Thoughts on Leveling From 1-60 "Vanilla" Style

As you may have read in my previous post (Can You Make Gold At Low Levels? My Results From Level 1-49) I've been leveling a Warrior from level 1 to 60 in as close a "Vanilla" style as possible. Today I finally finished leveling her to 60 and I wanted to share a few additional thoughts on the process.

The Set Up

I should start out by saying that (sadly) my physical World of Warcraft: Legion Collector's Edition has not arrived yet. (It should be here in a few more days.) While it is a bit sad that I've had to wait a week or so to start playing Legion it hasn't been all bad. It's given me the chance to level my warrior to 60 in preparation for a level 100 boost.

In case you didn't read my last post I've been leveling with things that one would find/experience if playing back in Vanilla (Original) World of Warcraft. The "rules" included:

• No mounts until level 40
• No heirlooms
• No extra gold from my other characters
• Leveling mainly through questing (although using Looking For Dungeon was allowed once every 5 levels or so I only ended up doing 4 or 5 total dungeons the whole time)
• Mailing item drops and/or gathered item was allowed and the bank alt could sell the items on the auction house using modern addons (The Undermine Journal, TradeSkillMaster, etc.)

When last we spoke I was at level 49, had 5600 gold, and my time played was around 27 hours. At level 60 my gold was right around 7800 and my played time was right around 40 hours. (I still have more items that will hopefully sell in the auction house but that's what I have as of now.)

Leveling Feels Sloooooow

Some quick math shows that on average each level took around 40 minutes. I can say from experience that the early levels went by much faster than the later levels.

Anyone who leveled in Vanilla could tell you that but these days levels don't seem to take longer the higher you go. They may actually take longer but they don't feel longer.

When I was getting into my higher levels it felt like it would take upwards of 3 or 4 hours a level. I'm not certain that is how long it took but it felt that way.

7800 gold collected is on average around 130 gold per level. That doesn't seem like much but then again I had more than enough to buy my flying skill. In Vanilla 7800 gold would have felt like so much gold.

So Close Eastern Kingdoms, So Close

After level 49 I finished up Bad Lands, moved onto Swamp of Sorrows, and then moved on to Blasted Lands. On the World Map Blasted Lands was listed as a level 55-60 zone but I only got to level 58.5 there.

I had to move to Silithus to get those last 1.5 levels and, while I don't mind having to do that, I was hoping to be able to level from 1-60 in the Eastern Kingdoms only.

(I think that back in Vanilla there was no real way to level from 1-60 on one continent. When they revamped the old world in Cataclysm they smoothed out and re-worked the leveling areas so that there was a path to level from 1-60 on both continents independently.)

I did skip some quests in some zones because every 5 levels or so I was moving on to the new zone so those missed quests might have allowed me to hit 60 in Blasted Lands.

Slow Leveling = Lots of Gathering

As I mentioned in the previous article I'm certain they changed the gathering system to allow you and other people around you in the world to both gather the same node around the same time.

I'm not sure if this change was the cause of me finding lots and lots of ore nodes but I found tons of ore nodes. Almost every ore node around me seemed to be available when I was moving past it.

As someone with extensive experience gathering in the older expansion (The Burning Crusade especially) I can tell you that it used to be that passing by node locations you would get on average about 1 node per 8 or 9 possible node locations that you passed.

Maybe Blizzard increased the node spawns in the older world to get more mats flowing into the world. Either way if you want a way to make gold, farming old world mining routes might be something to look into. In my experience Silver Ore had the best sale price. I found a lot of Silver Ore in Stranglethorn Vale.

Will I Do It Again?

Will I ever level a character in this old school "Vanilla" style ever again? Possibly. While leveling this character I had the vague sense of déjà vu and realized that this wasn't the first character that I'd leveled in this way.

A few years ago I also leveled a Paladin in the same"Vanilla" way and many of the quests and areas that I leveled through were familiar because I'd already been through them.

I think that I'll keep this "Vanilla"/old school style of leveling around as a possible gameplay style just in case that I want a break from the super-fast leveling you can get when using things like Heirlooms, Looking For Dungeon, etc.

As a fun side-project I might go through some older expansions without Heirlooms and flying. I think this could be a fun thing to do in The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.

When your top priority isn't leveling as fast as possible it can be really a nice relaxing and enjoyable experience to just work your way though quests and soak up the atmosphere.

Legion Awaits

In the next few days I'll have the Legion expansion and I'll start leveling a character through the world. Maybe the experience of simply enjoying the leveling experience I've had from 1-60 will inform my Legion leveling.

Maybe I'll take a bit more time to stop and smell the roses read the quests text.

When Mists of Pandaria was released I did a 33-part video series called Hunter vs. Pandaria where I livestreamed and recorded on YouTube (Hunter vs. Pandaria YouTube Playlist) my experience of leveling through Mists of Pandaria from level 85-90.

I did in in a slow and deliberate fashion even going so far as to stop and read all of the quest text aloud. If you want to experience one person's leveling experience through Mists of Pandaria there are hours and hours of footage for you to watch.

I liked that experience and I'm glad that it is recorded and saved for posterity. While I didn't to that for Warlords of Draenor perhaps I can do something similar for Legion.

Maybe my wife and I leveling together will get in the way of doing something like that but I think that it seems like a fun project.

Conclusion

I think that while the leveling experience was long I think that the time spent was well worth it.

It will help me appreciate leveling in Legion. It's also reminded me why I like placing constraints on my gameplay. It gives you a chance to look at the game another way.

Legion is coming and I have 14 level 100s who could be called up to level and now another level 60 ready to be boosted to 100.

As Legion begins I'll settle into one or two characters and just enjoy my first time leveling through the expansion.

That sounds real nice.

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