Mad Dash to 60 or Stop and Smell the Roses?

[cyradis2003]

Just wondering what the consensus is on this board.

For a first time toon would you say it is better to rush as fast as you can to 60 so that you can do instances and raid groups or take it at your own pace, do the quests, meet some people and see the world?

I see a lot of threads asking for fast leveling advice "how do I hit 60 the fastest?" and I just kind of feel like people are missing out on a lot of the best parts of the game that way.

Remember, I am asking about First Time Toons, not your 8th alt on a given server.

[det]

I voted fot option 2..and I kinda see most people will go for that, but in reality..can we really leave the big goal out of the eye? When I levelled, the game was out freshly..and when I was 43 or so and people posted about their first Lucifron kill..I was..wtf is that?

I was in awe seeing pictures of the stair fight on Zul Farrak..and player on mounts were really rare.

But 2 years later is a different world..ignorance is no longer bliss...and the people who really can explore the world and smell the roses...envy them :)

[Beruen]

No kidding. I didn't even rush my first character to 60, just did nothing but reputation grinds from 44-60, and I missed out on so much interesting stuff that I'm only seeing now on other characters, or as someone a few levels too high for the content to be an appropriate challenge.

[Lezwyn]

I have to say that you're bound to level other characters to sixty anyway, so I would keep your focus on getting to sixty. I know that when I first played my goal was to level as fast as possible by doing as much quests as possible. The quest system is good enough designed that you probably will visit most areas this way so you don't miss out much. For 'smelling the roses', there is always time to do that on a later alt, and I always think that when my brother plays without focus almost not gaining xp and wandering around inefficiently I can't stand to look at it.

[snowieken]

I voted for option 2 (like most people) but eventually I don't know if any option is thé best. It's a game after all and anyone should play it to his/her own liking. Personally I think you would be missing out on a lot though, if you go for option 1. Option 3 is bearable, but Lezwyn, if your brother likes the game that way, why not let him?

[kcma]

i rush in bursts... grind/quest really fast... then space out :)

[Metatron]

Rushing to 60 somehow felt a bit empty and boring. Just a long grind to get to the magic number and missing out on so much content. So I rerolled again and left the lock who had been grinded to 37 and decided to start afresh and quest in all the places I missed before. Down in silverpine just now and loving doing all the quests I never did before because Barrens was the place to go. Gonna take my sweet time about it and just wait til I get there. Looking forward to trying out places I never went like Desolace & the Mirage Raceway and Swamp of Sorrows. So many places I missed last time around and gonna go explore them and quest there and hope to be 60 sometime around summer =) No rush here!

There were already 60's flooding the server when I started and there are gonna be lots of 70's by the time I am approaching my mid 40's. I'm not gonna be missing any content cause I'm not 60 when TBC comes. I'm just gonna be getting there after everyone else ;)

[DarthMuffin]

Definitely exploration for me.

I don't know if it's just me, but it was actually a pretty big let down for me to get to 60. I don't have a lot of time for WoW, so all these high level raids with a big guild is out of the question for me. Even if I did have time for that, I couldn't care less about getting a pair of gloves with +20 int instead of +15. The best time I had in WoW was, by far, when I was still a lowbie mage who wanted to explore all the locations I had seen in WC1 to 3.

[CrazyBlade]

As someone who is brand new to the game (2 months ish) then explore is definitely the way to go for me. 60 is a million miles away right now, but I'm having fun and finding out what its all about. Personally, that's the only way to go.

[Mizuti]

Take your time. Most people begin to have issues with WoW once they hit the level cap...why rush?

[inkmva]

Theres nothing to rush for.

Exception would be if you're a oldtime mmorpg player and have seen it all before (truth be told, wow's quests arent that unique) in one way or another and just want to join up in your friends endgame guild ;).

That beeing said, I like to smell the roses and have some fun doing it. Which is one of the reasons I love beeing in the beta, I'm smelling tons of roses on my way. In retail I'll most likely try to get to 70 as fast as possible ;).

[Wintrow]

My brother and my brother in law both rushed a warrior to 60 while I took my time. At 11 days /played my main is L43 and I have several >L20 alts. Accumulated I think I'd have a nice total played amount.

My brother in law cancelled his account because he was bored with his L60 Warrior, can't stand doing the instances all over again with his L55 Priest and he shudders to think of starting a new char.

I'm definately not bored with the game yet and I like seeing all of my chars gradually mature. Every now and then I hop on my main (NE Druid) and stick with it for about a level and a half before I read too much about how cool a warrior can be, or how imba 'locks are. Then my alts get some more attention.

Right now:
L43 NE Druid (woohoo, Fearie Fire Feral, i got 13 pts in resto)
L30 Gnome Mage (woohoo, Ice Block)
L24 Dwarf Paladin (woohoo, Verigan's Fist)
L24 Tauren Warrior
L23 Human Warlock

Loving it :)

[memetootoo]

Quested till about level 30, and loved it. Than I gridded to level 50, and it was tedious and made me what to stop. I'm going back to questing again :)

[rg_22uk]

I bought the game on the 7th of Oct and have a lvl 55 mage now. Although it may seemed rushed I have seen pretty much everywhere in the game (accesible to that level) while questing or getting lost while searching for quests / quest objectives.

