The odd couple, playing together
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 12th 2007 at 3:17PM
Playing with friends is probably the most fun you can have in WoW-- while it's fun to solo, a good group is where it's at, and there's no better group then playing with people you know. Unfortunately, because even people who have a lot in common hardly ever level at the same rate, level differences grow quicker than expected, and pretty soon it's just not possible to play with friends without someone wasting their time.Until friendship shows up anyway. Lev over at WoW Ladies writes about an interesting duo she made with another player-- after joining up for a quest in Winterspring, they've rolled 10 levels together, and even played on their alts. And the weirdest thing is, she's 22 and he's 14, so you don't think they'd have a lot in common, but she says they play together great (she has a younger brother, and she compares their relationship to that). In the comments, someone about her age confesses to being grouping buddies with an 80-year-old person, and someone else tells a story of leveling up 40 levels with someone they met in game.
Makes me kind of jealous, actually-- I've played a long time with the same people at 60 (and now 70), but leveling, I was never at the right rhythm to really grow with anyone else, either in common or otherwise. On my very first character, I played a night elf hunter (duh), and got some help from a night elf priest on how to start playing the game. I still have that guy on my friends list on that realm, and still see him play online, but he outstripped me in terms of levels a long, long time ago (he's 70, and my hunter is stuck in the late 50s). Now, it'd be nice to somehow technically be always able to play with friends (you could have instances that averaged your levels, or just play with premades, which is what I think Guild Wars does), but I think that's just one of the drawbacks of having a leveling system-- unless you only play those characters together, someone will always fall ahead or drop back.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Quests, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CVJ Jun 12th 2007 3:29PM
I had a regular pair of guildies I leveled with back when I had my first toon. That was when we all kind of sucked at the game since we were new to the game.
I kind of miss it now since it seems people just solo and then get a pug for a quest that as soon as you complete it they ditch the group without a "thanks".
Preebs Jun 12th 2007 3:39PM
I play with my fiancee. We started around a month apart (We both came from the game Lineage). I'm a solo-er by nature, as is she. We group when we both have free time. By otherwise we mainly solo. We have a guild made up of just our characters (We made one of each class so we have a nice 20 character guild) Just last weekend my main reached level 59 while she is only 49. My plan is to just PvP for my epic gear until she hits the same level as me before we head into the dark portal together.
I guess that it's mostly because I'm a soloer that I don't have these types of problems. Yes I'd like to see all the instances, but I'm happy with the system we have now.
Claymore Jun 12th 2007 3:45PM
A friend and I have played together since the expansion came out. We are currently level 53 and are only a couple hundred exp apart. We only play these characters together. If we are on without the other person we use an alt. Having someone to level up with make things a lot easier
Tridus Jun 12th 2007 3:45PM
I levelled my Prot Warrior in tandem with a friends Holy Priest all the way from 1 to 69 (70 this week most likely). They were never played alone.
Same with my Warlock, which I only play with my Finance's Paladin.
TheManxX72 Jun 12th 2007 3:49PM
I play WoW with my girlfriend, though we both have seperate mains we do have alts of the same level. We basically play them online together only progressing with each other doing the same quests. Granted we dont play them often since we are constantly working our 70's together for epic loot, but when we need a break we run our alts together. We both agree, running azeroth on foot suxor.
Lexanya Jun 12th 2007 3:51PM
Pre-mades in Guild Wars are only for PvP/GvG battles. It's a tad more complicated because only really good skills are opened up to pre-mades if you play the PvE and "cap" them there.
It's sad really, most of my friends here have passed me already and I'm the one that got them to start playing. I have way to much fun on various alts so they all stuck to one and now are in their late 50s while I'm running around at 30 something. It would be nice to have someone to play with all the time but its ok we still have guild chat.
Dave Jun 12th 2007 3:57PM
Having a friend to run stuff with makes everything go vastly more smoothly; a friend and I have taken our warrior and paladin from 54 to 65 very easily by almost always moving together. I don't take ten years to kill things, and he doesn't die all the time, as is the case when we solo. Furthermore, forming successful instance groups is very, very easy, since we always already have a main healer and a main tank. (I would recommend trying to level characters in complementary roles together if you plan on doing a lot of instances.)
Dracula Jones Jun 12th 2007 3:58PM
I soloed a rogue to 60 in 2005 and then quit the game for a year. With the hype surrounding the expansion, I got psyched to play again and convinced a friend to give the 14-day trial a shot. He was hooked and we both started characters back in January. We play these characters (Paladin & Warlock) almost exclusively as a duo and it's so much more fun than soloing with the rogue.
The class combo is great and we're friggin unstoppable. Playing one or two nights a week in 3 or 4 hour bursts, we usually level at least once every session. I think I've died 3 or 4 times at most in 55 levels.
It's hard to play the game any other way now. I recommend it to everyone, if it's possible for you.
Tarneo Jun 12th 2007 3:59PM
I love playing WoW with some of my friends back east. But due to very differing lives, she has a lot more playing time, so we are never the same level.
