"it's funny but i wonder about the phrase "epic grind to 85". on my realm, which isn't a leading realm by any stretch (but i love it anyway) tons of folks have already hit 85 in a single day. not terribly "epic" if we're able to blow through content so fast. makes me think that cata may not have the legs that blizzard envisioned... feels like we may play it out pretty quickly."

Sure, by playing nonstop since 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, running the instances available to them multiple times, not reading quest text and not leveling any professions except maybe gathering professions.

I've played about five hours or so since installing the expansion. (Let's see, got home from work at 6 last night, played until a little after 11, but there was time off in there to make and eat dinner, but I played a little this morning too, so 5 hours is a good estimate.) In terms of level, I'm about halfway through 81, so, yeah, that seems kind of fast. In terms of experience, though, I'm just a little more than halfway through Hyjal's quests, haven't done Vash'jir at all, and I've done one single dungeon. My gathering profession has hit 500 but none of the others are over 465. I think I'm closer to the "average" player than people who are already 85.

And then there are achievements, and then there are alts, and this is an expansion that encouraged alts of course... I'm really not worried about the staying power of this.

I don't really think leveling to 85 quickly is a big deal. There's plenty of people who want to level goblin/worgen alts, or one of the other new race/class combos. Many people want to jump into the new raids, I know my guild is planning on raiding on friday if we have 10 people at 85, and hopefully we can do 25m raiding next week.

Plus, there's lots of people who will always level fast. There were people who did 70-80 in a day or so, easily.

Personally, I level my main until I've reached my guild rep cap for the day, and then I go on to on of my alts, so that's keeping me from leveling too fast.

5 of us from our guild did the 24 hour grind fest - no sleep, 2 x 15 minute breaks, constant questing and instance runs. Only 2 of us made it in the 24 hour target window, 3 of us crashed at about 50% through 84... 80-85 in 24 hours is epic enough to be worthy of a feat of strength.

We were thinking it was going to be over and done with quickly while we were blasting through lvls 80, 81 and 82... but then you hit the soup that is the combined 14 million XP required for levels 83 and 84 and believe me it slows you down

To answer the "has cata got legs" question though.

Yes, our server first cam up in under 20 hours - but I would say those of us that hit 85 yesterday were less than 1% of the player base - and there was a big gap back into the the hordes on 81/82.

What I did see as I rushed through the zones were some very fun quests and a lot of content I am going to be spending much more time on with my alts when I have recovered...

I think Cata has plenty of legs in it yet...

Ohh XP throttling would be a bad idea. With the level cap only being raised 5 levels, Blizzard handing out XP bonuses with new heirlooms, guild levels granting XP (Yes you get bonuses to XP for being in a good/big guild) and few zones with very hard hitting mobs. The direction Blizzard is going with this expansion is not individual experience but a group experience. We have so many new instances, cool group quests, rated BGs, 10 man raids and the list goes on. Blizzard WANTS players to play together. They don't want the monotony of a level grind to stand in the way of grouping with your friends. I might add too I used to loath questing. Blizzard really upped the bar with the new quests being soooo much fun. I enjoy questing again.

So don't look at 85 as the end, but as a beginning.

Throttling xp would be bad.

I think that blizzard purposefully made the "grind" from 80-85 to be less of a strain than 70-80 and 60-70. On my realm all class first 85 FoS's were accomplished within 18 hours of the patch hitting.

Here's the great thing about blizzard: They make it possible for you to play at whatever pace, and in whatever way you like. By making the grind relatively quick, but also very deep, they are allowing the hardcore grinders and raiders make their way to level cap quickly, meaning they don't stay up for 36 hours straight hallucinating. I read a blog about a person and his guild that did the grind from 70-80, and it was a pretty long slog. On the other hand, if you want to take your time, take in the scenery, read all the quests, do all the zones, you can do that too. Even better for these people, you can take your time leveling and know that it won't take you months and months, you'll still hit the cap within a few weeks of playing an hour or two a day.

Finally, leveling is not meant to be epic; not anymore. In terms of cata playing out quickly, the idea is to have more (and better) content progression in the end-game. With rated bg's, guild achievements and perks, guild rep grinds, new factions, more raids with less bosses, that's how it seems to be playing out to me.

Now if Cho'gall on heroic is a pushover, and Sinestra is one-shot by all the top guilds, then I might believe cataclysm might not hold people's attention for long. I don't see that happening however.

@Pyromelter

I agree. You can level as fast as you want but the gear check speed bump a raid does will slow down your progression for sure. Not to mention if you want to raid after going server first you still have to wait for ppl to level up as well. I give it another 2 or 3 weeks before raids start to be ran. Maybe another 2 weeks after that full clears start happening and another 3 weeks before pug raids start.

Again reinforcing the fact that Blizzard wants players to play together.

Double: Good point about the gear, however gear is still relatively easy to get, especially if you are a high level player in a high end guild and can chain heroics, along with sparing no expense in terms of getting crafted epics.

My prediction is that we'll be seeing world first (10man) normal mode full clears by next tuesday, and as early as this friday - or maybe even by tomorrow. I wouldn't even put today out of the question. I think the majority of up-and-running raiding guilds will be doing at least some of the easier bosses by the end of next week.

I started on release day and logged off at 81. I played a little the next day and stopped halfway. What I'm waiting for is the first batch of the hardcore crowd to hit 85, then the next two waves to hit 85. Once the 3rd wave hits there will likely be a lot of alt leveling, which will mean the AH prices on new resources will take a dip, old resources will go up, and there will be plenty of geared groups for me to hop into in LFD.

I honestly don't mind who gets to 85 first. I'll be getting there too, and I'll enjoy a good economic benefit and dungeon-running culture when I get there.

I have a cool idea for priests and other healers. Allow them to track players that have died and need to be resurrected. In a dungeon it can sometimes be frustrating not seeing where a player's corpse is. It'd be much easier if healers (or any characters class with the ability to res) had the ability to track player corpses.