The Easiest 22 Levels I Ever Gained
If I told you that I gained 22 levels in 3 minutes in World of Warcraft what would you say? Would you call me a liar, a crack pot, or a cheat? Maybe you’d just ask for my secret? Well, fret not young one, for herein below lies the magic formula…
Ding! x22
Recruit-A-Friend. Yep, Blizzard’s sanctioned referral programme or, as my non-referred friends call it, the cheating programme. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the scheme, it’s a multi-point offensive on both the referrer and the referred in order to encourage them to play together and thus hook a new subscriber. It works too. Until level 60 both players can summon each other to their present locations and, whilst grouped and within a 4 level gap, gain triple experience from creature kills and quests. Plus the referrer gains a free month of play along with a zebra-esque mount if their buddy subscribes for two months.
All of those things are pretty strong incentives to encourage players to try and recruit their buddies and then, cunningly enough, get them to adventure together and solidify the bond. Perhaps the most powerful (and with no doubt the strangest) thing though is the ability for the referred player to grant levels to lower level characters belonging to their comrade. Yep, you heard me, they can give levels.
The entire thing is a little preposterous to be honest. In addition to my level 63 Warrior who I’ve been leveling up alongside my brother, I now have a level 59 Priest, a level 50 Mage and a level 49 Shaman, all of which have benefited from a few ‘free’ levels. For instance last night my Shaman went from level 22 to 49 in a blink of an eye. It’s fun for me because I can boost up some latent alts to mess around with but the whole thing is leaving me feeling a little baffled. What’s the feature for exactly?
That was a rhetorical question so let me answer. It’s for the next time I decide I want to power level a new character up to 60. I’ll just open up a new online email account, download WoW onto my netbook, refer myself, and dual box two characters from 1 to 60 faster than you can say cheating scumbag. It won’t cost me a penny because my main account will get a free month’s play plus I can grant levels to my other alts leaving me with a whole ensemble of boosted characters.
How come no one has ever thought of this before?! I’m so clever, sometimes. I suppose though, Blizzard may as well let me buy a pre-made character, it would make them more money.
-Gordon
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Is there not a cap on the amount of levels your ‘friend’ can give?
I still think the recruit a friend is a bit crap when you’re in a threesome. Two of you get x3 while the other struggles on, and is magnanemous about the whole set-up.
Now that it’s ‘recruit a friend’ has dried up are you as keen on WoW? Or was it more fun when you were thundering through levels, getting new spells at every turn, and turning slowly into WoW best ever tank?
The problem I found from leveling so fast with recruit a friend is you were flat broke. You leveled so fast you barely kill any mobs to get loot, and money drops. You end up barely scraping up enough to buy spells, your mounts, and etc.
Yeah, it’s almost a little too fast. We totally blew through a lot of great content which was a shame. I barely go to experience any mid 50s PvP
I believe you can grant up to half your rank in levels, i.e. 30 levels. I did this with a friend when I came back to the game. I now have an alt of every class at 60. The xp is so good that it is simply a matter of pair your new toon with your RAF friend and get a level 80 to run you through dungeons. I believe it was stockades 15-25, sm 25-40, zf 40-45 and scholo from 45-60. It takes no time at all.
Yeah, it’s very quick indeed. Bit of a shock to the system when you hit 60 though and suddenly everything slows down
“Blizzard may as well let me buy a pre-made character, it would make them more money.”
It would also mean less time played (less of a drain on the servers) and a resurgence in interest from burned out players tired of alt grinds… but who want to play alts at high levels. And then there are those players who only want to raid…
I can’t shake the feeling that the Cataclysm will bring some business model changes, even if it’s just more “value added services” like the RAF (Royal Air Force?) program. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though.
Tbh they should just put a Pay $1000 to win WoW button in the cash shop attached to a You Win! Game Over! screen.
Scary thing is that such would sell. As if “winning” at WoW meant anything.
MMO players can be weird sometimes.
I’m sure people would buy it too
Personally speaking I’d be open to other services such as buying a pre-made level 60 character. I don’t think it would work well in other games but WoW is already a very “arcade” style game so it wouldn’t make much of an impact. I mean, what would be the difference between buying a character and using the recruit-a-friend scheme to power level one anyway?
Why pay for a game then skip it?
I’ve always loved alting and if I make a new character I’d rather play it up through Wailing Caves and Scarlet Monastery than have yet another alt sat in Dala with nothing to do.
I love the leveling content, too. Thing is, not everyone does. Some just want to go raid. It’s those customers that love skipping the leveling grind.
In other words, “why pay for a game and be stuck grinding through the part you don’t want to play before you get to the part you like?”
Absolutely. Especially considering how disjointed MMOs are these days. There’s the PvE aspect, raiding and then PvP. All three are usually three completely different games and different mindframes of play.
I’m in tihs section of the playerbase. I’ve been on WoW for 5 years. I’ve done the leveling content 7 times at least. I’m tired of it. If there were a way for me to bypass everything and simply buy a high-level character (even a DK-esque pseudo-high), I’d jump on it.
I like alts too and always believed that the *entire* game and leveling process should be fun in any MMORPG. Of course, after having done it five times it does get a little repetitive.
The reason they have this, aside from the obvious “get your friend hooked on heroin and we’ll give you a free injection”, is that they will continue to raise the level cap. Cataclysm will bring 85, and within not too long we’ll have lvl 100 characters. Knowing it takes you 500 hours to get to your friend’s (or your alt’s) level is not an encouraging thought for an aspiring wow-player.
It wasn’t long ago that Blizzard increased the amount of exp returned from quests and decreased the time it took to level 60. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do it again when Cataclysm comes out as I’ve got the feeling they want to keep the amount of time required to hit max level normalised.
I did this a while back and i thought it was awesome, You just gained XP so fast. But these can also be a riot in BG’s. . Back before they kicked you out if you dinged and went over the lvl cap, I had a friend who went into WSG as a 29 or sumthing like that and then ding almost 20 lvls, put on green gear that he had bought for that lvl and then just went around one shotting people. It was one of the funniest things i had ever seen.
LOL, I never even considered doing that!
That’s just fantastic. I wouldn’t have ever even thought that was possible.