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While I’ve been out of town, one PC game I’ve been plugging away has been Torchlight. Although the game is way more Diablo than it is WoW, there are still some tips that I’ve picked up playing that are applicable to WoW.

Increase Drop Rates

Let’s face it, WoW is an exercise in choosing between loot. Whether you’re level 10 or level 80, loot is the main factor that propels you to log into raids and 5 man dungeons. If Blizzard is looking to streamline the race from level 1 to 80 anyway (see the lowered level requirements for mounts, the increased payout for low level quests, Heirloom gear, etc), why not jack up the rate of loot drops in the leveling experience. Instead of seeing a piece of loot drop at a 5% rate, why not raise it to 15%? It hardly makes a difference as most early level players are not new players, they’re actually veteran players leveling up their alts (I’d love to see some statistics to support or undermine this assumption).

Make Low Level Toons OP

One of the most fun parts of leveling a Death Knight was marveling at how absolutely overpowered they were. Every time I entered into a new zone, I compared my experience with the Death Knight against my experience leveling a Warlock when I had first entered the zone. There was absolutely no comparison. For the low level content, the Death Knight was truly a Hero Class. Similarly in Torchlight, players can take on 10-12 Mobs at a time, giving a truly epic feel to the combat. And since health and mana pots are plentiful (and there is no cool down attached to them), there is no down time when moving from group to group. This persistent combat leads to the “One more level” syndrome, a sure sign that you are emerged and enjoying the game.

Cut Down on Travel Times

In Torchlight, town portals drop off of nearly every group of Mobs that you kill. The frequency of your travel back to town makes limited bag space a non issue and it lines your pockets with enough gold to take chances (purchasing random enchantments and mystery items from vendors). I understand that Griffin travel in WOW was designed to show off all the hard work that Blizzard had done with their zones but to be frank, its been five years and we’ve seen it already!  Please take a queue from Torchlight and eliminate onerous travel times.

No Opportunity Cost to Leveling

Just like in the end game, there are tons of different “Optimal” specs for leveling up your character. Players who don’t follow these specs don’t necessarily have a super difficult time leveling, but the experience certainly isn’t as easy as it would have been if they had used one of these specs. Torchlight has no opportunity cost for leveling. If a player really enjoys one spell, he can continue to dump as many skill points into it as he wants to put it on par with new spells that they’ve unlocked later in their tree. This allows players to have a number of different leveling experiences as they play through the game.

I guess the overall point of all these tips is that if WoW is going to break the leveling experience, then they should really break it.  And if you are looking to get lost in a few hours of hacking and slashing (in anticipation of Diablo 3), I fully recommend Torchlight!