Outsourcing your 'Warcraft' skills

According to an estimate from a company called Power-levels.com, it would take someone starting from scratch 768 hours to reach the highest level you can hit in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

Or, for someone who had already topped out at level 60 in the original WoW, it would take 384 hours to get to the top level, 70, of Burning Crusade.

That's a lot of hours, and if you're one of the many people with limited time who still wants to play online games like WoW at the highest levels, Power-levels.com and a growing number of competitors may have just the solution. That is, if you're OK with breaking the rules, as well as what some say is the spirit of the games.

These game consultants sell what are known as power-leveling services. Essentially, that means that for a fee, they will take over your account in any one of a large number of online games and put in the work required to get you where you want to be.

That level 70 Burning Crusade power-up costs $556. The jump from level 60 to 70: $239.

For some time, high-level wannabes have been able to go to places like eBay to purchase entire accounts from retiring players. In doing so, they acquire special weapons, armor, tools or spells with the aim of getting to a place in a game beyond what they could do without help.

But in the wake of eBay's decision to delist all auctions for the assets of online games, some may be wondering where else they can turn. The power-leveling companies think they have the answer.

"They give us their character name, their password and they tell us which level they want us to reach for them," said Flora Chen, manager of Guy4Game, a power-leveling company based in Canada that also has operations in China, Korea, Japan and Mexico. "Some just want to reach levels as fast as possible, so they say to (play for them) 24 hours a day."

Outfits like Guy4Game, Power-levels.com, Power-level.net and GmLvl.com say they're pulling in serious business. For example, GmLvl.com says on its Web site that it employs more than 2,000 people solely for the purpose of helping clients get where they want to be. By comparison, Guy4Game's has a staff of 150 full-time workers.

Chen said Guy4Game has a client list of more than 100,000 customers, though there is no way to verify that number.

There's no telling how many power-leveling companies exist: online searches using various terms easily produce dozens. But that such an industry exists--for dozens of online games--is noteworthy, particularly because publishers of online games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest and City of Heroes don't allow their players to engage in such behavior.

Against terms of service
"Sony Online is aware that it happens, and we do not condone it," said Courtney Simmons, head of public relations for EverQuest II publisher Sony Online Entertainment. "It is against our terms of service...You (cannot) give anyone else access to (your) account."

Blizzard Entertainment, publisher of WoW, takes the same position as Sony Online.

"Making use of a power-leveling service," Blizzard said in an e-mail statement Monday, "is a violation of our account-sharing policy. This policy is discussed in World of Warcraft's terms of use, which players agree to prior to playing."

Blizzard added that because customers paying power-leveling services give over full access to their accounts, there is no way to prove that the services perpetrated any fraud (if a customer has such a complaint) while those accounts were in use.

Fraud or no fraud, if a customer wants to jump to level 70 of Burning Crusade and have a flying mount and a high riding score, but doesn't have the time to achieve such a goal, he can have someone else do it for him.

Chen said Guy4Game's clients ask for all kinds of things. Some want to rise to their desired level as fast as possible. Others want steady progress, but still want to be able to play when they want. So they ask to have access to their own accounts for certain hours of the day. The rest of the time, Guy4Game is in charge.

Similarly, some players demand to deal with power-leveling service representatives who speak English, or Japanese, or Korean. That's why Guy4Game has employees in those countries, Chen said.

In the eyes of regular players, however, those who utilize power-leveling services aren't sticking to the spirit of the games.

"Using a service to level a character is pretty universally regarded as a 'lamer' move," said Eric Haller, a San Francisco investor and long-time WoW player. "You will definitely not earn anyone's respect if they know you have paid for your levels."

In fact, Haller said he thinks the general perception of people who use power-leveling services, as well as those who buy well-stocked characters or advanced weaponry off of eBay or other secondary markets is that they are unfairly cutting corners.

"I think it is perceived as a form of cheating," Haller said. "Not necessarily in the sense of breaking the rules, but more in the sense of being a somewhat weak player who is unable to use (their) skills to acquire things. (It's) sort of like it is confusing to me why someone would pay $50 for a game and then $20 for a guide to walk them through it. Isn't the fun in the play?"

To Simmons, the problem behind power leveling has to do more with logistics than with fun. That, she said, is because Sony Online Entertainment gets customer service complaints all the time from players who have had their accounts stolen or compromised after using power-leveling services. Sony won't ban players who get caught using contractors, but they're on their own with customer service problems.

But Sony has little sympathy for such customers.

"Players are responsible for the security of their own accounts," Simmons said. "And players that use those types of services are at risk of having their accounts stolen or compromised."

By Daniel Terdiman
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

'Warcraft': A world in transition

It might seem odd that World of Warcraft's publisher decided to tinker with the game's core experience in releasing the new expansion World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game, after all, has reached more than 8 million players and is among the most popular online games of all time, especially in the United States. Why mess with that kind of success?

Yet tinker Blizzard Entertainment did, and the WoW community has responded with enthusiasm: the company sold more than 2.4 million copies of the $39.99 Burning Crusade expansion in the first 24 hours after its January 16 launch. Among other additions, the expansion includes a new continent, two new races and a new profession: jewel crafting.

