Hail and well met friend! If you are a long time music fan, no introduction is needed. However, if you are new to World of Warcraft or just randomly surfed in from Google, my name is Richie Truxillo and I am finishing up my last year in medical school. I have been playing games since the age of 5 (I’m 28 now) and consider myself a well-accomplished casual gamer not a professional-level, gamer. I’m not that guy that raids Kara 24/7 or spends countless hours trying to be the world’s best PvPer.
About 6 months ago I purchased Brian Kopp’s Alliance leveling guide for World of Warcraft. After browsing through all of the horribly bogus reviews on the internet, I figured I would write my own review to inform you all of how the guide really works. For those of you who are not inclined to read a boatload of text, the short version is: Yes, it is good! For the smart WoW consumers out there, read on to get the real scoop in its entirety. Keep in mind this is for Alliance players only. If you need a Horde Leveling guide, read this review first and apply the concepts to Joana’s Horde Leveling Guide. Her guide is just as good but with the added bonus of a video guide.
Why did *I* buy Brian Kopp’s guide
Well to level fast! DUH! Actually, at the time, my long time guild mates shot up to level 70 over a month’s time while I was stuck studying for my step II board exams. I wanted to be able to play with them again but I was stuck at level 61 at the time. So, really, I bought the guide just to level my paladin from 61-70. Instead, after purchasing the guide, I rerolled a hunter from scratch and took him from level 1 to 70 in 14.5 days /played with the guide. It would have taken me less time but I spent a bit of time AFK, playing on the AH and PvPing a bit at level 19. I also grouped a couple times for instances with some of my guildmates.
Purchasing the Guide
I bought my guide at the time for $35 from http://www.briankopp.com. Upon submitting my payment information, I was given a simple login and password. It gives you a link to a file named burningcrusade.zip. I scanned the file for viruses and keyloggers, it was clean. Inside of the zip file are 4 PDF files: A guide from Levels 1-60, a Level 60-70 guide, a guide to all the race starting areas (Levels 1-20) and instructions to install an awesome quest location map Addon.
First Impressions
The PDFs are massive and in full color (when pictures are inserted). Each PDF is indexed well with Tabs so you can easily go straight to a particular level range and zone. There is also an introductory area with links to other guides (with Brian’s Affiliate links included of course) and Interface Mods. Following that is a tips section which is a must read. One of the things he suggests in his guide is to make an alt character that is parked by the mailbox in your home city for the purpose of mailing and selling items to. I scoffed at this thought at first but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He also suggests binding at innkeepers along the way instead of your home town. I, again, scoffed at this idea but it saves SO much time, particularly in your first 40 levels when you do not have a mount and have to run everywhere on foot.
Printing the Guide Out
I strongly suggest you get this guide printed out and put in a binder. Of course, being the savvy medical student I am, I went into the hospital on night shift and printed out this 203 page behemoth on the laser printer. I hole-punched it into a binder I purchased from Wal-mart. GREAT! Why should you do this? Well, if you don’t you will be alt-tabbing back and forth between the game and the guide every 2 minutes. Plus you can make quick notes on the paper if you need to.
And now, the Guide…It’s all About Questing
The guide focuses on one thing, leading you from quest location to quest location. This may not sound like much to you but World of Warcraft is massive and has hundreds if not, thousands of quests. A common practice by most new players is to do every quest in a given zone before moving onto the next one. This is a concept that was started in games like Everquest where enemies were a certain level range in a given zone. World of Warcraft has multiple “zones” for a given level range. For example, Elwynn Forest and Dun Morough are both for characters in their level 1-15 ages. However you could theoretically do quests in both zones. Since quests pay out more items and gold than straight grinding through enemies, it makes sense to level using quests. An added bonus is being able to see content you may miss otherwise.
Another great thing about the guide is that doing quests raises your reputation levels with the various factions. If you are not familiar with World of Warcraft yet, then I should tell you that many of the items and quests in the end-game (read: level 70) require high amounts of reputation points. By following Brian Kopp’s Leveling Guide, I found my hunter had very little reputation grinding to do when it came to buying my level 60 epic mount. Why is that? Simply put, quests give you alot more reputation points with factions than just killing mobs.
Before leveling with the guide, you should install the map modification that comes with it. It uses Metamap to not only reveal every map in the game, but also put down every important quest location! Throughout the guide, he references these map points (called “Locs”) which correspond to X,Y coordinates on the map. If it sounds difficult and new to you, I assure you, it is not. When you mouse over a point of interest on your in-game map, the location number that corresponds with the loc in the guide pops up. It is a very elegant and user-friendly implementation. You can tell someone put ALOT of time into placing those points into the map mod.
