join us all in the land of the Blood Elves where pretty much everyone has gone mad with magical power. Trust me -- it's more fun than it sounds.
Every week, our weekly columnists post tons of commentary and analysis, just for you. And every weekend, we wrap up all that weekly content in one big post, so you can catch anything you may have missed. Enjoy!
We're five days into the new year-- feel different yet? Here's your weekly look at our features from the past week. Many of them took a look at WoW in 2007, so here's one last chance to see the year that was before we move on to the year that will be.
MMO Champion's got the rest of the details on that PC Zone interview we heard about yesterday-- Jeff Kaplan sat down with the French magazine and gave out some new hints about what we'll see up in Northrend in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
As we heard at BlizzCon, Northrend isn't all a snow-covered wasteland-- there are forests (including one full of Furbolgs) and other terrain types to find up there.
We've also heard this before, but it's worth repeating again: Arthas will play a much bigger part in the day-to-day Northrend than Illidan did-- lots of people, both raiders and casuals, will have a chance to "interact" with him.
Here's something new-- there will be two entry points, and previously we'd assumed that one would be for Horde and another would be for Alliance. But that's not the case-- instead, each of the zones (the Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord) will have an entry point for each faction. So there will actually be four ways into the expansion.
Alliance get to choose a battle in the Howling Fjord or a massive stronghold (complete with a brand new faction leader) and a giant steamship
And Horde either go into the Forsaken's new lands (with new architecture-- we saw it at BlizzCon), or into Garrosh Hellscream's (son of Grom) Warsong Fortress.
Very exciting. Hearing about four entry points instead of two definitely makes me think that we will be able to avoid the whole Hellfire Peninsula lag problem that plagued BC's release. Keep the WotLK info coming, Blizzard!
Another week has come and gone, and the fact that it's Saturday again means that it's time to run down our weekly features from the past week, all wrapped up in one jumbo-sized post for your perusal. We've got lots of original content, and don't tell anybody I told you this, but our columnists told me they made it all just for you.
Blood Sport: Rock, paper, scissors? Our brand new PvP columnist lays out who beats who in PvP (and it's up to you whether you agree with him or not).
Arcane Brilliance: Gears of war, part I I sure thought this column was about my favorite Xbox game before Halo 3, but instead Amanda adeptly lays out something way more useful: what kind of gear to hook your Mage up with.
I couldn't agree more with Mystic Chicanery -- despite the fact that most players consider the "level grind" to be the most boring part of the game, a stodgy run towards the much more interesting endgame, I've found that I tend to invest myself more in my character while actually leveling up, strangely enough, and it seems to me that endgame is the much more boring part of the equation. While leveling, you get a constant meter (literally) of how much your character is progressing, but after 70, progression becomes much more nebulous, and you have to do a lot more poking around for things like enchants and gems.
There comes a point where you move past content. There's no reason to go back to it other than nostalgia, or for the off chance on a slow night that the 
It seems a complaint I've heard a lot about Blizzard lately is that 2 years between expansions is just far too long. We'll languish too much without new content, and people 
Back before 
We had 
Check out more information on WoW's upcoming expansion, 
Reader Sebastian wrote in to us with an interesting question: what good is patch 2.4 if you don't have the 
Here is all of our weekly content from the past seven days, all wrapped up in one big post. Enjoy!
Every week, our weekly columnists post tons of commentary and analysis, just for you. And every weekend, we wrap up all that weekly content in one big post, so you can catch anything you may have missed. Enjoy!
We're five days into the new year-- feel different yet? Here's your weekly look at our features from the past week. Many of them took a look at WoW in 2007, so here's one last chance to see the year that was before we move on to the year that will be.
MMO Champion
Another week has come and gone, and the fact that it's Saturday again means that it's time to run down our weekly features from the past week, all wrapped up in one jumbo-sized post for your perusal. We've got lots of original content, and don't tell anybody I told you this, but our columnists told me they made it all just for you.
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