MeChaNiZ3D said:
I always find it funny when a game treats skipping large parts of the game as a reward.
You've gotta understand, WoW is nearing a decade old this year. Everyone and their mother has leveled a character through it. ...Literally in my case. Awarding a character closer to the end game (as they are going to for all those purchasing WoD) is really all they've got to pull the most casual players back in, and end game is where the majority of the playerbase spend their time. Leveling, while great, is a temporary state. It's ALWAYS a temporary state, whether you've had an alt who's sat at level 60 for 8 years, one day...it's gonna end.
This is why Cataclysm failed in the long run quite spectacularly, there was a halved focus on end game, and what happened when the remarkably brief climb from 80 to 85 ended?
People were left trying to chew the extremely challenging dungeon and raid content and not left with much else. They gave up. They were disappointed, and left.
With Mists of Pandaria they went all out guns blazing on new content for all levels (pet battling) and mostly the end game (more world bosses, rares, daily content, progressive story patch to patch, easier raid access, scenarios, challenge mode dungeons) to do. And I feel like slowly more and more it's stemmed the flow of sub loss. It was like a bandaid. And has kept people interested despite the naysayers who believe that standing near a panda for 5 minutes will have them contract herpes. (Hell several of my guildies who left in cataclysm have now made triumphant returns)
WoW isn't a game that can be measured in it's leveling experience, because the hole at the bottom of the ride is waaay too vast and deep, you can't tell where a player will end up spending their time.
And look at it this way, that price tag is way too much for a starting player, they'll simply ignore it and just level.
If it's a returning player, they get a free 90 anyway. No harm no foul.
If it's a still playing player...well they'd have to have more money than sense since leveling a character to 90 is barely any time investment at all and alot of us enjoy the climb.
If it's the pro's? They'll probably pool together for a required alt as they always do, and the service is now open to them.
Edit:
Peace Frog said:
If your players want to pay to skip content, you're doing something wrong.
They don't. Everyone has done the content. EVERYONE. If you're a brand new player to WoW at this point you are a unicorn. And will likely level through it naturally anyway. Because that price tag is silly nuggets. Read above for more info on this.