WoW Week: Wrath of the Lich King, day 5

The Grind Curve
Those of you who may have given up before even reaching the top will be happy to know that, as a result of feedback (read: people complaining like complainers love to), the middle chunk of WoW has been squashed to make the trawl from levels 20 to 60 a lot more pleasant. Blizzard quotes a spurious percentage to show how much easier it is, but we’ve been leveling new characters to try it out.

Not only has quest experience been increased between levels 30-60, the entire curve is noticeably easier on you - you’ll spend less time hanging around zones, and get a lot more bang for your buck on some of the tougher quests. Drop rates have been increased noticeably on some quests, and Dustwallow Marsh is now a great deal better. The addition of Mudsprocket and some additional goblin quests within adds depth to the zone - and gives you an extra flight path; useful considering the size of it all. Dungeons have also been tweaked to be more rewarding, and overall patch 2.3 has made the lower levels a joy - so if you’re hoping to start anew, not only is there still time to level up, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Fr’instance
Naxxramas and Zul’Aman are the newest instances - one released before The Burning Crusade, one released after. Naxxramas operates as a high-level raid dungeon, built for those able to compete in the higher level guilds, but Zul’Aman is an easily-accessible dungeon released recently for players burned out on Karazhan runs looking for a new challenge. Full of angry, tribal Forest Trolls, Zul’Aman should prepare you for the Trolls of Zul’Drak - and dealing with the icy instanced content of Drak’Tharon Keep.