RAF Follow-up

A quick post about Recruit a Friend. In a previous post I was positive about the offer, and had a pretty hard attitude.

Then I’ve been reading some great comments from all perspectives, and I’m less certain that its a great and wonderful thing. I still think its good but I have some reservations. Dazed and Confused has a really valuable summary, and links to some blogs with follow-up.

Because I posted such a huge rant on Dazed’s blog I’m going to re-use and expand it here…

RAF not being available to some countries is a real slight to those areas, and I can understand exactly how they feel. They feel ignored and like 2nd class clients (try getting an authenticator in Australia and you’ll feel the same).

The points made by Be-Nameless in particular are really valid, and got me re-thinking the issues. IMHO Blizzard is cropping the legs from the power-leveling services in the same manner in which they created so many daily quests so that gold farmers would have less appeal. And that is good.

It is shameful however that a mechanism is not present to allow the folks who are already leveling slowly to continue their progression at an increased rate. These people signed up earlier, and have less benefits than recent arrivals. They’re the ignored middle child between the Mature Raider and the New Player.

So what is the solution?

Offer the increase in leveling to all toons 20-60, regardless of their recruit a friend status. If these people have only one character they’ll be happy, and might get into tBC before Wrath is released. If they already have 70s, then this is Alts anyway, and therefore won’t negatively impact the player base, or increase server load. More toons adds more options in group role composition.

Then again why even offer the 3x XP at all? The previous XP increase was already pretty sweet, and the teleport to each other is a nice boon to speed co-op play. In fact the teleport is the feature that makes the most sense to me! It is perfect for casuals doing co-op and there should be more options for this style of co-op play (its an MMOG afterall). I know it might make the world “smaller”, but you don’t get through 60 levels in WoW without seeing it as a reasonably big place. C’mon be realistic.

Another purported failing of the new RAF is that players will get to level 60 without really knowing their class. What utter rubbish. There are already players at level 70 that can’t tell the difference between a Warlock and a Mage, so this won’t make them any stupider. It may increase the amount of idiots at level 58-60 in Outland looking for group, granted. I can see how that might be true.

But I can also see how if you’re so dull-witted that you can’t learn the basics of your class while going solo to 60, then a bit more speed won’t change anything. Solo leveling is totally different to group leveling, and if you group-up you get challenged more and hopefully learn more. And RAF actually encourages group play; that is a good thing folks.

Lasting the +1 per 2 levels is odd. That’s the boost for helping a mate play; a nice little extra. Except its not a little extra like the new mount, its friggin huge. A free level 30 with no actual action is bloody amazing. And I say that as I can’t see past the benefit to myself to understand if this is fair at all. I like it too much to have any kind of neutral perspective.

I plan to wrought the system to the hilt; in case they realise how good this actually is and take it away. Sorry, but at heart I have a selfish streak.