File this firmly under "contained in the game files but may not be activated until
Wrath if ever," but
MMO-Champion has found something very interesting in some error messages contained in the 2.4.2 patch. Currently, the recruit-a-friend functionality (offered from the account management page) is fairly bare-bones. You get a free month if your friend signs up and ends up paying, and they get a free ten-day trial to give them some time to get into the game, but that's about it.
According to these data-mined error messages, that may be set for a change. See for yourself:
- ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_DIFFERENT_FACTION = "You cannot grant levels to a character of the opposite faction.";
- ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_INSUFFICIENT_GRANTABLE_LEVELS = "You have not earned enough levels to grant any more levels.";
- ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_SUMMON_COOLDOWN = "You can only summon your friend once per hour.";
- FACTION_STANDING_INCREASED_BONUS = "Reputation with %s increased by %d. (+%.1f Refer-A-Friend bonus)";
This is just a sampling of the errors, but it raises some highly unexpected possibilities. If whatever functionality this is referring to goes live, it seems like we'd be able to award levels to friends we recruit and summon them to us, in addition to getting a bonus to reputation gains with (specific?) factions. My guess would be that this is to combat the problem of wanting a friend to play with you, but not wanting to wait for him to grind seventy levels so they can get to the "real" game. Obviously it's far too early to analyze this in detail, and again, we may well never see this in game, but it's eyebrow-raising nonetheless.
Tags: game-files, recruit-a-friend, recruiting, rumor
Filed under: Rumors
Apr 28th 2008 at 9:30AM 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ed Apr 28th 2008 9:41AM
I hope we never see this in game - I know if I was a newbie and was suddenly given a bunch of levels, I'd be really overwhelmed with all the spells/abilities available to me - and probably wouldn't learn how to use them properly.
I know there are plenty of people who don't learn how to use all their spells / abilites properly (myself included at times), and I think giving people levels would just increase this.
Plus, I had to take time levelling up, why shouldn't referred people? ;)
jrb Apr 28th 2008 9:52AM
"Plus, I had to take time levelling up, why shouldn't referred people? ;)"
because WoW is a social game, and as such you want to play it with friends whenever possible. if that means inviting friends to play from scratch, you want to be able to help them out.
I agree with your comments other than that. Personally, i think this is signs of a mechanism allow what i said last week about the DK; a way to drastically speed up levelling.
Look at the 'illegal' side of things in WoW. The gold farmers, the power levelling service. Blizz looks at why these exist. Why people want money / need money, why people don't want to do lower levels. With the money the give people more money at higher levels in BC, and remove the need for money for epic rewards (honor, badges, etc), and for levels they bring out patch 2.3 which makes the earlier part of the game massively quicker work through. Still more needs to be done, and still blizz will do more.
Garlictators Apr 28th 2008 9:56AM
but also consider that if you recruit a friend, you should be helping them learn their new abilities. I like summoning though, if you made a troll and your friend made a blood elf, you could summon him to you and you could grind out those early levels together.
Jordrah Apr 28th 2008 10:07AM
i seriously doubt this would be a permanent sort of thing, more likely it would be like "give your friend a 70 for the 10 days trial" and then its gone if they want to keep playing.
prolly because when you start playing the game is vastly different than it is when you hit the level cap, giving people a 10 day trial where they cant go past level 20 is fairly weak since they really wont know what the game is like and they might end up not even liking the end game (im looking at you altholics that level a toon to 70 and then stop playing it)
Badger Apr 28th 2008 9:47AM
I think hitting the "Here, Have Some Free Levels" button is a bit excessive. The "Summon Friend" spell, though ... That could be quite neat.
FireStar Apr 28th 2008 10:04AM
I totally agree. Giving them levels isn't going to help them experience the game. You have to do it from the beginning.
Summoning them would be an awesome idea. Eventually they'll find their way around, but I bet some people get frustrated by feeling lost.
jjfoley Apr 28th 2008 10:01AM
They could easily do it as some other MMO's have done. I believe one of the superhero ones had a way you could designate a "sidekick" and temporarily increase their level so they could adventure with you. Imagine that as long as someone was grouped with you they came up to an equivalent level? Give them a buff that brought their gear up to equivalent DPS levels, for instance. But there were restrictions on loot, and the leveling experience gained with you would be proportionate to their real level. It's complex, but I could see something like that working and working really well. (And it wouldn't be imba for end-game, because just putting someone up at level 70 doesn't qualify them for heroics and raids. You wouldn't let someone tank or primary heal brought along this way, they'd just be dps.)
kiaus Apr 28th 2008 10:13AM
Yeah, either temporarily bring them up to your level (with restrictions, and probably some sort of daily / weekly restrictions as well), or alternatively drop to theirs for a while so you can quest at their level and still gain XP, with some kind of skills-drop as well.
This type of mentoring/ side-kicking would be a great thing for WOW.
Lars Apr 28th 2008 4:33PM
I think that's what it was called in EQ, "Mentoring". Temporarily drop your level and stats to your buddy's level.
