So I bit the bullet yesterday and bought WoD, which includes the boost to 90.  Funny story, I did this while I was stuck on a loading screen in Stratholme trying to get the Baron’s Mount.  My Rogue can clear the entire zone in under 4 minutes, which is decent enough speed.  Proper talent selection gives me a permanent 70% boost to movement speed, which is miraculous.  I used to run it a lot and never got lucky.  I ran maybe 30 runs last night, no drops.

Anyways, back to the boost.  Simple enough, log in, character select has to pick a player to apply it to and pick a spec, to ensure the gear you get makes sense.  I put it on my level 30 worgen druid.  I’ve been using him as a fun alt but to be honest, I find the druid slower than all the other classes.  Rogues are turbo stabbing machines and my mage and shammy seem to just light things up with chains.  Druid … not so much.  But they are versatile as all heck.  I selected a Monk for the 3 roles they can fill and a Druid can do 4 (melee and ranged DPS).  The only 2 classes that can do an “all one class” raid.  I’m a practical guy.  Plus travel form is OP (*instant cast flight grumble grumble*).

It took about 30 seconds for the changes to apply.  I logged in and my druid was sitting in the Blasted Lands, ready to start the intro quest to WoD.  Stacked in full ilvl 483 gear (which is a single notch down from Timeless Isle gear).  He was better off than my Rogue, Hunter and Shaman.  There are about 20 quests to go through in this zone and every 4^th or so, you unlock something for the class.  Oh, and my bags were empty but I was given a bunch of 20 slotters and kept the gold I had.  Oh, and I gryphon mount with no training other than ground.  Blasted Lands on a ground mount is a much different experience than with.  Training for WoD no doubt.

I started with Prowl and 2 attacks.  Let me tell you that those 2 attacks didn’t do much.  No talents, no other skills, no glyphs…thank goodness for the gear I had.  Each fight cost me about 20% of my hp.  A few quests in and I unlocked a self-heal.  Then I unlocked some more damage abilities.  The final unlock gave me my talents/glyphs and all attacks.

And the penultimate flying skill, with all “zones” unlocked – including MoP flight.  I was running the math but that’s ~10,000g or so that was saved.  I have a few characters that don’t even have MoP flying since it’s not of any use in 3 weeks.  So, pleasantly surprised let’s say.

Also, since my character wasn’t a “veteran”, I didn’t get any profession boosts, they stayed at abysmal levels.  Though again, WoD is apply the same model as MoP cooking/gathering.  Gathering will work regardless of skill level, you just get broken pieces that you need to put together.  Cooking (actually all crafting now) will provide you with a training path using WoD materials to get to ~600 skill.  Boost really isn’t needed in this respect.  I will say that this model, while clearly practical for the players, completely removes any need whatsoever to visit older content outside of pet/achievement hunting.  You could just as easily live in Ogrimmar/Stormwind, travel to Blasted Lands and WoD content and erase the rest of the game with barely anyone noticing.  Wave goodbye to 10 years of work I guess.

To sum, I am incredibly surprised at what you get for a level 90 boost.  All the skills, a bunch of starter glyphs (only needed to buy 1), all flying skills (except the 310%), all flight points and a ton of good gear (including bags!).  In one fell swoop, my druid went to a bottom feeder to 2^nd in power in my squad.

All of this can be bought again for $60.  Now, once WoD launches, starter quest gear will evidently be better so that’s not up for debate.  What the value is against is everything else.  How much time does it take to get to 90?  For a veteran, this is likely under 3 days played, for a new player this can be much longer but the experience of doing so is key.  How long does it take to get 10,000g to get the flying stuff and mounts?  Honestly, if you’re leveling manually to 90, you’ll get more than this in the process, so you’re actually coming out with less money.  The rest is all natural.  So it boils down to a question of the time required to level.  You would normally pay $15 for a month’s play.  Would you be able to get someone to 90 in that time?  Would it take you 4 months to get to 90, where the price point is a wash?  Depends on how you value time.   It does make for a very high price point for new players. $30 (base) + $40 (WoD) + $60 (extra boost), assuming that the character you initially boosted isn’t the type that actually is fun to play at end game (*cough*warrior*cough*).  I know I see no value in it but someone else might.