I used to play World of Warcraft like a lot of fantasy fans, and while I gradually became disenchanted with it over the years, what finally killed it for me was the one-two punch of my stomach cancer surgery, which prevented me from playing for months, and the sexual harassment scandal at Blizzard. The news broke literally the month I thought it was time to resubscribe.
This was during the Shadowlands expansion and I'd long since tired of raiding and grinding. I was mostly there for the ongoing story, and my favorite activity when I ran out of story on my main was making an alt of a different class and leveling through the story all over again.
After enough expansions, Blizzard understandably did not want everyone to play through an increasingly long leveling experience all over again with every character, nor did they want new players to spend too much time trying to catch up with their friends at end game.
So they introduced things like experience boosting heirloom gear to help people level up faster, or outright level skips that could come with the purchase of an expansion. I never used either because the point of my leveling a new character was to see all the stops along the way.
Eventually the leveling process went through so many expansions that they just overhauled the entire process, relegating all content older than Battle for Azeroth to being just "old content" and starting all new players off immediately with BfA as a new "Year 0." Older players could choose to timewalk and level in a different expansion of their choosing, but gone was the whole leveling through the entire story to understand the context of what happened before. I think that was about the time my interest in leveling alts really started to flag.
I actually came back for a few months of the latest expansion Dragonflight because a friend surprise gifted it to me along with a subscription so I could play with her. It was my first time coming back in the middle of an expansion, and I lacked any idea of what happened between the end of Shadowlands and the beginning of Dragonflight.
I played once a week on our game nights, and dutifully leveled taking only main storyline quests along the way so I could hit level 70 about the same time as we finished the main story. I did have some good nostalgia moments, especially seeing the various members of the Blue Dragonflight, many of whom I clearly remembered from previous expansions.
But you know?
By the time I got to the end and was ready to do end game content, I felt like I didn't know anything. Even though I was reading every quest that was clearly part of the main story, I felt like I lacked context about what my character was supposedly fighting for, other than certain new characters were the baddies, and the world itself felt hollow since I skipped all the side quests that generally would have provided the fun and flavor to the setting. If there was yet another poop collecting quest, I never saw it. (Never thought I'd realize one was missing.)
I don't miss the game now that my gift subscription has run out. In fact I felt frustrated that I hadn't the opportunity to play all the remaining story material from Shadowlands before going to Dragonflight and while technically, yes, I could have done that, it would either have required me to put in more time than I was willing to give, or I would have to drag my friend though half an old expansion when she wanted to play the new and shiny.
I'm sure Blizzard thinks this is the best solution that can be offered, since they plan on making Dragonflight the new base experience when the next expansion comes up, sending Shadowlands and BfA to join the other previous expansions in timewalking.
But is it really?
The only other online RPG I played for a long time is Dungeon Fighter Online. Like WoW it also offers ways for people to speed level through events, experience boosting potions, or paid benefits (since it's a free to play game). It also has existed for many years, being only a year younger than WoW.
I recently leveled a brand new character from level 1 to the current cap of 110. And it was fun! It's not an open world game like WoW so there are far fewer side quests, but what they've done over the years to avoid making a long leveling experience even longer is edit it down. There were a lot of plot lines that were interesting, and perhaps were once intended to set up for events that didn't happen, and those were removed. Filler dungeons were cut completely, but they also added new material to better integrate characters that were introduced in later seasons so new players could spend time with them before they became important.
The result was a cohesive story that took about the same amount of time to play through as when I first picked up the game six years ago, but I knew everything. It refreshed my memory and the parts they changed weren't drastic enough to affect a veteran player, but made the overall experience better for someone who wanted to play through again or for the first time.
Though I admit I miss certain zones that were removed over the years (pour one out for the Black Crusade Time Gate dungeon), and I'm sad there's no longer a reality where Morgan doesn't end up a zombie, I find I like this, because when a character returns in new content, it's very easy for a player to remember who they are and why they matter. You don't feel like you missed something because you weren't around.
Nothing relevant is ever tucked away in optional or difficult to reach content. Even raids are played through first as part of a solo/small party experience before being opened for a raid version, so you'll never miss part of the story if you'd rather solo, and that includes older raids, which are seamlessly integrated into the leveling revamp as just another part of the story.
I'm not saying Dungeon Fighter Online has the better story, but it has the better presentation for someone who wants to get caught up on everything while doing nothing more than the usual leveling from 1 to max.
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