The Next Step

So I'm pretty sure I know where we're going from here.

I bet, after this expansion, Blizzard is going to announce a "level squish."  Next expansion, rather than going to level 110, we're all going to be dropped to level 50, and the new content will take us to level 60.

I mean, we're already at the point where it doesn't make any sense to have 100 levels.  Talents are every fifteen levels, abilities are every five levels or so (averaged out along the curve).  In fact, we don't get anything other than stat increases for the majority of "levels" that we earn these days.  Not like how it used to be, when the whole point of leveling was to earn talent points, get new ability levels, etc.

I'm not saying I want to go back to those days, not at all.  Current system works fine.  I'm saying that the next logical step is to compress it all down into half of what it is now.  Gain a talent point at level 10 and every ten levels thereafter, or level 15 and five levels thereafter.  Get new abilities at half the level they're at now.  Keep the 1-10 process the same, but compress everything else.

Some caveats.  It'll only "work" if the process of getting to level 50 takes about the same time as it does now, maybe a little longer.  How do I envision that working?  Glad you asked.  The starter zones stay the same but each zone after that has the beginning of its level band cut in half (more or less) while keeping the same range of levels.  So, for example, EPL would start at level 20 rather than level 40, but it would still span five levels.

Does this mean you'd spend less time leveling?  Yes, but between heirlooms, Recruit-a-Friend, and now buying a max-level character, I don't see a tremendous problem with that.  You skip half the zones, but to be fair, you already get to do that.  So I guess you'd skip three-quarters of the zones.  I mean I personally would be fine if, after making these changes, they slowed down the process a little bit, as long as it didn't revert to the "two levels are one level" feeling of the last two expansions.

(Seriously, the whole reason I hate leveling through Cata and Mists is because each level takes so frakking long to earn.  Because each level is really two levels.  I'm so happy that Warlords is a ten-level expac.)

And of course there'd be endless QQ from the player base, but I think we'd all get used to it in the same way we got used to talents.  And honestly I like the new talents for the most part, though I do miss having the ability to tweak my characters.  Of course, Blizzard has been progressively moving towards a "less customization" model for quite a while now, and it doesn't look like that's about to stop either.

So there you go.  There's my prediction for WoW 7.  No idea where we'll be going or what we'll be doing when we get there, but I bet we'll be doing it as 50th-level characters.