But while players seem largely satisfied with BC, as it's known, some also worry that the millions of people still playing the original game, especially those at the highest levels, are left with a somewhat barren version of the adventure they're used to.

"Blizzard deliberately killed their (original) game," said Katrina Glerum, a veteran WoW player who, like thousands of others, stood in line for hours to be among the first to purchase the expansion. The original game "is dead," she said. "Most of the work Blizzard did for the past two years building interesting content to keep (players of the original game) amused is dead."

World of Warcraft launched in 2004. Players in the U.S. pay $15 a month to play, and that has brought hundreds of millions of dollars into Blizzard's coffers.

Glerum said she is, for the most part, enjoying her experiences with BC, but it's clear she and the millions of other players who have upgraded are in transition. That adjustment is fueled mainly by the fact that players of the original WoW topped out at level 60, while BC permits going up to level 70 (higher levels give players access to stronger weapons, tools and so on).

A higher maximum level means several things for players, Glerum said.

First, many guilds (groups of players) that previously spent much of their time on raids in search of loot or in battles with monsters or other enemies, have either disbanded altogether or been forced into a waiting period as players busily try to work their way up the level scale.

"(Raiding) guilds' main activities were organizing and holding raids and high-level runs for loot," Glerum said. "They are all completely on hiatus until everyone gets their (characters) up to 70. In fact, many of the super high-end raiding guilds stopped playing and even broke up a couple months ago in preparation for BC."

For its part, Blizzard said it hasn't abandoned the original game, though it does acknowledge wanting to give it a swift kick in the pants.

"I don't feel we deliberately killed the (original) game," said Jeff Kaplan, lead designer of WoW. "What we were attempting to do was give people a new ceiling on the game. In a level-capped game (where people can't rise above a certain level), when the level is raised, what people came to know would grow. We would have ended up losing a lot of people for lack of anything new."

Kaplan added that by extending WoW, raising the level cap and adding new races and content, Blizzard was trying to ensure the continued existence of the WoW franchise.

"We have no intention of letting it stagnate," Kaplan said. "What I think we attempted to do with BC is extend the life of World of Warcraft a little longer and give people more of the WoW that they had come to love."

For the Rev. A.K.M. Adam, a real-life Evanston, Ill., priest who also plays the role of a priest in BC, the expansion has been an enjoyable experience, albeit one that leaves him a little wistful for the original version.

Adam said he likes the scene design in BC, as well as some of the content that's been added. But he noted that one change, which limits raiding parties to 25 players instead of the old limit of 40, has been disappointing, even if it is understandable.

"I miss the large 40-(person) raids," Adam said.

At the same time, he sees how smaller raiding parties mean individual players play a more important role than in the larger ones found in the original version.

"By making the smaller-group instances as valuable as the large raids, they allow players to enjoy the game to the fullest in ways that differ along with their preferred style," Adam said.

Kaplan agreed, saying Blizzard felt that the 40-player raiding groups left some feeling marginalized.

"Certain players started to feel a little bit alienated by the larger raid size," Kaplan said. "With the smaller raid size, your individual contribution counts a little bit more...We felt that 25 was enough to capture the epic feel of raiding."

For Kelly Wallace, an Atlanta attorney who had been playing with four level-60 characters in the original game, BC is an entirely new experience.

"In my opinion, it's really made WoW a very different game for those folks who had been playing at level 60," Wallace said. "It is as if a big reset button was pressed."

Wallace said he has had little trouble transitioning to BC, but notes, like Glerum, that the expansion has basically rendered the original game moot.

"This is now the game of Warcraft," Wallace said. "There is absolutely zero reason for players to ever go back to (the original game) because the rewards available in (BC) are better and, for the most part, easier to obtain."

But he noted that central locations from the original game, like Ironforge, an important city, are now nearly empty.

"Previously, players on my server with slower or older computers had a hard time navigating in Ironforge because of all the other players in that zone," Wallace said. "These days, Ironforge is a ghost town. Just about everyone is in Outland (a main region in the expansion), and I can't imagine that any of the old capitals will ever experience the bustle that they had pre-BC."

Kaplan said Blizzard has made a point of ensuring that there are still things to do in the original cities like Ironforge and that there is still plenty of traffic there.

"There's not the same density as there used to be," Kaplan said, "but I don't think it's hit the level of ghost town yet either."

To Glerum, one consequence of the expansion is that there are relatively few opportunities for level-60 players to continue to participate in player vs. player battles without upgrading.

That, she said, is because there are few battlefields left on which to fight non-upgraded players, a condition that's exacerbated because the WoW universe is in transition as most players are off fighting non-player characters in their attempt to "level up" to 70.

Still, that is more an observation than a complaint. In fact, Glerum said she's very impressed with BC.

"The art is gorgeous," Glerum said. The writing of the two new races of characters introduced in BC and the new quests "is beautiful," she said. "The new music is generally good (and) sometimes inspired. I am finding it just fun to play."