I recently rolled a new toon and hit 20 before I ever even got to Frontier Farm in Antonica, causing me to choose between level-locking to experience the rest of the zone or moving on to Thundering Steppes. I understand that after five years the developers want to provide the means for people to rapidly catch up to their friends and the current end game, but if you don't level-lock you're missing a metric ton of content. I feel it kills some of the new player experience by rushing them through the game, and sets them up for grind and disappointment when the XP slows down at later levels.

Just how fast can you level a new character? A little while ago, in a discussion on the official forums, I threw out a tongue-in-cheek challange: can you level a character to 80 in one day? Much to my suprise a player named Zimm took me up on it, hitting the level cap in an incredible 7 hours of playtime.

Naturally I wanted details.