Personally, I’ve played World of Warcraft since late Vanilla WoW. To most, that doesn’t mean much, but to us old timers- we know the struggle of finding great tanks, great healers, the best sappers, savvy sheepers, and the horrendous DKP. (-50).
I found myself grinding in holy for my first undead priest to max level because I didn’t know how to quest, or that different specs were substantially better to level with.
I remember needing to get groups for the tough quests, getting into my first guild, starting my own guild, and when Wrath of The Lich King came along, raiding Icecrown Citadel every tuesday night at 7pm PST, for 3-4 hours straight.
I fell in love with bear tanking in late Burning Crusade/early Wrath of The Lich King, so when Cataclysm hit the live servers and bear tanking was broken at end game when our guild was finally ready for it- I quit.
I found myself coming back every expansion, hoping to relive that nostalgia. To get that same giddy feeling with online comrades when finally beating a boss that you’ve all struggled to defeat for weeks.
Every expansion would reignite my love for the game for about a month and when the old feelings didn’t stick, I would sadly go and cancel my account.
I played through Pandaria, (Pandas are my favorite animal, sue me) and although I loved the story, most of the end game was severely lacking with the introduction of LFR loot being damn near identical to guild ran raids.
When I heard that the same level scaling tech that was released in legion was coming out across all previous content, I immediately hit subscribe and tried it out.
Before level scaling, even without Bind on Account gear, you would find yourself outleveling zones. You would always be forced out of a cool quest line or zone due to the lack of experience or rewards via green/grey quests. The mobs were easily killed in any specialization, and dungeons could have everything be pulled from the entrance to a boss and AoE’d down.
When I finished all of Tirisfal Glades since the level scaling tech was patched in: mobs were still doing decent damage, all quest rewards were decently helpful, rare spawns took a big chunk of health if not geared or prepared to engage with, and I was never penalized for doing every-single-quest.
I finished an entire zone and found myself loving the ride of the grind whereas before I was hating nearly every second of the leveling process.
With that zone done, I moved down into Silverpine Forest. I felt an immediate hatred for Garrosh, a kinship with Sylvanas, and a general dislike for Worgen kind.
Again- I rushed through the entire zone not because I wanted to level quickly, rather I wanted to see how the story would play out. I was intrigued throughout the leveling process of the entire zone. Every quest felt like it was suppose to be done at my level EVEN WITH BOA GEAR!
I went to Hillsbrad, where I was surprised to see that The Forsaken had dominated the zone which had been so scary for horde to wander around in previous expansions. Lore that I had never experienced before because I could camp in a major city and dungeon my way to max level in a matter of days was being experienced by me, just like the old days.
There was even a quest to kill a giant Yeti, where I had to hit up general chat to look for others that were also struggling to kill him.
Every zone from there on out, I’ve completed fully. By the time I hit level 61, I found myself saddened to leave Azeroth for Northrend/Outland. (Yeah, you can pick which expansion you’d like to go through).
My husband would hear tales of my adventures when he would get off of work and decided to create a character with me, and we’ve been leveling together since.
I can’t stress enough how cool it was to have him come to Northrend with me for the first time. To have him experience the lore and the quests that I fell in love with as a teenager. To have him engage in jousting via Trial of The Champion dungeon.
To experience everything the way it was suppose to be. The way I used to. The nostalgia has stood with me, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good or bad thing yet. 😉
However, level scaling has gotten my husband into World of Warcraft. It’s gotten him to fall in love with dungeons, quests, factions, lore, and zones. To actually appreciate them for what they are: works of art.
My hope is that you take some time to give it a shot yourself, and we see you in game, whether you are For The Horde like us, or you are For The Alliance and we engage in the battlefield.
My hope is that level scaling in this game has made you as happy as it has made us.
Anxiety/Depression/Fostercare/Adoption 