I often launch Oni at Counter Attack (TCTF HQ) or A Friend In Need (Air Processing Plant) because I like having access to the Devil Spin Kick and neck wrenching running attack. Does that mean I think all the previous levels and story points are useless? Of course not! I just like skipping to a point where I have the moves I want.

Similarly, does a WoW player necessarily think earlier gameplay is worthless? Could there be other reasons they'd want to skip forward? I can think of some. Can you Cody?

Oh look:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-60-level-boosts-reflect-important-economic-reality/

You can pay to instantly level up your character to level 90. Why would you do this if the game was fun? If it's the journey and not the destination, wouldn't this ruin the point? Doesn't this kind of indicate that actually playing the beginning part of the game sucks? Or else why would you do this? If that's the case, why not have new characters start at level 90, or make level 1 and the things you can do at level 1 equal to level 90?

Why do you insist that there's only one kind of player for a game, that everyone has the same goals and likes and dislikes? Why do you have to paint pictures in such black-and-white terms, and draw such dramatic (and wrong) conclusions from developer offerings?

Oh look:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-60-level-boosts-reflect-important-economic-reality/

You can pay to instantly level up your character to level 90. Why would you do this if the game was fun?

I'm not at all going to try to justify why anyone should pay to boost a character but, to be fair, WoW and other MMORPGs are a little different in that there seem to be two different games contained in one. The main game (leveling, grinding, questing, etc.) and the end game (raids, whatever else happens I don't know because I never got that far). It's always seemed weird to me that you can't really participate in raids without a very high level character (seemingly billions <--exaggeration of hours of work). As a fan and player of WoW I never had the level of commitment required to get a character up to a high enough level to participate in raids, and that sucked for me and for Blizzard because my interest in the game faded. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be a part of the end game stuff, I just wasn't able to.

And no I wouldn't have paid to boost my level, but I can understand if some people wanted to.

It seems like the right thing to do is something like the solution you offered, give people a menu option to play what they want. From a main menu, or otherwise, the player selects what they want to play from a selection of "the main quests", "raids" or, say, "competitive multiplayer" (and none of those options should require payment)?

And isn't that kindof sounding like Destiny?

If the only possible reason to want to be level 90 were to skip the previous parts of the game, I'd agree. I'm going along with the assumption here that by doing so, you are skipping actual content (maps, enemies, etc.), rather than a Borderlands scenario where even at max level you could still play the campaign start to finish. Having never played WoW, I don't know whether that's actually the case.

One legit reason I can think of to allow this is if someone is new to the game, but has friends who are not. If it's anything like Borderlands in the way it scales between player levels, being in a group of characters who are maxed out (and presumably, enemies who also are) when you're not isn't fun. The gulf between your numbers (hit points, damage output, and so on) and theirs is so massive that you have almost no ability to affect the outcome. In that scenario, I think it would be preferable to be able to just jump to your friends' level. I do agree that skipping all the content in between (again, assuming that's how it works) could be a bummer, unless that content sucks. Still, I can understand not wanting to have to grind 90 levels just to finally be able to play with your friends, all the while knowing they're having experiences you can't join in on. BTW, I used the word "grind" not to imply that that's ALL the level 1-89 content is good for, but rather to convey the irritation and boredom that can result from playing ONLY with the goal of leveling up - I think playing that way can feel like a grind, even with quality content. Just having that mindset that you're not really doing well until you hit the goal level can ruin the experience all on its own.

I can't recall exactly which interview it was, but I remember reading something that indicated to me that Destiny wouldn't have the massive gaps in hitpoints and damage output between player levels that happen in Borderlands (and, I'm assuming, WoW). It seemed to me that the differences between new and old characters will be more in acquired gear and maybe skills/special abilities. My hope is that this type of system will be more forgiving of differences and actually let new and old characters feasibly play together. If I'm correct, there'd be less incentive for players to WANT to pay to not play in the first place, and as a result less incentive for Bungie/Activision to cave to that demand. Not that they would anyway (I hope). But like you said, it's hard to know these things until the beta is in hand. Granted, things can still change after a beta, but surely these things will be much more clear at beta stage than they are now.

Edit: I forgot to add that while charging to level to 90 can be seen as a money grab, and probably is, at least partially, it also serves to keep everyone from just starting at 90 without considering whether they really need to.

same thing…but they do…you know, 'them'

I'm not sure if this was brought up in some of the big old walls of text that people posted, but one of the main reasons that they're offering the pay for your 90 feature is for people who have already played through the game multiple times. I quit WoW ages ago, but even back then it was common for people to have multiple max level alts. I would imagine if what you're trying to do is level a particular class to end game to raid with your guild, you're probably not interested in playing through the same content for the 13th time.

I'd also add that my recollection of WoW's pre-end game content is that it was fairly well designed and enjoyable, and I actually liked it better than the end game stuff.

The 60 dollar price tag though, is just... amusingly high. From what I've read though 3rd party services would charge 200-300 dollars to level your guy to 90, so I guess the Blizzard version of that is a bargain, a really conveniently profitable bargain.

According to Engadget at least.

Granted, this is more for mobile gaming but I think the same applies to console gaming as well.

For me, I'd say I fit into their finding.

The only game I ever really spent money on micro transactions was Ace Combat 6, and it was really early into the life of the game.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

It was a Gatling gun death spewing Christmas themed murder machine and I was gonna own it.

So I hesitantly plunked down my 2.50 in MS points and didn't regret it after I had it.

Then they released a tweaked version of my favorite plane, the F-18 and I had to have it because reasons. There went another 2.50.

And then that was it.

I never bought another plane in that game again. Not because they didn't have anything else I wanted, but because I was simply content with what I had.

The ones I did get kinda helped me rank up faster, but only on certain maps where the things I bought had a slight advantage. They didn't come up every time and didn't fit every situation. And even when they did, it if everyone on the other team saw the plane I was using in the lobby they could change their plane to counter mine (and they often did, the Christmas hating dicks) and then my advantage was for nought. The OPTION to use it was really cool. It was very much like a secret weapon. Fun!

Long story short: The world of gaming as you know it is not ending. Yes, there will be dumb asses who pay tons of money for the game and dlc, and then spend more for in game crap that doesn't really make a difference but if they want to spend their money to "play" the game in that way, that is their prerogative.

The point is, I don't think there are as many people taking advantage of the whole pay to win\rank up\not play as you think there are. They exist, of course, but as the old saying goes a Fool and his money are soon parted.