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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsA City of Heroes-style mentoring system "in the long-term plan" for Cataclysm
by Michael Sacco 
Aug 20th 2010 at 2:00PM
Those of you who've played other MMOs (yes, they exist) might recall a feature from City of Heroes (yes, CoH did it before EQ2) that let you temporarily level down your character to a friend's level, allowing you to do any kind of level-relevant content together. Well, guess what? Blizzard is planning to let you do the same thing in a Cataclysm content patch, avoiding the type of situation you see above.
The Escapist recently interviewed Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street about Cataclysm, and this exchange took place:
We hadn't heard anything about this feature before, but it sounds great -- this way, you can play with a lowbie friend without drastically reducing his experience gain, and you'll always have something to do together. Heck, it could even pave the way for making old raids relevant again. I'm excited to see how this plays out!Ghostcrawler:
A very simple thing we've done is just put on your character panel what phase you're in. So that you can look and be like "Oh, so the reason I can't see you is because we're in different phases." Long-term, we're trying to work on a system where you can actually go back and forward a little bit. You might be able to scale your character down levels in order to go play with a friend, and even redo quests that you've done before.
Part of the reason we're able to do that is because of the technology we originally developed for heirloom items, which are items that scale. And then for the Cataclysm expansion, we've changed spells, so they also scale with level. So instead of having ranks now, your fireball will just get more powerful as you gain levels. So since you can scale both class spells and items really easily, now we think we can actually let you lower your level down if you want to play with somebody else.
I kinda wanted to have that for Cataclysm launch, but it's a feature we're working on.
John Funk:
So do you think that's saying that, like cross-server dungeons, it might be patched in before the next expansion?
Ghostcrawler:
Yeah. I mean, we gotta get this one out the door first to know how much we need to do for the patches that come afterwards, but it's definitely in the long-term plan.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
iammurlocftw Aug 20th 2010 10:23PM
they dont budget the stats for each level of each heirloom specifically, they use a formula, much like the gearscore guy didnt decide the gearscore of each item specifically he used a formula, therefor apply to formula to all gear instead of just heirlooms and voila
Amgrod Aug 20th 2010 2:08PM
If this makes it to Cata eventually, there might finally be a market for some of the low-level gear my Blacksmith hasn't made in ages...hmm....
Avan Aug 20th 2010 2:09PM
I could have sworn they talked about this at BlizzCon last year. They were looking into addressing how higher level players could be able to play with new players, if I recall.
Fletch Aug 20th 2010 2:09PM
It's an interesting notion, and will be a boon for those wanting to enjoy a more 'real' experience from old raids. However, I think the stress is probably on the 'eventually', a bit like the fabled dance studios
animegamer Aug 20th 2010 2:11PM
Does this mean that twinking is going to make a comeback as well? I could see players leveling down to 19/29/39 just to rock those brackets out with the reduced skillsets and such.
MDrules Aug 20th 2010 3:13PM
That would be an interesting way to twink, if you get top end gear then scale down to a lvl.
Michael Sacco Aug 20th 2010 2:12PM
"Scaling down levels probably won't be possible when Cataclysm is released, but it's a feature that WILL BE COMING EVENTUALLY and should help players of differing levels adventure together more easily."
briker Aug 20th 2010 2:13PM
I wonder if we will be able to do this at-will? Could that preclude the possibility of a 40 man Molten Core run at level 60? Shall we start collecting our T1 sets again to make those runs? I wonder how far they will go with it. The possibilities could really reshape the replayability of the game. I know quite a few folks have been asking for a "classic" server for quite some time. This could be the next best thing. They should have a Bronze Dragonflight NPC give you the ability - sending you back to your previous self.
I foresee fun ahead.
briker Aug 20th 2010 2:14PM
Also, WTB more bag space!
Bain Aug 22nd 2010 12:02PM
lf39m molten core.
nonentity Aug 20th 2010 2:13PM
And what game had such a feature even before CoH?
Everquest 2. The Mentoring system.
