125199-alternate-leveling-path

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I've been playing around with my alts a lot lately and having a blast. The one thing though that bothers me is the lack of an alternate leveling path. This especially bothers me when going through Whitevale. It's not that I don't enjoy the place It's just that It gets a bit boring (for me anyway) after a couple of times playthrough. I've noticed that quite a few others have commented, here and elsewhere about the same thing. I'm pretty sure that I've read somewhere that there is in actual fact a couple of other zones that are not completed yet, that are around the level of Whitevale and Farside, Is this true ? I realize that Carbine are unlikely to focus on new leveling zones when there are so many other things that need to be done but I'm wondering if It's something they might hit at a later date. I reckon it would be a good addition to the game, especially if the game grows and more people start rolling alts and such. If there is a couple of unfinished zones on the shelf, I wonder how far along they are  :)
What's your thoughts guy's.	
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my thought, is that your post needs more paragraphs.
 
Outside that, yes alternative paths would be nice.	
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I do personally hate Whitevale, for me, what keeps me motivated while levelling is having that "this zone is nearly done, come on, come on" but with Whitevale, that feeling of finishing a zone takes a long time because its just sooo huge. But thats just my opinion.
 
Any way, I like the current levelling path. I have got it down to the T, and can level a toon in under 35 hours now. For a "new" path, I think we should leave anything like for that a new expansion that has a higher level cap.	
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Heh, yeah, I've been wailing about this since ... oh ... six weeks into Early Beta. :lol:
 
I'm an Alt-o-holic in the worst way. I enjoy the low-stress activities of leveling and questing. But I've been playing this game in one form or another for almost two years, and I gotta tell you, if there is one thing that will make me leave forever, it'll be the sheer boredom of having to do the never-changing, eternally-present Whitevale>Farside>Wilderrun>Malgrave>Grimvault grind. And they'll keep adding "Endgame zones" for the foreseeable future ... and guys like me will eventually tire of the already-stale leveling zones and move on. The absolute saddest part of this dilemma is, even if I swap sides and roll Dominion, by the time I get to level 20, I'll be right back doing the EXACT SAME ZONES only from the other direction.
 
I hate to compare WildStar to World of Warcraft, but damn, Azeroth is HUGE ... FREAKING MONSTROUS by comparison. I never have to level through the same path twice.
 
EDIT TO ADD: It's really only gotten really bad since the bottom fell out of low-level PVP. In the early days, it was wonderful to be able to quest for a while, run a couple of battlegrounds, quest some more, PVP some more ... It made the "grindy bits" more tolerable and gave us something to do other than kill/fetch/toggle PVE mobs. Since everyone stopped queuing, there is no variety to be had.	
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			Azeroth really had two main paths, one for each continent, but only for getting from 1-60, from there on (other than the first zone in northrend), the path was pretty linear. 	
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Azeroth really had two main paths, one for each continent, but only for getting from 1-60, from there on (other than the first zone in northrend), the path was pretty linear. 
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Azeroth really had two main paths, one for each continent, but only for getting from 1-60, from there on (other than the first zone in northrend), the path was pretty linear. 
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I hate to compare WildStar to World of Warcraft, but damn, Azeroth is HUGE ... FREAKING MONSTROUS by comparison. I never have to level through the same path twice.
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I just wish there was a little more of it  :)
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			I'd honestly they rather keep producing end-game content such as raids, dungeons, bgs, adventures, and world story zones, but I spend almost all my time on my 50s. 	
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			yea..and TBO..I hope there soon comes and option to buy a max level toon...or close to..but as with wow..I guess we have to wait unthil a new level cap to get that;)	
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I'd honestly they rather keep producing end-game content such as raids, dungeons, bgs, adventures, and world story zones, but I spend almost all my time on my 50s. 
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Or another Moon to explore. Or an entire "Eldan Network" zone underground. Or a return to a giant derelict Arkship.
 
Sure, those *could be* shiphands or dungeons that last only for a few minutes, or they could be sprawling questing zones with stories and challenges and all that good stuff. Personally, I'll take another questing path over fifty dungeons, raids or shiphands.
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Azeroth really had two main paths, one for each continent, but only for getting from 1-60, from there on (other than the first zone in northrend), the path was pretty linear. 
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			I did more searching and found two zones that where mentioned in this thread last year https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/88878-two-new-or-removed-zones-from-the-game/ I had no idea they even existed, Murkmire and Dreadmure  :)	
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I did more searching and found two zones that where mentioned in this thread last year https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/88878-two-new-or-removed-zones-from-the-game/ I had no idea they even existed, Murkmire and Dreadmure  :)
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I did more searching and found two zones that where mentioned in this thread last year https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/88878-two-new-or-removed-zones-from-the-game/ I had no idea they even existed, Murkmire and Dreadmure  :)
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However, I have also noticed that MMOs the past several years have been releasing with very small worlds to explore and almost completely linear leveling paths.  I'm not quite sure why, as WoW was able to pull it off back in the day albeit some zones were almost empty of content (Azshara) or had limited or disjointed content particularly at higher levels.  My hypothesis is that games launch with a boatload of content that isn't just quests, dungeons, and a single raid like WoW did.  The extent of WoW's PvP was open world slugfests like Southshore/Tarren Mill raids back then.
 
