Within the last couple of days, the Blues have been hard at work dropping nuggets of WoW goodness at our feet regarding several new changes coming for newly leveling players (or those leveling alts) in World of Warcraft. The first news came yesterday, when we heard that they were dropping the base mount level restriction down from 30 to 20, and adjusting all the other riding requirements to follow suit. Today we heard they are adjusting travels forms like the Druid travel form and the shammy Ghost Wolf ability to level 16, so that those classes will have a speedier form of transport before they get a mount.
All of this is in keeping with my belief that we will have an expansion announcement at August's BlizzCon, and that we will see said expansion released this winter. While there has been no official confirmation on the subject, buzz online has been backing me up on this. Now that we know they are adding portals directly from Thrallmar and Stormwind to Hellfire Peninsula, it appears that the devs are streamlining the lower areas of the game to make it easier to level up.
The precedent was set for this when they increased leveling speed for levels 20-60 in advance of Wrath's release, and lowered the mount level requirement from 40 to 30. I appears that the developers are as concerned as I am about the possible gulf widening between new players and those who are already at the current level cap.
All of this tweaking (and I expect more blue posts as Patch 3.2 nears) is a sign that we are stepping into the Maelstrom this winter. Yeah, you heard me, Maelstrom. You need only read a couple Richard A. Knaak books to realize that the last great paragon Azshara is still out there, and that she's been siphoning water from Zangermarsh for years now. With swimming mounts now added to the game, the next expansion choice is an obvious one.
When Maelstrom releases, we can expect another level cap raise -- most likely to 90. So it's a good thing that they are making it easier to level from 1-80 now, so as not to alienate those who might start the game anew with the next expansion. Hey, it could happen.
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