That game was seriously underrated. Yes, it had a lot of problems but also a lot of awesome features that WoW still lacks, first and foremost Housing, and a better Guild system that WoW will get with Cataclysm, 6 years later.
nonentity Aug 20th 2010 2:15PM
Correction - not sure EQ2 had the feature before CoH, can't check, I thought CoH was released way after EQ2, seems their release dates were pretty close together though, relatively. Can't check when the feature was implemented in either game.
Jojobillybob Aug 20th 2010 2:24PM
CoH came out in April of 2004, and EQ2 came out in November of the same year. I know that CoH had a sidekicking system right from the start... I never played EQ2 so I don't know if it was a packaged feature or if it was added later.
digitalr0gue Aug 20th 2010 2:30PM
CoH was released in North America on April 27th, 2004 and had the sidekick system at release. Everquest 2 was released to North America on November 8th, 2004, but the mentoring system was added with a patch sometime around March 2005, based on the date the corresponding article was posted on the EQ2Players site.
katieb8704 Aug 20th 2010 2:52PM
At this point in both games life its absolutely horrible to even compare the two - EverQuest2 is dead, destroyed by the development team.
However, more to the point: Mentoring was not released with EQ2 at launch it was put in in a later patch and upon release it was horribly bugged. Spells did not scale, so when you mentored you had to redo your entire hot bar with your lower level spells to be able to buff the lower level members of your party. Weapon and item procs didn't scale so you would just absolutely destroy everything.
Basically everything that Sony releases into EQ2 is horribly bugged and doesn't work for months at a time.
Housing is a pointless cosmetic feature and gives you absolutely nothing - except maybe more "vault" space in addition to your bags and bank. Something during the 5 years I played I never used in my house because I simply didn't have that much crap to keep around (as I do in WoW)
The guild achievements and such that WoW is adding with this expansion were only a recent addition to EQ2 - within the last two years - this is not something they had at launch at all. And I never got a cool mount for being in a max level high end raiding guild in EQ2.
nonentity Aug 20th 2010 3:49PM
I was wrong about the mentoring and I can admit that. Done.
;)
But I disagree on the housing. While I was never into housing hardcore it definitely was nice to have. It was something to do when you had time off, waiting for raids etc.
You could redecorate your house, put more awesome furtniture in. But even more important - all those pets you had, you could have them running around the house.
You didn't have to sell or whatever your cool weapons, you could put them up on the walls.
Imagine that, all those old awesome tier gears/weapons etc. you got, you wouldn't have to keep them in the bank etc. but you could put them in your flat, look at them, and not be force to disenchant/sell them sometime when you run out of space.
But I agree, EQ2 was destroyed by the developer, was the reason Ieft. The first major blow came when my class, Warlock, was turned into an AoE "specialist" without any chance to reroll into the single-target class I had wanted and had played until then - at that time.
That actually made me leave the game for a while and would continue to be a reason to leave the game whenever I tried to go back.
Other issues where ie. that the game just felt... dead, lifeless, soulless. WoW just has... something that makes the world feel alive. EQ2 just felt empty. There was no big storyline you had do follow.
When I got the first two expansions I wondered - why the hell should I go to those areas what should I do there? Why should I care?
Also there were too many group quests etc. that really hindered the levelling.
I agree on the mounts, they were boring. BUT they were significant. You had one mount, max. Not the 100+ I have in WoW, of which I don't care about 99%.
But yeah, EQ2 had tons of problems, I left it after all, but it also had some good points. I still look back fondly on my time there. In no small part due to my awesome guild. Still. The game was nice, while I played it.
My first MMOs were Everquest and Ultima Online but I started very, very late in both, didn't really play them all that much, so EQ2 was my first "real" MMO so despite its flaws it'll always keep a special place in my heart. ;)
brian Aug 20th 2010 2:13PM
"...but it's a feature that will be coming eventually..."
In the last sentence of the quote.
xicarus Aug 20th 2010 2:15PM
a level 20 Death Knight would be pure WinSauce.
Grovinofdarkhour Aug 20th 2010 3:01PM
Don't you mean level 19? WSG, baby, yeah! Who wants to be at the bottom of a bracket?
Noyou Aug 20th 2010 4:23PM
And they are not at 58-59?