Just gathering some info to test a hypothosis of mine.

How long did it take you to level your first toon in Vanilla?

and as a follow-up;

How long after that did it take to prepare before being raid ready? (i.e. how long did it take you to gear up; complete necessary quests, etc.)

I leveled almost entirely healing dungeons as a priest and it took me a little over 20 days played time.  Granted i wasnt a power gamer at the time and it took me 6 months but thats like a snails pace compared to these newer games.  I would also like to add that it was some of the best fun i've ever had in a video game.

As for the follow up i was pulled into a raid that night when i dinged 60 i had semi decent gear cause i just did dungeons.

I got my rogue from 1-60 in a little over 4 months. And I had no life back then. I also got distracted by every little shiny ore vein i'd see.. so my leveling may have been slower then some. I did it entirely solo too, skipped every dungeon and regretted it after lol. Sucks though, now it's 1-80 in a few days. Got a huntard from 1-80 in 32 hours (playtime) once, deleted it after cause I hate hunters lolz.. Just had to make a point to a friend =P They really messed up the leveling curve since vanilla.. Way to easy to hit end game.

Follow up: took me several weeks of begging for dungeon invites from my guild cause I was probably the only player with crap gear at the time so no one wanted me and everyone was selfish.

Jan.1st 2006 started a troll rogue.

March 19th 2006 hit level 60, my first 60.

78 days.  I don't know how much actual gametime I spent.

Leveling was much more difficult back then, especially for brand new players who didn't use any addons.  I did have the luxury of being in a guild with a lot of veteran players who were eager to help me every step of the way.

if i remember correctly, that last few levels, like from 55 on wards, took like 2-3 days just to level, all from questing. i think it took me around a month~

I never capped in Vanilla, started a week or two before BC released.  BC took 15 days played to hit 70, so 360 hours.

I didn't do much goofing off either.  I had friends already at Vanilla cap when I started.  It was a struggle to catch them.

about 4 months from 1-60 for myself. and i was working full time and going to school part time.  

took about 4 weeks to gear up if you where doing stuff every night. 

Originally posted by Roxtarr
I would say probably about 2-3 months.  I did a lot of grinding from 55-60.  I remember where I was at 40 (when I got my mount) and where I was when I hit 60.  I felt like I won the super-bowl!

I still have screenshots of us getting normal mounts at 40.  Yeah, it did feel like a huge achievement.

the record before BC release I believe was a shade over 6 days /played.  thats with lots and lots of study of optimal quest routes and such.

you could probably double that for the average player's first character, so 12 days played.  12X24 = 288 hours.  Thats about 2.5 months at 4 hours per day.

Very first 60 took about three weeks, with very, very heavy play. I ground 55-60 out at Corin's Crossing in EPL.

Second 60, a druid, had 20 days played when she dinged as restobear - the lowest possible DPS in the game. I mucked around on her over a period of about four months before finally leveling.

The second hunter took about two weeks, on a new server - we were kings of the hill then Horde side and it was great. After drama ate that guild I made a priest, another two weeks, then left, made a warlock on another server - took about a month for it as I poked around around with my guild a ton.

about 3 months. i could only play at a friends because of internet issues.

BC took me 20 hours to hit 70. I took a week off of work and ended up just grinding for 20 hours while my gf fed me. It was pretty exciting! I got the last CE box from the local fred meyers and had a blast. To bad the game is just worse and worse since BC. They fired the wrong people back then, thats for sure. The fluke that was WoW will never happen again. Not for an mmorpg. Most likely it will be for an MMOFPS. (sry planetside 2 you aint that good)

Originally posted by 9reesracer9
my first level 60 (a NE Druid) took almost 3 months (10 weeks at least in early 2005). i was never bored, nor did i wish the time to go any faster. i played regularly, but not for many hours/day. a shame, in hindsight, i could never again be so patient with leveling a character given the amount of time invested, even though i now still play several games where i have not reached the level cap (GW2, FE, STO). other games i play have no cap (EVE, WoT, MWO). it was simply a different time, when things were not so rushed. no one thought really to "be the first" to level 60 back then...*sigh*...

Heh yeah, back then no one really cared about hitting cap, they were just having fun with the game, soemthing most mmo players today forget to have, whole point of a game is to have fun, if your just going to rush to cap for pointless raiding why bother? Raiding in most games is pretty dead end, mostly due to the fact there is nothing else to use the gear for except more raids. Its why a bit before cata came out I played wow again, got a paladin to 80 then quit the game, because I didn't feel the raiding was worth my time due to nothing to use the gear for. Only mmo I know of where raid gear has a use other than more raids is probally everquest 2. Since you can mentor down for dungeons you missed, or go into pvp with it etc.

Oh god pretty long even when was grinding mobs.....a lvl every 2-4h?

Took me months to level my warrior ...

... best time ever :)

dinging 60 was a god-like feeling back in the day.  55-60 took me 2 evenings playtime per level.

About 16 days playtime to level 60 on my alts, can't remember what my first char was. A lot longer, probably.

Getting raid ready? Hitting 60 was raid ready. When MC came out the attunement was super easy. Even soloable for a few classes.

The only real time sink was Onyxia attunement.

What's your hypothesis? That the game got easier?

Maybe, but with the latest expansion, it's a bit harder to enter even LFR, though the barrier does seem more artificial now (iLVL requirements).

it took a while that's for sure.  leveled as a shockadin the first time around as that was about the only viable way to as a pally and it took me about 3-4 months to hit 60.  55-60 was a grindfest for sure.