In EverQuest 2 we have a small but growing community of players who once their first toon reaches the level cap will then create another character and use level-locking to experience and enjoy all the content they missed the first time through. Would I have to level lock to do this? From everything I’ve heard and read the answer is yes. Well, I’d race through Stranglethorn Vale, but who in their right mind wouldn’t? I’d also see what pets I could train. I would go through and do as many of the quests as I could.

I would roll a Horde-side hunter and visit all the cities I couldn’t visit on my Alliance paladin. If I were to return to World of Warcraft, I would definitely level lock. To me, that is pushing players past the best part of the game. I’ve heard that with Wrath of the Lich King, the leveling in the original and Burning Crusade zones is much faster in order to get players up to “the game” faster. Looking back at my time in WoW, the 4 month journey to 60 (the level cap at the time) was a wonderful time and level 60 was the end of the game for me. But in WoW, would anyone besides a low-level twink want to level-lock? After all, the game begins in Northwind and level 80, right?

In EverQuest 2 we call that level-locking and is a practice I used when I felt I did not have the appropriate number of alternate achievement experience points when I was leveling my ranger. In The Instance #150, Scott Johnson and Randy Jordan talked about Blizzard’s plans to allow players in World of Warcraft to stop gaining experience so they can remain at a level.

Eq2 instances by level