power-level
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: power-levels
form: power-leveling
form: power-levelling
form: power-leveled
form: power-leveled
form: power-levelled
form: power-levelled
Senses: examples: text: The site, which attracts as many as 1,000 clients per month (including a few celebrities Bartlett won’t name), provides power-leveling services for popular subscription-based online games like City of Villains, Star Wars Galaxies, Lineage II and Dark Age of Camelot.
ref: 2006 January 6–8, Paul Bond, “Is it cheating? Casual gamers pay to advance to higher levels”, in USA Weekend, McLean, Va., via USA Today, →OCLC, page [12], column 4:
text: While the main game [of Disgaea 2] is fun, the true joy is building your characters’ stats. Power-leveling is your only chance at completing the optional side quests.
ref: 2006 October 1, Omari Gardner, “Game on!”, in Sunday Free Press, volume 176, number 150, Detroit, Mich.: Detroit Free Press Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8G, column 2:
text: The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has brought into their ranks a teenager named Zach, whose task is to level up characters in online games for the police, who then take those characters on their hunts for predators. Basically, he is “power-leveling” for the police.
ref: 2006 December 21–27, Eric J. Hedlund, “Taos Bytes: Expert help in fighting online predators”, in Tempo: Arts & Entertainment Magazine of The Taos News, Taos, N.M., →OCLC, page 67:
text: There is a bunch of jewelcrafting leveling guides available free on the Net – so don’t pay for one at one of those power-leveling sites.
ref: 2007 February 2, Heather Newman, “Fantastic jewels: New ‘Warcraft’ expansion launches with a gem of an idea”, in Shadra Beesley, editor, 7 (The Spokesman-Review), Spokane, Wash., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11, column 3:
text: Getting to Level 20 might take a newbie a couple of weeks, but power-leveling companies know how to get there a bit quicker. With $24 and a few days, you can outsource the grunt work to a company such as one called IGE, based in Hong Kong and Shanghai, probably the largest and most famous company offering the service.
ref: 2007 March 31, Mike Musgrove, “Proxy Fighters Take Warcraft to Another Level”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 Jun 2025:
text: In most of the stages, victory can only be achieved through the kind of absolute tactical perfection that can come through multiple trial-and-error replays, or a strategy guide. Either that, or you can muck about in side missions, mechanically power-leveling your characters into steamrollers that can just brute-force their way through the missions.
ref: 2008 July 12, Darren Zenko, “Darkness falls”, in Saturday Star, Toronto, Ont., →ISSN, →OCLC, page E6, column 5:
text: Successful gold-farming businesses tended to involve teams of workers using computers in warehouses for ten or more hours a day in shifts, often sleeping on site, with the resulting gold being sold online by an entrepreneur running the ‘farm’ and paying workers on the basis of their ability to gain in-game gold. Games companies have cracked down on such businesses but it is thought that the global market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and increasingly includes more sophisticated services, like ‘power-levelling’ in-game characters by doing the hard work of advancing a character towards the end of a game on behalf of western players prepared to pay not to have to work hard at playing.
ref: 2011, Tom Chatfield, “Virtual goods”, in 50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know, London: Quercus, published 2013, →ISBN:
text: Power-leveling underdeveloped characters, swapping new loot, and cooperating to survive are all highlights of co-op.
ref: 2011 September 15, Tim Turi, “Get armed, dangerous for zombie takeover: ‘Dead Island’ is best when played with friends”, in Going Out (The Evening Sun), Hanover, Pa., →OCLC, page 7, column 2:
text: “Oh? But I am good at magic. Not many people know about it because I couldn’t leave home thanks to my frail body, but I can do fire and water magic, and perform combat spells, too.” / “C-come again?!?!” / For a beautiful young noblewoman, this was incredibly rare. Indeed, as far as Mile’s recollections went, the only such individual she had ever even laid eyes on was Marcela of the Wonder Trio—a young lady that she had trained or “power-leveled”—in other words, one whom Mile had hand-raised herself.
ref: 2019, FUNA, translated by Diana Taylor, “Leatoria”, in Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, volume 6, [Los Angeles, Calif.]: Seven Seas Entertainment, →ISBN:
glosses: Alternative form of powerlevel.