Lucky Old Cat
I’m calling BS on the leveling speed. As someone who’s been doing MMORPGs since EveQuest, I remember the days when the starter levels were a massive grind (I’m thinking of you FFXI... like 45 minutes to go from level 2 to 3 on a white mage) and even *they* were never anywhere near as bad as 6 hours for a starter level. Common sense says: If you want a massive player base, don’t bore them the heck away before they have a chance to enjoy the game. That was actually EXACTLY what WoW did right and what was behind their meteoric rise and dominance. They intelligently realized that they could put out free trials and if they make the early levels nearly as easy as possible, making sure players got lots of loot and rewards and the feeling like they were dominating everything, they’ll have so much fun that by the time they have to fork out cash, they’ll already have become long since addicted to the game. I don’t believe that 30 years after WoW, someone would be stupid enough to screw themselves over in a game like that. Even games like Darksouls make adjustments for beginner difficulty.