We both played City of Heroes before WoW, and they had something that was very useful in this situation--sidekicks. If you have never played CoH, this would allow you to group someone of a lower level, and buff them to within one or two levels of you, allowing them to run content far to difficult normally. Now, if you ran out of range, you lose the buff (and died quickly).
I would love to see something like this in WoW, but Im not sure how it would work, since in CoH, all powers/abilities were level based, not ranked.
Brinar Jun 12th 2007 4:01PM
I have a situation like this as well. My main was a level 40 NE hunter when I started running with Boomer. He has been my mentor from that point forward. He helped teach me to play the class and to be a active member of the game, where as before I was just stumbling around. I had not even run an instance prior to grouping up with him. Yes, I know some power levelers are in disbelief right now. He has been there for me not just on my main but on every character I have. You do not have to be the same level to experience a wonderful friendship. He helped my main level, then I would help his alts. We have now played almost daily for two years with this setup and I do not see it changing any time soon. The real kicker is that we are not even in the same guild. I dare say were it not for Boomer (and the great guild that I am in) I would not be as active in the game as I am now. He is a mentor not just to myself but to at least 5 others, though they may come and go at will, I always know that I can count on him.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Jun 12th 2007 4:24PM
I've been playing one character with two real-life friends for the last six months (I'm the Prot Fighter, they're the Arcane Mage and Holy Priest). Every Sunday, they come 'round, we sit in my spare room and do instance runs.
We're now all level 58-59, and just about to take the Emperor out in BRD. It's been fantastic fun - we've gone through every instance in the game up to our level bar RFC. No idea if I would have stuck with WoW for this long if I hadn't been doing that.
We're the Brothers Grim on Ravenholdt EU - wave if you see us!
Hamtax Jun 14th 2007 2:23PM
An even odder couple...
One of the funniest things we did in my old guild was when some Horde players got on our vent (we played Alliance) and the mixed group of us started running around helping to quest (and gank). I don't think I've ever laughed as hard while playing WoW as I did the nights we did that.
This was back when Mal'Ganis was cool.
amasen Jun 12th 2007 5:06PM
I've level two characters now with one of my better real life friends. We did a shaman/mage couple all the way to 60, and have just got our druid/warrior to 60.
I have to say, there is no other way to play. Having a leveling partner makes the things you can pull of so much more crazy (my buddy saw a black lotus while we were charging through corins crossing, and proceded to stop to herb it... What insued was a 6 minute battle with over 15 NPCs... we barely won, and it was amazing).
The other nice thing about leveling exclusivly with a partner, is that you play less (at least for me and my buddy) as you are constantly trying to find time where both your life's collide enough to play the game.
Oldbear Jun 12th 2007 6:00PM
I got three friends nooked on WOW (First hit is free, you pay after that). We are all altaholics, but we each have one character that we only play as a group. We started after TBC and RL takes up our time (it's summer if you haven't been outside) so we are only mid 20s - but what a treat to only add one person for a PUG - which is easy with a guild of alts... And a rogue, a warlock, a shaman and a mage make for a lot of DPS.
RaydenUni Jun 12th 2007 7:02PM
The summer that Guild Wars came out my group of friends and I all bought it and played through all the missions as a group. We would schedule nights to play the missions and in between those nights only worked on quests so we could run the missions together. It was a blast and some of my fondest memories are talking on Vent while playing.
The next summer we tried GW Factions and something didn't click. When we started WoW there was some of that, but the leveling speed differences was a major problem.
Guernia Jun 12th 2007 7:31PM
I'm a dyed in the wool true blue solo-er, so for the most part don't have these problems.
However, on my previous server at around level 50-ish I fell in with a group of people (5 of us in total) and we did everything together. It was great... while it lasted.
Drama split the guild, and the GL (one of the people in our group) ran back to an old server to get away from the fallout. Myself, I didn't want to transfer over to an already full server with daily server queues, and neither did two of the other people in the group.
Eventually, the three of us (plus one other guy from the old guild who wasn't part of our 5-man) re-rolled on a new, low-pop server, and one of the first things we did was select one character that we would only play while grouped with the others.
So far, we're all in the high 20's. We don't group every day (most of us have alt-itis) but when we do we break out the "core" characters and don't have to worry about who is 10 levels higher than the other, or whether we all have the same quests. It's working out rather well.
Lev Jun 12th 2007 9:41PM
It's pretty odd to see yourself mentioned in an article here. I'm glad people like to discuss the topic, though, since WoW allows people who would normally never glance in each other's directions a chance to interact and even become friends.
Charlie Jun 13th 2007 7:49AM
I played WoW first, got my brother to join and we leveled our (pve) human pally, human warrior team up to lvl 50. Then we got my brother-in-law to start and re-rolled horde (pvp) so we could play together. We made characters that complemented each other, all taurens, one warrior, one shaman and one druid (ftw). Leveled together all the way to 70. Can't see having so much fun if I'd been solo'ing all this time.