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The fact is that there are many group activities in the game and a lot of interaction, so it is not a simple game that you play by yourself.
Perhaps the analogy was not the best but I think that watching people cheat at the same activity that you are performing is annoying. Also, I don't believe that payment for the game entitles people to cheat. I'm sure that the developers didn't design a cheat system into the game. I would like to know what they think.
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What's amusing here is the self-referential argument. To answer the original question - "No, powerleveling is not cheating." Cheating, in an MMRPG can only be defined by the developers of a game. To the best of my knowledge, powerleveling is not in any way abusing either bugs in the game or violating any published rules. As such, much as you may not like it, it's not cheating.
That being said, I powerlevel my alts frequently. And, I pay the price for it. My high level characters are not nearly as high as they would be if I had simply leveled them. Powerleveling is not a freebie. SOMEONE is spending their time to gain experience for the character. Granted, the time they're spending is less than the character would've if played by itself.
I do it for a simple reason -- the purple patch. Grouping is broken in this game. More and more players are learning that and teams are forming less and less. Even when they do form, they are fun, but the exp flow is horrid. Few low level characters can soloing with any degree of efficiency. So I powerlevel my alts to the place where they can. Do I wish I'd played my characters all the way through? Yes. After having ground through the tedium several times, am I willing to do so again until grouping gets fixed? No.
