Leveling

There's no question that the 50 to 60 leveling curve is pretty relaxed in Shadowlands, as some players managed to get to max level within three hours of the expansion's release, and even pokey players like me hit level 52 in a couple of hours of gameplay. World of Warcraft has probably never been easier to level in than it is in Shadowlands, and I'm curious what you think of that fact -- are you happy to be getting to max level relatively quickly, or at least to be able to do so, even if you're taking your time?

Believe it or not, it's been three weeks since the release of the Shadowlands pre-patch.

The system-wide leveling changes for Shadowlands are live in World of Warcraft as of patch 9.0.1 and it's a major overhaul.

The way leveling in Shadowlands works, you do 1 to 10 in Exile's Reach or some other starting zone, then from 10 to 50 you either do Battle for Azeroth content or one of the other expansions, from Cataclysm's revamp of Azeroth to Outland, or Northrend, or Pandaria, or even alternate Draenor or the Broken Isles.

With the level squish coming to World of Warcraft fairly soon, I'm sitting here wondering about what will happen when Shadowlands is replaced by whatever the next expansion will be.

Back in March of 2019, based on statements by Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas, I predicted the level squish in Shadowlands even though we didn't know it would be Shadowlands yet.

Shadowlands is changing the the leveling process.

We all knew that Blizzard was going to do something to heirlooms when the level squish and leveling changes came in Shadowlands, the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.

I personally prefer the simple approach when it comes to leveling in World of Warcraft right now.

During an inverview with content creator MrGM, Lead Game Designer for World of Warcraft Morgan Day revealed that, with the release of the next expansion, Shadowlands, heirlooms will no longer provide an XP bonus.