I could barely sleep last night, thinking about all of the things I wanted to write here in this first part. I'm guessing this will consist of at least 3 parts, so I'll start with Part 1...
POWER RUSH.
Everyone wants to be 70. That's the new thing. Being 70, taking on whatever course you want, getting the flying mount, doing dailies, etc. But what's the rush? People are rushing to 70 for multiple reasons:
-Because they're new and want to catch up with what seems to be the rest of the server.
-They've done it once and they want another 70 as soon as possible.
-The belief that the game is all about end-game.
I have 3 70s currently, so I understand those beliefs. I have a Rogue, Priest, and Druid. My Hunter is 66, ready to hit 70 whenever I decide, while I work on my 45 Pally.
Originally, after BC had came out, the players who hit 70 first were mainly those in Tier 3, which was "lower" Kara-equivalent (Attument to Opera) when you compared stats and set bonuses. Those who hit 70 afterwards were the ones who sampled every bit of content, doing every instance at least twice, grabbing every quest they could get for money and greens, and ended up at 70 with full Superior (Blue) gear. Soon after that it was one of the 3 grinds. The profession grind (since BC made professions more necessary than ever before), the reputation grind (you needed revered then to do heroics), and the gear grind, getting your D3, or T3.5 as it was called. Things were fine. They progressed into heroics and soon into Karazhan.
But shortly after Season 3 came out, things started getting grim. Details in Part 2, but long story short, people stopped doing the little instances like Auchenai Crypts, Durnholde, and Sethekk Halls. Just months before S3, I was doing 2-3 Shadow Lab runs a day for Aldor rep. But now people were rushing to 70 and hopping on the BG train.
There would normally be nothing wrong with a rush to 70 if there weren't so many negative effects.
-Players who don't do BC instances don't learn basic raid strategies (Blizzard designed the BC instances to help teach raid strategies to newbies).
-Players who rush to 70 normally don't level their professions, or don't get the "harder to get" recipes for them, causing a lack of capable enchanters, LWers, BSers, etc.
-Players who rush to 70 can be hard to group with, since they either soloed most of the game or had someone run them through every instance.
-Rushing to 70 impairs a player's experience with their character. Rushing to 70 with a DPS spec in certain classes normally means they have never tried tanking or healing, and become either a full DPS at 70 or an incapable tank/healer, either of which don't help in putting groups together.
Thinking back on these things, I'm sure there are a lot of instances where you could remember someone who rushed to 70 and didn't have their epic riding mount yet, or didn't have the reputation to do a heroic even after Blizzard made the keys Honored. These things hurt the game and player experience, and interestingly enough, it hurts PvE more than anything. And when you fail at PvE, PvP comes to save the day.
That's our next part in our tour through A Disparate World (of Warcraft).
PvP: Player vs PvE.
