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Yesterday Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft's recruit-a-friend program will undergo some big changes. One of those changes: if you group with a friend whose account was signed up because you invited him or her to play, you'll both receive experience at 300% the normal rate.

Blizzard has already decreased the amount of XP needed to reach level 60. When Wrath of the Lich King launches, word has it that an even bigger slash will occur in the 60 - 70 range. How long will it take to 60, 70, or 80 now, we wonder? That probably depends on your personal playstyle. But the question of how long it ought to take to reach the endgame in an EverQuest/World of Warcraft-style MMO has been on our minds ever since Funcom made a statement about how many hours it wants people to invest to reach level 80 in Age of Conan.

What's the sweet spot for you? Do you want to get there as fast as possible, or is the journey to the top the real attraction?

There's a two-pronged assault of Age of Conan raid content information at Ten Ton Hammer -- a 20 minute raid presentation video, and an interview with raid boss scripter Eirik Munthe. Both the presentation and the interview occurred at the AoC launch event in Oslo last week, and both were rich with information. It looks like the endgame content has some incremental innovations just like the lower-level stuff; that should make the hardcore crowd happy.

In the presentation, bits and pieces of one of AoC's level 80, 24-person raids were shown to an audience with live commentary by Game Director Gaute Godager. Multiple bosses were shown, such as a poison-leaking monstrosity and two demons -- one ice, one fire -- who gain power when standing near one another. Godager explained the philosophy behind raiding and epic gear, and using collision detection in battle strategies. He revealed that raid groups will be able to call it a night halfway through a raid and finish any time they want (so long as it's before the raid expiration date -- one week after its start date). There was also a brief series of clips of a massive PvP siege.

In the interview with Eirik Munthe we learned that Funcom put together strike teams consisting of designers, scripters, and writers. Each strike team focused its attentions completely on a 20-level span; for example, Munthe's team worked on content for player levels 60 - 80. Munthe described the challenges he faced when scripting encounters with some of AoC's unique features such as collision detection and CoE (cone of effect) healing in mind.

Age of Conan game director Gaute Godager said at the launch event in Norway that reaching level 80 will take "on average 250 hours of gameplay," according to videogamer.com.

The first few levels will come lightning fast, but the bulk of them up to 60 will be comprised of between two and three hours of gameplay. After that, it will get a bit slower, thanks to some input from beta testers. By our math, that leaves five hours per level including and after 60, but who knows how that will be distributed.

Whether this ends up being faster than competing games like World of Warcraft and The Lord of the Rings Online by the end probably depends on your play-style. He said "on average," so does that mean the hardcore achievers will reach the top in 90 hours and the casuals will mosey on up there within 500 hours? There's been a lot of chit chat and speculation in the Massively office about this news. We suppose we'll get a good sense of it by midway through the summer.