I wonder how you guys did it in the past ...

[heyaz]

I boosted the first time without RAF. Just took 3 times as long. 1-60 was more of a 2-3 week project rather than a couple nights.

[Seldum]

I boosted the first time without RAF. Just took 3 times as long. 1-60 was more of a 2-3 week project rather than a couple nights.

Dahm... took me 7 days to get from 0-60 without boosting (as I diden't have any really good toon to boost with).

[Catamer]

I remember doing lots of internet searches for quests and reading about where they were and eventually got an addon that display my location on the map.

[Fef]

Someething that I find very representative of how the game changed since I started playing it is that they (Blizzard) made an Explorer title, and now they provide you with a list of places to visit so that you would get that title ...

Duh ?

[kadaan]

It wasn't bad because that's just the way it was. There wasn't anything to really compare it to. No MMO at the time had any questhelper-type interface, in fact most online games at the time didn't even HAVE quests. Being able to supplement your grinding with quests was "OMG how did people play MMOs before quests?!?!"

Thottbot was around since beta, and was pretty well fleshed out by the time WoW launched. Allakhazam was around too, but I never really cared for it. If you got really stuck on something, you could look at the comments on thottbot.

End-game wasn't the same as it is now, and there weren't many true raid guilds back then. Someone in full blues was amazing, and I remember when I saw a rogue with 8/8 shadowcraft and thinking they were insanely hardcore to have the full set. Dungeons had no player limit, so it wasn't uncommon to see 30-40 people in a raid doing Stratholme or Scholomance, you just had to be sure to drop the group before killing a quest npc to get credit for it. When they made the fix so you couldn't do it, I remember thinking that all those dungeon quests became impossible to do. Seeing someone with any epics at all was just amazing.

My first character to 60 had about 16 days of playtime (priest), and I thought was pretty fast. My second took 14 (warrior), third took 12 (rogue), and fourth took just under 10 (mage). There weren't as many people all at 60, so it wasn't too hard to find "end-game" groups willing to take people in their high 50's. I did MC for the first time on my priest at 58.

Gear was vastly different too. Attack power? Spell power? Haste? There were a few items that had flat +1% or +2% to crit, and very few items that had "increases damage and healing by spells by up to X", but for the most part it was all about stacking the base stats.

Epic mounts were EPIC. 1000 gold was a LOT. There was no exp->gold for quests at 60 and no dailies, so all the gold coming into the system was from looting gold and vendoring items.

Shaman shoulders were funny looking: http://www.kadaan.com/images/screens...106_195157.jpg (and seeing a hunter wearing them let you know they were bad)
Getting 2 arcane crystals was like winning the lottery: http://www.kadaan.com/images/screens...606_235946.jpg
AV was the best place to fish, and you could get the highest level fish with low level fishing: http://www.kadaan.com/images/screens...605_005728.jpg

[Multibocks]

No one even laughed at my everquest comments, I feel so old. =(

[kadaan]

No one even laughed at my everquest comments, I feel so old. =(

Lots of friends in college played EQ, but I was very anti pay-to-play back then so I just stuck with my text-based MUDs. WoW corrupted me.

[Acidburning]

Shaman shoulders were funny looking: http://www.kadaan.com/images/screens...106_195157.jpg (and seeing a hunter wearing them let you know they were bad)

QFT. haha, awesome screenshot.

[heffner]

It's not really different when the cap is L60, L70 and then L80 given the changes that accompany the increased levels.

Basically I just did quests, the same quests I did when I started over many times over the years. There were a lot of them available and you could solo level up to the cap through questing which was one big appeal to playing WoW from the very beginning. The quests are designed very well and they direct you to where to go next without a guide. Not to mention the player base was so huge for WoW there was a ton of information and spoilers on the net if you needed them.

So, in terms of leveling, nothing has really changed. It probably doesn't take longer to get to 80 then it did to get to 60 back in the day since they have changed the XP requirements to level etc..

I am sure Cataclysm will be the same, with the exception that they will add the "alternate XP" and "guild XP" etc.

TLDR - Leveling in wow was just as easy five years ago as it is now.

[Fizzler]

It was easy actually. Having come from MUD :P ok lets not go back that far.

My first true modern MMO was Ultima Online. I loved that game, it was ahead of it's time with housing and guild towers. I think I went on to Asheron's Call or EQ, Asheron's Call 2, than EQ2 all of them much more of a grind. When I first started playing WoW I could not believe you could level so fast and how cartoony it looked. I loved it I had a few kids, found my career and just did not have time to sink into the game anymore. It was a perfect match and I have never looked back.