I've been working hard at leveling my Ironbreaker on Phoenix Throne lately. He's almost level 35 now and most of my time online has been allocated to the PvE quest grind and the occasional PQ group. While I was questing in Praag this afternoon it donned on me, as it has before, that this PvE is truly a means to an end. I stop and think about what I am doing, here and now, and I think "Why?".  I immediately think, "Because I want to hit rank 40 and RvR/city dungeon/Lost Vale/etc". Aside from the occasional item that I want from chapter influence, my only goal while doing these PvE quests is to level and move to the next one as quickly as possible so that I can do what I would rather be doing; experiencing the type of gameplay that I would rather be experiencing; seeing a side of the game I can not see until it's done. That is, at the core, the definition of a means to an end.

In World of Warcraft this feeling is present, I won't deny that, but it's different. In WoW (especially WotLK questing/leveling) there was a story and a diverse form of gameplay and content to experience while leveling up. When I am questing in WoW and I ask myself the "Why?" question, the answer is always because "this is what you do in WoW" and even though many quest to be able to do dungeons and raids at 80, that type of content is actually available throughout the leveling process. So while it may be a means to an end in WoW, there is no clear distinction like there is in WAR's means to an end where the content changes drastically. "The game begins at level 40�� in WAR, vs. "The game ends at level 80�� in WoW.

The way that leveling is done in WAR, there is only one dungeon that you can really hit 'on the way' to level 40 - okay, 2 if you count the sewers at level 17 but really... it's not even worth taking the time spent to zone into the place. So with one dungeon, there's really only one mindset that the player is tossed into in order to level and the gameplay does not veer far off course at all from 1-39 in PvE leveling.

This can all be fixed. Land of the Dead or the deserts of Nehekhara (whatever they'll be called) can completely revitalize the PvE experience in Warhammer Online if it's designed correctly. Right now, the only form of PvE leveling content that the game has rests solely in going chapter to chapter down a straight line completing quests.  You can stop along the way and grind some PQ's that run like little events but I'm beginning to have a really big falling out with this mechanic and wouldn't shed a single tear if it were to disappear from the game completely. LotD has the potential of bringing back DAOC's "camp" system where mobs congregate together in areas where groups can park themselves nearby or establish a roaming path, to pull these mobs and kill them for the sake of killing them. This is what we did in Darkness Falls in DAOC - we entered and killed mobs because they gave us great experience - but also because they could drop seals(tokens) that could be turned in for gear. The dungeon was laid out where near the entrance players could find lower level mobs and as they went in deeper the mobs gradually raised in level until the level cap and then increased in difficulty until they were group mobs and eventually raid mobs.