Some people really love the whole "leveling" deal. It's easy to understand why - you move from zone to zone, experiencing new quest lines and stories, meeting new characters, and exploring new landscapes. To them, here's much more of a feeling of progression than "Hey guys, I almost have enough (Points/Tokens/Honor/Badges/Rupees/Star Bits) to get this slight upgrade!" in the process of leveling, and come on - we ALL know at least one person who's never made it to 60 in four years of WoW, let alone 70. But they DO have twenty or so level 40-ish characters!
For others, though, leveling is just means to an end. The game doesn't start until you're at the level cap - no longer can you be ganked while questing and absolutely flattened because your enemy was 20 levels higher than you. You get the chance to check out all the nifty dungeons and raids and everything that lowbies can only dream of. You stand mighty and powerful and proud! For these people, leveling is more of a chore than anything else. It's the equivalent of buying a shiny new game, but having to do chores for everybody in your extended family every day for a month before you can even unwrap the darn thing.
I can see where both sides are coming from, and when WotLK goes live, I'm going to be enjoying the leveling experience just as much as anybody. But as a writer, when the chance comes to grab a pre-made level 80 character courtesy of Blizzard and check out all the stuff you're six levels away from doing yourself? Sign me right-the-hell up!
As I'd mentioned in the previous mini-entry, time to move on. Time to hit level 80 and check out some of the Lich King endgame!
So, taking this opportunity to check out life from the other side for a bit, I created my brand-new level 80 Gnome Mage (awww, isn't she cute?!) and logged in to the city of Dalaran.
Dalaran, the city of the Kirin Tor, was all but leveled by Arthas and the Burning Legion during the events of the Third War. Since then, though, they've been rapidly reconstructing the place ... or so I'd guess. To be fair, they could have been doing anything beneath that big purple bubble in Alterac. Hell, given the fact that these guys are some of the most powerful sorcerers in all of Azeroth and that the Warsong Orcs built a massive fortress in the blink of an eye through brute strength (and kicking reason to the curb), I wouldn't be surprised if Dalaran's renewal had really only taken a few months at the most. They'd spent the rest of the time playing checkers.
...a really, really, long game of checkers. Or maybe your average game of Monopoly.
Well, the question of what the Azerothian equivalent of Boardwalk and Park Place would be is really irrelevant. Whatever the Kirin Tor have spent the last few years doing beneath their neon-lavender bubble, they've forcibly ripped Dalaran from the ground and floated it ever-so-gently to Northrend, where it hovers above Crystalsong Forest in a manner not unlike that of the Floating Island in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Dalaran is the main "neutral city" of this expansion, supplanting Shattrath as the lag capital of the World of Warcraft.
At first glance, Dalaran seems much more conveniently laid out than Shattrath does. Vendors and trainers for all the professions are concentrated in a single district, making it marginally less annoying to get some crafting work done. The city has separate districts for Horde and Alliance, each with (among other things) portals to their respective home cities and Shattrath, as well as portals that act as Battlemasters for their respective Battlegrounds.
Like Shattrath, while Dalaran has a bank or two, people looking for an Auction House or a class trainer will have to hoof it back to Azeroth. The one exception, though, is for Mages - there is a Mage trainer, as one might expect from, y'know, a city devoted entirely to the Arcane arts. That isn't the only minor advantage Mages have: while everyone else has to reach level 74 to do the attunement quest for the Dalaran teleporter, Mages learn the spell to teleport themselves up there as early as level 71. For Horde, it's given as a reward from a short quest in Agmar's Hammer in the Dragonblight. I don't know what exactly it is for Alliance, but I'm sure it isn't significantly rougher.
In other words, ha! Suck it, non-Mages! Sure, our epic armor might look like somebody at Blizzard has an obsessive fondness for their lavender markers, but we get a class trainer and three whole levels on you guys! Take that!
Of course, you could always get a portal from a friendly level 74 Mage, or a Summon from a Warlock, so, uh, I guess it's not that big a deal.
There's also a little section below the main city in the sewers that's essentially a small Arena enclave, complete with gear vendors, bank, and inn - so theoretically, an Arena-focused player could just bind themselves here and never have to go anywhere else. All in all, it seems like Blizzard has learned from Shattrath, and has designed an infinitely-more-convenient city in Dalaran.
Of course, Dalaran doesn't have KHADGAR, but hey, you can't win 'em all, right?
