Going to take a bit of a break from the ongoing flood of WoW information to comment a bit on this. Specifically, the part about free levels:

We are implementing a system where all characters will now be granted a free level every seven days, assuming the character has attained a level by standard methods in that time. In other words, if you play regularly and attain at least one level in a seven day period, you’ll be given a free one, as well as some coin. This means that even a very casual player can gain levels fast enough to get to the mid and high levels quickly.

This is, of course, in response to all the new MMOG’s coming out that are more “casual friendly.” Games that allow you to level quicker, group with your friends easier, and in general make it more of a game and less like work. I want to say right now that “casual friendly” is a good thing, and I am in no way against making leveling easier in DAoC. Having said that, however, I think this is a very poor design decision.

There is quite a bit of difference between rewarding the work you do, and giving things away free.

Mythic could increase the amount of XP given per kill – this would reward you for the work you did. Mythic could increase the amount of coin dropped by any given monster – again rewarding you for what you do. Mythic could add more quests to the game, giving out more items and more XP rewards – once more rewarding you for your efforts. Instead of rewarding you for your efforts, Mythic is handing out free stuff.

Instead of “Wow, you really killed that monster! Here, have twice the XP!” we have “What, you still aren’t 50 yet? C’mon, keep up!”

Back when I was playing EverQuest I never got to see most of the world. Due to the nature of EQ, exploration was indirectly discouraged. The death penalty was so harsh, and travel times were so great, that nobody really left the safety of a few well-known camps. In my year or so playing EQ I only saw a third of Norrath, if that.

Dark Age of Camelot tried to make exploration a little bit safer. The death penalty was considerably less crushing. It wasn’t the end of the world if you got yourself killed out in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t get back to your body. Plus, with additions like the horse system, traveling from one place to another wasn’t nearly as time consuming as it was in EQ. Unfortunately, DAoC’s world always seemed a bit small compared to EQ. I saw all there was of Midgard in my short time on Percival, and I’ve seen most of Albion and Hibernia since coming to Gaheris.

World of Warcraft pushes things a little bit further, making travel and exploration essential parts of gameplay.

Each race starts out in its own region, generally seperate from the other races. As you complete quests and gain levels you are gently pushed out of your starting city and into a new city. This gentle push continues until you eventually wind up in your race’s capitol city. From there, the whole world becomes available to you…

As you explore the land, you actually gain experience for discovering new places. When you stumble across an interesting landmark out in the woods, or find a new town, or locate a new guard tower you’ll see a message announcing that you’ve earned an exploration bonus. This bonus varies depending on how challenging the new location is for your level – bigger challenge, more XP.

Areas are generally designed for a specific level. Sure, you can go to Lakeshire at level 10 if you really want to, but you’ll likely die a lot – the monsters are all around level 20 or so. Each are will have a central town with an inn, and a number of quests, and then a surrounding wilderness. As you explore and level the quests will again slowly push you towards a new area, one that will ultimately be of appropriate level once you’re done with your current town.

Rapid transportation at the lower levels is provided by flying mounts that will take you from one town to the next. Initially your flight routes are very limited…but as you explore your surroundings you find new flight routes. Rapid transportation is very necessary, since most of the outlying towns do not have trainers for all classes. Generally speaking you’ll be traveling back to the nearest capitol city to train when you level up.

At level 40 (may change for retail) you gain the ability to ride a mount if you’d like. Mounts come in many varieties, and each specific type of mount comes in several different colors/styles. Mounts aren’t quite as fast as the flying creatures…but you are in full control of your mount – you aren’t limited to following some pre-set flight route.

If you’ve ever played Dungeons & Dragons, or read many fantasy books, you know that inns are a key meeting place for adventurers. People are always going to the nearest inn for food, shelter, information, jobs, whatever. MMOG’s thus far really haven’t captured that aspect of the fantasy genre.

Sure, EverQuest had inns – great big, empty buildings with a bunch of tables and chairs that didn’t work. A couple NPC’s here and there to sell you some food or drink, and not much else. The idea was to provide a place for players to create their own content. Players were supposed to go to the local inn to meet up, but they never did. The chat system allowed folks to meet up without ever actually going anywhere… And the inns went completely unused. One of the first things I did when I fired up EQ for the very first time is go to an inn – after all, that’s what adventurers do. I was sorely disappointed to find it completely empty.

Dark Age of Camelot didn’t really bothe with inns exactly… But they did put in a meeting place of some sort for each realm. Midgard got bars, Albion got inns, and Hibernia has some kind of a central hall. These actually had more of a purpose since you could talk to the inkeeper/barkeeper/crier to find directions to other towns or look for quests… But again, nobody really used the content much. More tables and chairs that didn’t work, more empty rooms waiting for player-created content that never happened.

World of Warcraft has finally made the inn an integral part of gameplay. Food and drink, while not essential to gameplay like they were in EQ, greatly reduce your downtime – and the easiest way to find food and drink is to go to the local inn. Resting at an inn is also twice as fast as normal rest, so you’ve got an incentive to go back to town and log out at the inn when you’re done for the night. Most inns have at least one NPC with a quest, sometimes several more. Plus, mailboxes are located outside each inn. Add to all this the hearthstones which can teleport you back to whatever inn you’re currently bound at, and inns become a very busy place.