Maybe it's just not doable anymore, but I also have my suspicions that devs get too embroiled in work based on some sort of vision that often ignores feedback from the players who alert them to broken content.
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Most importantly everything must grant faction reputation.
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			I'd love to see some variety in the mid-range zones mentioned above... I'm looking forward to levelling my liitle Engineer and an Esper above 20, but dreading visiting Whitevale again (and again).	
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definitely this...
 
I'm not sure if they changed it, but PvP should most certainly be granting it if it's still now. Last time I PvPed it didn't and that seemed a bit...."off" to me.
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Area design is labor intensive even if you don't need new art assets (models, textures, particles, music, foley, etc.).  Then you need missions which require one or more balance passes for both xp and loot.  And don't forget any zone events and world bosses.
 
That said, at least one or two more alternatives to Whitevale->Farside->Wilderun->Malgrave>Blighthaven would be welcome.  Other options would be to vastly expand the number of shiphands, add lowbie dailies or even contracts.  Most importantly everything must grant faction reputation.
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It's interesting to note that older games have far more expansive worlds, such as Everquest and WoW.  The above may be true, but older games definitely found a way.  I would surmise the shrinking of MMO worlds in recent times has to do with far more demands for renewable content, thereby taking away from making the world a vast place.
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			The one good thing about Whitevale and its size is that you can skip a lot of quests if you focus on "just getting through". Next time around, you can pick a few of these quests you skipped the last time and enjoy some change.	
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The one good thing about Whitevale and its size is that you can skip a lot of quests if you focus on "just getting through". Next time around, you can pick a few of these quests you skipped the last time and enjoy some change.
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That is the benefit to having leveled multiple alts haha. You know exactly when to nope on out of there.
 
Oh you want me to rally troops around Grimvault? Nah.
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One problem with this strategy is that it leaves you with <25k exile rep.
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It's interesting to note that older games have far more expansive worlds, such as Everquest and WoW.  The above may be true, but older games definitely found a way.  I would surmise the shrinking of MMO worlds in recent times has to do with far more demands for renewable content, thereby taking away from making the world a vast place.
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I would love to be able to skip Galeras, have a warrior and medic who may be level 15 forever because Galeras. I don't know why I dislike that zone so much I just do, always have. It has great zone music, the rest of it could be nuked by the dominion :D
 
 
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It's interesting to note that older games have far more expansive worlds, such as Everquest and WoW.  
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Rift has a thing that is called Instant Adventure.
 
You queue up and when group is found you get teleported to the place in the open world and you start doing tasks/quests/objectives that are required by the poped Instant Adventure. Player can join and leave during this thing, everything scales for the amount of players in group/raid. Pretty cool thing. You can google and read more info about it.
 
P.S. Man, I realy want those Rift artifact collectibles here in Wildstar.	
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I think I saw a few mention that older MMO's seemed to have more expansive worlds. While I will agree with some that it is because the publishers and marketing department are pressuring the devs to get something out fast to start earning revenue, I actually think the biggest reason for this is simply that MMO's have become more about getting to the end where the game starts than they are about the journey. I still remember when I first logged into EQ looked around and thought, "Wow.....I'm going to have a long epic journey!" I haven't felt that in an MMO for years now, it's mostly just been, "Well, time to zerg through leveling so I can get to the good stuff."
 
That's also my fault partly for constantly getting into that mode, but take a look around the online forums today. You will see a lot of people constantly talking about endgame and that being where the game begins. I know a lot of people will say that without an amazing and engaging endgame an MMO is doomed like SWOTR, but trust me I played SWOTR and there was a lot more wrong than no endgame, it was just one of the many issues there. I would love to see a game built around the journey and the journey actually taking more than a week to finish, with real consequences to taking one path over another. Bleh, I'm rambling again, all I'm saying is it would be cool to see a little bit more of the RP part of RPG in these games again. 	
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The problem with levelling currently, is exactly that: there is no choice.
 
For me, levelling is a grind, and I don't enjoy it without something to break it up, like PvP and PvE instances (or other group content).  Because of the low population, none of that exists - *none* - and it means that levelling so far has been the most tedious exercise.  Combine that with real life time constraints, and I still haven't hit 50 yet on my main character.	
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I think I saw a few mention that older MMO's seemed to have more expansive worlds. While I will agree with some that it is because the publishers and marketing department are pressuring the devs to get something out fast to start earning revenue, I actually think the biggest reason for this is simply that MMO's have become more about getting to the end where the game starts than they are about the journey. I still remember when I first logged into EQ looked around and thought, "Wow.....I'm going to have a long epic journey!" I haven't felt that in an MMO for years now, it's mostly just been, "Well, time to zerg through leveling so I can get to the good stuff."
 
That's also my fault partly for constantly getting into that mode, but take a look around the online forums today. You will see a lot of people constantly talking about endgame and that being where the game begins. I know a lot of people will say that without an amazing and engaging endgame an MMO is doomed like SWOTR, but trust me I played SWOTR and there was a lot more wrong than no endgame, it was just one of the many issues there. I would love to see a game built around the journey and the journey actually taking more than a week to finish, with real consequences to taking one path over another. Bleh, I'm rambling again, all I'm saying is it would be cool to see a little bit more of the RP part of RPG in these games again. 
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			Actually, when I first played WoW back at launch it was also more about the journey than rushing to endgame. Sadly though it has become a rush to endgame these days so u can fully agree with that if we are talking about present WoW.	
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