Brian Kopp’s Guide provides a very logical path from quest to quest. He has you gather multiple quests at once and tackle them in a manner that is logical. For instance, in one portion of the guide, you will grab 6 quests at once in Darkshore. The guide will instruct you in such a manner that you complete the quests with the shortest route in mind. At the end of the 6 quests, you will turn them all in at once and grab another batch. The quests are also always level appropriate. I know this sounds easy but how he manages to do this over multiple zones is fluid and intuitive. I’ve had other guides that tell you to “Grind from levels 23-25 in this zone” but there is really no grinding in this guide at all.
The leveling guide keeps you informed by telling you when you should be a certain level. I guarantee you that if you have taken a night off from play at least twice, the rested experience you receive will ALWAYS keep you well ahead of the guide in terms of leveling. As such you never really have to worry about a quest being too high of a level for you, or running out quests to do for a particular level. With the leveling changes from levels 20-60 in the recent World of Warcraft 2.3 patch, all grinding has been taken out of the guide.
Where the guide truly shines is in the level 58-70 range. This is the portion of the guide where you will spend your game time doing quests in the Outlands (Burning Crusade expansion). Even with the increased leveling treadmill of the last ten levels, I found myself going from level 58-70 in just over 5 days /played.
Gold, Gold, Gold…but not what you think!
Let me get this out of the way right now. This is NOT a gold farming guide. However, I found that by following Brian’s Kopp’s Leveling Guide, I was able to afford all blue and purple ranged weapons for my hunter every 5 or 10 levels. The quest rewards are great and the professions that he encourages you to take really pay off big when it comes to selling in the Auction House. At level 40 I had well over 700 gold and at Level 60 I had both enough Darnassus reputation to buy a discounted epic cat mount and to buy a nice gun with 525 gold left over. The Burning Crusade quests mentioned in the guide kept me very well geared and allowed me to finish at level 70 with a whopping 2100 gold after selling my blue and purple drops on the AH. Enough to buy myself my riding skill and my first flying mount. My new warlock, Richus(Level 31), has just over a day /played and is very well geared for his level.
Those hard to see quests
There are a handful of collection quests that have some hard-to-see collectable quest items in the game world. The Outlands is especially guilty of having these collection quests. Brian Kopp’s guide has color photos of the hard-to-see quest items..which comes in handy when looking for items in the dirt. There was one quest in particular where I had to sprinkle holy water on some elven skeletons. I had skipped the quest on my paladin because, well, I couldn’t find em. Come to find out, using the guide, they were just on the sides of the main road but they were VERY VERY small. I had passed right over them many times before. It took me 45 seconds to finish the quest after I found em and I got 10,300 xp for it.
I also guarantee you, even if you have leveled to 70 on your own before, you will find quests in this guide that you have never done. I was shocked to see that wetlands and Ferelas actually had tons of quests in the guide. I was just looking in the wrong place before.
For Hunters only?
Brian Kopp’s guide has caught some criticism for being a hunter oriented guide. Let’s face it, the hunter is just an easy class to play. Although, I will admit having a pet really helped out in about 5 or 6 of the quests. However, you could easily skip those quests in the guide and continue as planned. Specializing your class correctly for leveling will help you immensely when battling it out through the quests. There are some good talent builds on the World of Warcraft forums. Thus far, I have had no problems with a Mage, Druid, Paladin and Warlock when specc’ed properly…all which are mid 30s.
Brian Kopp’s Website and Legality
If you are reading this review and have been to his website, the marketing may have deterred you from clicking the Buy button. Unfortunately, his website looks like one of the many affiliate spammer/infomercial websites you’d see trying to sell you crap. Just don’t read all the fluff…scroll down and click on Order Now. The claims are true. The Leveling guide is 100% legal and you will not get banned for using it. You are completely playing the game as intended while maximizing your time spent doing so.
My Final Thoughts
I was initially skeptical about the guide but after purchasing it 6 months ago, I still feel happy with my purchase. As he says in the website, Brian Kopp sends you updated versions of the guide about once a month. He was also very quick with updating the guide for the 2.3 patch, which tells me he plays on the test server before patches go live to the public. He has put alot of work into the guide and it is definitely worth the 35 bucks. It is way better than any official strategy guide you could buy. I hope this review has been somewhat helpful to you. Please click on one of the banners or the link below to buy Brian Kopp’s Leveling Guide if you are interested in leveling as fast (and legit) as possible!
Buy Brian Kopp’s Leveling Guide: Discounted Price of $35 (For Alliance players)
Buy Joana’s Leveling Guide: Price of $37 (For those who play Horde Characters)
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You could have saved your cash and just download a copy of it from pretty much any torrent site.