Finally finished that blasted poison quest for my rogue… They give it out at level 20, tell you to go to Westfall and look for an agent near a tower. That agent then tells you that you need to pickpocket a key off of a level 24 critter patrolling outside the guard tower, sneak up past a whole slew of level 24 guards, and finally deal with a level 26 guy up at the top of the tower. A bit intimidating for a lowly level 20 rogue.

Well, I wanted poisons badly enough to try it at level 20, and did miserably. I died several times over. I couldn’t even manage to pickpocket the key, much less climb the tower. I gave up and decided to come back for revenge later.

I hit level 23 earlier tonight and decided to give it a try… Ran out to the tower and tried to pickpocket the key – success! No trouble at all. Snagged the key and headed for the front door…just in time to see a couple mages scurry out of the tower. What luck – the mages had completely cleared the tower! So I scurried up top, looted the chest, and ran like hell.

Believe me, it was worth all the effort. Adding poison to a blade has significantly increased my damage. I’m killing things far easier than I ever expected to.

Equipment in WoW varies quite a bit depending on your character’s level. Initially you can’t even fill all your character’s equipment slots. Head and Shoulder armor is completely nonexistant until you are level 15 or so…and things like rings don’t show up until much later. So, for a while, your character is going to look fairly dull.

This is especially true considering how the early armor looks – it is basically just drawn onto your character model, much like what DAoC currently does. Different skins applied over the top of the same model…it is all form-fitting, no definition to the armor.

As you raise your level though, your gear gets much more impressive. Gloves and boots, for example, gain bulk. They actually have a shape beyond that of your character model. Fur trim bulges, armor plates stick out, cloth flows. Eventually you can get yourself shoulder armor, which adds even more distinction to your character. And then head armor becomes available in many different shapes and styles – pointed wizard’s hats, lucky fishing hats, chainmail hoods, gnomish goggles, plate helms…all sorts of stuff.

The earliest back armor you have available is very unimpressive… Tiny little cloaks that look like you’ve got a handkerchief stapled to your back. Eventually you get long, flowing capes and cloaks that look quite dramatic.

In WoW more than any other MMOG I’ve ever played, you are visially rewarded for the effort it takes to level up your character.

Today I got to explore my first Instanced Dungeon in WoW.

Instancing is a little bit different in WoW than it is in some of the other games available right now… For example, in CoH pretty much all your indoor missions are instanced. Every door you click on takes you to your own, private map. In WoW, most of the dungeons are public – just like they are in DAoC. You’ve competing with other players for spawns, kills, treasure, whatever else. These aren’t the big, impressive dungeons though… There are tons of these smaller dungeons all over the place, two or three of them in a single zone sometimes.

It is the big, impressive, quest-based dungeons that are instanced. These dungeons have an entrance in the real world…and maybe even some sort of small public dungeon leading up to the entrance to the instance.

Initially, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I explored Ironforge with my Dwarven Warrior and came across something interesting over in the Tinkertown area… It was a long hallway with something that looked vaguely like swirling snow about halfway along. I couldn’t walk down that hallway though, it stopped me when I got to the snow. Seeing as this is a beta, and I was only about level 10 at the time, I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was a teleporter or something, maybe a zone I wasn’t high enough level to enter, maybe something they weren’t done with. Anyway, I pretty much ignored it and got on with my life.

Today I was exploring Stormwind with my Night Elf Rogue, and stumbled across a similar looking hallway. There was a stairway leading down into someplace called “The Stockades,” and about halfway down the stairway was another swirling snowstorm. This time, however, it let me walk through the snowstorm. I got a loading screen as I stepped through, and then I was dropped into my own, private version of The Stockades. Well, the monsters were all too tough for me…but I did have a couple quests for The Stockades…so I went back for some help.

I rounded up some more adventurers and we spent over an hour exploring The Stockades. It was great fun being able to explore the dungeon without having to worry about other people getting in your way. No competing with other players for named creatures, or treasure chests, or anything like that. A dungeon all to ourselves. And the monsters were plenty challenging for our group. The only complaint that I have right now about instances in WoW is that they respawn too quickly. After about 30 minutes or so the monsters started re-appearing… Which made continuing to hunt in there fairly difficult. I’d rather see them on a much longer timer, an hour or more, or perhaps have them stay dead permenantly.

Today’s Legion raid was cancelled so that we could give something back to the community. Instead of spending our afternoon raiding epic dungeons for fun and profit, we spent our time cleaning up the environment. A Gaheris beautification project, if you will.

To that end, we killed two of the ugliest critters in all the lands – Lord Balor and Iarnvidiur.

Lord Balor went down with little trouble. His guards proved completely ineffective against the might of Legion. Countless cries of “Lord Balor, I have failed you!” rang through the halls. And, before too long, Lord Balor’s head was stuffed in a sack to await the lotto.

Iarnvidiur proved far more troublesome… Initially, the assault went quite well. However, as we neared Iarnvidiur’s inner sanctum we met resistance. The guard dogs proved to be quite a challenge… A challenge, but no more. Iarnvidiur herself put up an epic fight – but, ultimately, she fell to the might of Legion as well.