I think that the game is very well structured in how the quests take you between continents and to new areas to progress the gameplay. The guild that i'm with is just starting to tackle the harder instances so when I get to 60 it will be fun to start doing those with the other ppl for the first time.

Edit - Btw I've never had to grind to level up to this level and have gained all the exp from questing and instances.

[Arsehale]

Exploring and questing is way better.

Grinding sucks all the fun out the game.
getting ganked sucks too btw

[Mallstrop]

It took me ages to get my first level 60 but once I got there it opened up a whole new area of the game, this was back during the times of class raids to strat and scholo. People raiding MC were considered elite players since they were good enough to go there.

These days it's different, most people just shoot though Strat/scholo a few times and end up in what ever raid group will have them.

My choice would be to semi rush to 60, but once you get there, stick with the 5 and 10 mans for a while.

[mesonm]

Look around, take your time, enjoy it...In not too much time, all of that will be gone...

But, my most awe inspiring moment as a first timer on my first 60 was when my mage first fought Rag...Holy cow!!! He still looks cool...But, he looked TREMENDOUS the first time I saw him.

[cyradis2003]

Things are going as I had hoped to be honest. I think a lot of this has to do with the forum we are on though, if this was on the official forums we would probably have at least 2 people calling us noobs for not already being 60, 3 people QFT'ing and about half a dozen people posting along the lines that they have belly buttons and we should get off their forums.

I think that for a first toon exploration is important, I just ran ST with someone last night that kept bragging about his 2 level 60 toons but tried to tank with a 2 hand, had never been to ST before (not really uncommon, lots of people avoid it), let the rogues attack first. He was number 4 on damage taken meter, behind the mage that was guarding me, the priest, while the 2 rogues killed everything. I think that he may be fine on his 2 mains in his raiding guild but he never did 5 man content on his way to 60.

You can get to 60 quickly but I think unless you have people playing with you along the way you will find that people are harsh at 60 if you don't already know group mechanics and protocol. Take a bit of time along the way to do instance runs, learn how they work and learn about the other classes - what can they do, what are their weaknesses etc or when you do hit 60 you will be branded clueless and may have problems getting groups for that lvl 60 content you just rushed for.

[Orbstu]

My brother and my brother in law both rushed a warrior to 60 while I took my time. At 11 days /played my main is L43 and I have several >L20 alts. Accumulated I think I'd have a nice total played amount.

My brother in law cancelled his account because he was bored with his L60 Warrior, can't stand doing the instances all over again with his L55 Priest and he shudders to think of starting a new char.

I'm definately not bored with the game yet and I like seeing all of my chars gradually mature. Every now and then I hop on my main (NE Druid) and stick with it for about a level and a half before I read too much about how cool a warrior can be, or how imba 'locks are. Then my alts get some more attention.

Right now:
L43 NE Druid (woohoo, Fearie Fire Feral, i got 13 pts in resto)
L30 Gnome Mage (woohoo, Ice Block)
L24 Dwarf Paladin (woohoo, Verigan's Fist)
L24 Tauren Warrior
L23 Human Warlock

Loving it :)

So similar to myself :)
I have a 42 Mage: 300 Tailor/300 Enchant/300 FA/300 Fishing/300 Cooking
24 Paladin
24 Rogue
27 Warlock
My newest char is a 42 Hunter
My hunter has around 4 days /played despite having spent probably a day in BG's and half a day in AH.
I found that I could level the hunter so much quicker because I could remember the quests in different areas and could combine them well to maximise experience gain, my Hunter has now slowed down as he is now encroaching new teritory having surpassed my mage in terms of completing quests.

[Inkberrow]

I reckon you've gotta consider where Blizzard originally dedicated a lot of their creative time and focus. In my opinion a lot of the work was put into making lvls 1-60 great fun and so this section becomes more rewarding in terms of great vistas and characters. The endgame just seems like number crunching to me and I prefer a more rp-esque experience, much more casual.

[Naolin]

Take it easy and explore thats what I did. Now I broke 3 chars into 60 (all taking it easy) I kinda miss finding things I never saw before.

[timebomb]

I love the quest/instance (5/10 man) side of this game if i want to stand there and grind XP ill go back to EQ. nothing sucks more than grinding XP of the same mobs for hours. I love the 2 factions at war with each other and love the thrill of the chance of being jumpped at any minute. I guess i do like to grind rep but thats a here and there thing.

[Thors]

Well,

My instinctive response would be to say "Stop and Smell the Roses". I'm almost at 60 on my 3rd toon and still do sometimes. Admittedly less than on the other ones, but I still find new areas to explore and new quests to do.

But,

Don't waste your time running any instance a hundred times just to get the "Sword of a Thousand Truths" :wink: if you intend to keep leveling. I mean, if you want to level by doing instances, then go right ahead and do it. But please go on to the next instance when you have out-leveled the present one. The items you pick up will quickly become obsolete anyway. This becoming a different story about in the 50s when you start getting items that you might keep a long time (especially the resist items), but before that, please go on.

[det]

Soloed without any Instances to 60 and then did LBRS, UBRS and beyond.

My second character was partied with friends all the time and did all the Instances up to lv 50.

So I got new stuff on both.

Still..with neither of them, I fully cleared Maraudon, Dire Maul or Stratholme (not been to Blackfathom Depth for that matter).