1) The weekend warrior/solo-ist/retro-gamer: This player logs in like once a week if he's lucky. He doesn't really care, and has no emotional investment whatsoever. He's as likely to play frogger from the 80s as log in to level his fishing in WoW. He's likely to hit 80 about a year after Blizzard shuts down WoW servers, i.e. never) He plays WoW because it's the "in" thing, but would rather be gunning down people in a game that is a decade past it's prime solo-style.
2) The fail-at-life gamer: This player lost his job due to the game. He probably runs a guild now, and raids 4-7 days a week. He's got several alts, all of which are in alt raids. He doesn't understand why his members don't put in more effort, and when drama hits he almost loses his mind considering his entire life is invested in the game and some pee-ant is tearing down the foundations of all his life's work. This guy hit 80 so fast he never even saw the content.
3) The perfectionist/achiever: This guy will hit 80 sooner or later. Unfortunately it'll be later. The problem is he has to do every quest, and I do mean every quest. He reads every quest, every sentence, every word. He stops in towns to listen to the random chatter of computer-controlled AI conversations. He may even talk to the computers. After he finishes one 10-20 zone, he leaves and does the other 10-20 zones even when he's level 30 and everything is grey. He has to get every tabard, and has to learn every skill. He has to visit ever tavern and kill every creature, tame every beast, gaze at every sky set. And should he take any measurable break from the game, he has to start all over again. I predict this player will reach 80 in 2020, by then the game will be dead. I have bad news for this gamer. In less than 12 months, all that content you have yet to do, will be gone forever. You TOOK TOO LONG DUMB ASS!
4) The raider/social gamer: This player plays the game to have fun with friends. They spend some time in-game, but recognize the value of a job, friends, exercise, etc. They probably game too much, but they don't let it ruin the other parts of their life. It will take this gamer anywhere between a month and 3 months to hit 80, assuming they don't fry their computer or account in the process.
What I want to tell you, is how to level and not suck. First off, knock off the achiever crap. Get to 80 and then you can go back and do all the old shit content. If you don't hurry up, some content will be gone forever. Not to mention, there is some content that you can only do with a group of people, and most people don't hang out at lower levels. Blizzard has gone out of their way time and time again to do away with twinking. If you don't know what twinking is, then you are probably a weekend warrior and there is no hope for you. I recommend you save some $, cancel your subscription, and start up some old school pong/frogger.
Leveling is a byproduct. It happens when you log in and don't sit on your hands. Maximizing your leveling efficiency, and therefore giving you more time to do the fun stuff, is the science. It's all about minimizing your downtime and the time you do spend is as efficient as possible.
First off, if you have an 80, never level another toon unless you have the heirloom shoulders and chest.
Secondly, don't level purely in dungeons. The dungeon finder makes it appealing, but you'll burn out. Plus pugs are often a fast way to ruin the game for you. There are more bad pugs than good ones. What's a pug you ask? Go level some more and you'll figure it out. ;P No seriously, quests done in an efficient manner.
First off, you'll want some addons to speed you on your way.
The magic combination is: Tourguide, Tomtom, and Lightheaded. Tourguide and lightheaded are 100% necessary. Tomtom is important if you don't use cartographer or carbonite. Tourguide basically helps you go through quests in an efficient manner. You skip the ones that have low drop rates, or take you really far out of your way, or simply are not worth the time sink. You pick up quests that often require turn ins later in other zones, and the ordering of the quests is done such that you will be in those zones at the right time, place, and with the right stuff. Be wary of too much dungeon delving though. You'll find tourguide is behind and all you'll have is green quests. Sometimes you can skip a few, but be wary of skipping too much, especially if you're new to the game. I recommend no skips except at level 58 (go straight to outlands) and 68 (go straight to northrend).
Choose a leveling spec. Don't screw around with your talents. You will just be wasting your own time. Go to the forums at worldofwarcraft.com and there are forums for every class. Each forum has stickies. Each sticky will recommend a leveling spec. Or you can google it like "druid leveling spec" but don't forget to include some information about the current build of the game, or you might get advice that is 3-4 years old. So "druid leveling spec 3.3". Some basic pointers are
A) always choose stuff that improves your dps
B) if at all possible choose a spec that is as mana independent as possible
For classes, I'd say
Rogue - Combat (check shadowpanther for leveling info)
Warrior - Arms (although prot is decent once you hit 40)
Druid - Feral (balance is good at 60+ too)
Hunter - Beastmastery
Mage - Frost
Warlock - demonology
Paladin - Retribution
Priest - Shadow
Shaman - Enhancement
Death Knight - Unholy
You get skills at every even level from 1 to 60 (i.e. 2, 4, 6, 8, ... 54, 56, 58, 60). Just because you ding at an even level, doesn't mean you should rush back to a trainer. Check wowhead.com and make sure the trip is worth ruining your momentum. Some levels give you skills that you won't use until you are max level.
One thing that seems to slow a lot of people down is bag space. They fill up with junk, and then have to make frequent trips to vendors. Often they'll be standing in the middle of a zone going through their bags trying to find the cheapest item to discard, so they can continue (for another 30 seconds before having to do the same thing). Take your gold and buy the biggest bags you can get. When you visit a town, keep a full stack of the best food and water (if you have mana) in your bags, but sell every other food/drink item. Only keep one type of health pot, and one type of mana pot. Sell everything else. Get an addon like gearscore to give you an idea of the value of the gear you are wearing. Only keep the best item of a given slot (i.e. no reason to have three different bracers in your bag while leveling, even if one is better for dps, tanking, healing...it doesn't matter when you are only leveling as the gear will be outdated in the next few days anyways). I have a macro that will sell all grey items to a vendor as long as you have the vendor window open.
/script for bag = 0, 4 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag) do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot) if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name) UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end end end
If you keep your bags free of junk, get the three addons I recommended above, and spec for damage you should level like a crazy person. It isn't voodoo, it is just doing things smarter not harder.
Do not turn in every quest after you complete it. Try to complete 7-10 quests, and then turn them all in at once. You'll find it is much faster that way. Don't forget to buy your mount and fast mount at 20 and 40 accordingly.
Good luck, and I'll see you all at 80!
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