A Polite Question to Blizzard

As you mentioned, the leveling curve all the way from 1-70 was adjusted in the past. We feel those changes coupled with heirloom experience bonuses make for a reasonable leveling experience up to 70. Since we're making major changes to the 1-60 Azeroth zones in Cataclysm, it isn't likely we'll be making further adjustments to the leveling curve there. The goal is to encourage new and old players alike to try out a new race or class and experience all of the new content and environment changes in the "old world."

As it is, Cataclysm will bring about a much better quest flow, both in terms of the way quests are given in individual zones, as well as the way in which players will be directed from zone to zone. It will be completely reasonable in Cataclysm to level from 1-60 in Azeroth solely on Kalimdor, or solely on Eastern Kingdoms. In general, there will be much less need to jump from continent to continent because you hit dry spots while questing and need to find somewhere else to go in order to find level-appropriate quests. The goal is to make sure players are given the choice to go to the zones they want to while leveling, rather than force them to the other end of the world for a level or two.

Whether or not any changes are going to be made to the leveling curve in Northrend, or additional changes made to leveling in Outland, remains to be seen. We do want to ensure that the leveling experience from 1-85 isn't too daunting. That is a lot of levels after all. Once we have the Cataclysm leveling zones from 1-60 and 78-85 fleshed out, we'll more closely evaluate the full leveling experience during our beta test.

Q u o t e:
So we will be able to level in post-Cata/story-in-progress-Cata Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor up until 70, then go to Lich King time-line Northrend from 70-78 then back to post-Cata Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor from 78-85.

This seems like a really un-smooth transition in lore and story. As a young adventurer I am thrown into the violence and chaos of Dethwings return helping my fellow alliance/horde recover and adapt then I am called North to fight a Lich King that has been defeated as of Deathwing's return.

Really it has no bearing on leveling and game play, it just seems like an odd flow,if I am off please correct me.

Q u o t e:



It will be 1-60 then you go to BC then Northrend then back to Cata.

A bit confusing lorewise. But that is something Blizz is aware of. Its kinda a bold move on their part.

It's definitely a continuity issue we're aware of. We're looking into ways of smoothing out the transition, though this is already shaping up to be the biggest expansion yet content-wise. As much as we want to ensure the story progresses smoothly from 1-85, we want to avoid throwing in any changes to Outland and Northrend that just feel kind of like gimmicks.