JPN Apr 28th 2008 10:12AM
If it is implemented where you can give your friend levels...how lame. Temporarily or permanently. Half of the people that hit 70 have no idea how to play their class anyway now, so let's flood the game with more people who have no idea what they're doing?
Matthew Rossi Apr 28th 2008 10:17AM
Honestly, as someone already noted with the sidekicking thing, temporary levels so that your friend can play with you immediately wouldn't be so bad.
Syme Apr 28th 2008 10:16AM
"... not wanting to wait for him to grind seventy levels so they can get to the "real" game."
Yes, the real game: repeating the same instances, repeating the same dailies, repeating the same PvP, farming mats and money by repeatedly killing the same things. Skipping over those early levels where the lore and the class basics are introduced in an engaging way sounds like a great way to introduce a friend to WoW.
Netherscourge Apr 28th 2008 10:42AM
So to entice people to join WoW, Blizzard is going to let newbies skip over the original content to reach the repetitive end-game at 70 faster.
This game is going right down the toilet.
Pretty soon WoW will be nothing but Raiders and Arena PvPers and everyone else will be playing Age of Conan and Warhammer Online.
It's for the best I guess. WoW has run it's course.
Jordy Apr 29th 2008 5:21AM
You're too fast to draw your conclusions. Way too fast, even. It's like yelling to your neighbors the sky is going to collapse when you feel one drop of rain.
Freelier Apr 28th 2008 11:21AM
Everyone seems to think that giving levels to someone would increase the ignorance of the level 70 population. I think it would do the opposite.
Soloing on most classes requires a small fraction of the skills of the class. Mechanics like aggro are completely ignored by most classes.
Getting someone to level 70 faster but with a friend to assist them could help things out. They will get to 70 more quickly, and they will have a friend there to help them out when they get there. That n00b is much more likely to become a good player than someone who doesn't have someone around to explain aggro to them.
Andelorn Apr 29th 2008 7:25AM
I've been playing WoW since patch 1.2, but even still, if I get a character on level 70 that I've never levelled to 70 before (such as a premade on the PTR) I have -no- idea what to do with it. No idea how the talents work together, no idea how to use the spells and abilities in the right way, let alone PvP or raid effectively.
Valarian Apr 28th 2008 11:38AM
There's no denying that level disparity hurts the game a bit. I've spoken to many people that would like to play WoW but, as casual gamers, the prospect of playing 4 months or more just to catch up to their friends (in level, not in gear) is a real barrier.
I've seen this barrier myself when I decided to retire my Druid and roll a Shaman. As I'm casual it's taken me five months just to hit 65. That's nearly half a year of not questing or running with my friends just for the privilege of a new character. And that time will only extend once WOTLK comes out.
Is it fair to give people free levels? No but something needs to be done to decrease the time from 1-60 (even more than was already done) if the goal is to appeal to casual gamers. This is especially true of the grind from 50-58 which is, in a word, painful.
Brian Apr 28th 2008 11:44AM
Well speaking as a hunter we gain most of our 'end game' abilities very late on. Snake Trap and Misdirect are learnt in the 60s. So 'learning while levelling' is limited. especially as most players avoid dungeons while levelling.
Personally I would like to see something like when you refer a friend you can grant him 10 levels (or 20 at a pinch) they would have to get to level 10 by them selves but then between level 10 and level 60 you can grant them either a maximum of 10 levels over a period of time (so like a couple of levels here or there) or you can just give them a big chunk of levels. this way you'd be able to boost them to level 40 (so they can avoid the stinking STV) or maybe you say to your pal, low levelling is a synch and I'll help you out and then when they hit 30 you go "ok here's your free ticket to 50" (or more sensibly, get them to 40 then give them a free boost to 60).
After all when we are 80 are we going to wait months for friends to level. Because this is a referal thing and won't be available to established players. will be able to start new characters at higher levels? I mean what if my significant other and I wanted to start fresh with new characters. I want to play a DK but she wants a Druid, will I have to wait for her?
Along the lines of name changes and transfers I think Blizzard should charge for "free levelling" you pay to start at a higher level but you don't get free skills (you'd need to bankroll it). And also pay for race and or faction change. People would pay for these services especially if for example you had a bad break form your old guild and want a total change. (e.g. going from a Night Elf Druid to a Tauren Druid).
Andelorn Apr 29th 2008 7:43AM
There's still the issue of learning things such as how to kite, how to manage threat effectively, how to use your pet to its full potential, how to CC and deal with mobs attacking you, how to PvP, etc.
These things are not taught by the Hunter trainer, nor can someone just tell you what to do, and must be learned through practice.
Yes, it's possible to level to 70 without learning these things, but almost impossible to learn them without levelling to 70.
fLUx Apr 28th 2008 11:59AM
I like this, its only slightly different from getting a level 70 friend to run around with you all afternoon killing stuff, and thats no fun for anyone really...
But as mentioned above, for casual players, 70-80 is going to add maybe a month or 2 extra to catch up with their friends? So thats getting onto 6+ months, trust me, people will get pretty bored by then, not being able to play with friends....
I think making 1-60 like 60-70 would be better. Its alright saying people wont know how to play their class, for a start most people dont know anyway, and secondly - I think 2-3 months is enough!