Level One to 80 or all together

[zester]

Is it better to get one character to 80 before doing anything with alts or should i share my time between my main and my alts?

[deleon]

My take (and it will go counter to everything Zygor guides stand for), but...

Level 1st toon to 70 and pick up a couple of gather type professions along the way. Its much easier to pull some weeds, skin a bear, mine some ore while your in the starter zones than it is to go back later. Save the mats. Don't sell them. If you have to, create a bank alt to hold stuff for you.

Level a 2nd toon to 50 and pick up a couple of craft type professions that use the mats you gathered (I believe you must be level 50 to become a Master in the professions). Sell the items you crafted because you're going to need the cash.

Take 1st toon to Quel'Danas at 70, run the quests then they're unlocked for dailies ~80 gold per day from those dailies. Not a lot of doable Northrend dailies at level 70 (drake hunt, planning for the future, walrus love, break the blockade, and steel gate patrol come to mind). Ten days or so of this and you'll have enough cash to pay for cold weather flying when you get to 77 (1k gold).

After finishing the QD dailies each day, get back on track with the guide until 77. Because of the QD dailies, you'll get ahead of the guide (level wise) but stay with it. There are places at the higher levels you can't get to without being able to fly. If you're a level or two higher than the zone, it will only make it go easier and quicker for you.

While it is possible to run from point to point in Northrend following the guide, there's a lot of higher level stuff that you have a huge aggro range to pull to you, even while on the marked highways. I ran two toons on the ground and there are places and died a few times while trying to get from point A to point B (I didn't know about the book). Once you have your first toon to 77, he can buy cold weather flying books that can be passed down and read by your level 68 toons. Artisan flying (go fast) will cost you another 4k to 5k gold depending on your reputation. I think the Argent Tourney stuff becomes available at 77 but there's no way to complete most of it if you can't fly on your own.

Your mileage (and everyone else's) may vary.

[Skippyninja]

That's not a bad suggestion, I'll have to try this if I ever switch realms

The other thing about getting to 80 is the opportunity to purchase heirloom gear, that extra 20% xp is goes a really long way.

[Asgari]

Do people actually find themselves without money for cold weather flying when following the guide? I had enough to get both epic flying and cold weather flying before I hit 77, only through quest rewards, no dailies at all.

Personally I went straight for 80, and got heirlooms and gold to level my alts. By doing the tournament dailies at 80, you get a few hundred gold each day, as well as Champion's Seals to buy heirlooms for.

[deleon]

My first toon went 1 - 60 on the recruit a friend plan so I was getting lots of extra experience without having to do too much killing or questing. I did 60 - 80 mostly running instances with very few quests. I recall about 4 hours running Ramparts repeatedly and made 3+ levels. I had enough for cold weather flying at 77 but I was a long time at 80 before I had enough for artisan flying. I've not had those problems since but that's mostly due to tradeskill work.

[cabby]

Hard to say, I just made about 800g by only questing and doing 1 random per day for the emblems while leveling from 70-73. Yeah, at that rate I might not have enough for the Artisan once I hit 77, but it really isn't that important to me if I don't have Artisan once I can finally fly in Northrend.

[Kamchak]

Is it better to get one character to 80 before doing anything with alts or should i share my time between my main and my alts?

Most will tell you (myself included) to have at least one toon at lvl 80. This toon is your 'main' and your bankroll.

The gold you can get at lvl 80 you cant get at lower levels. So if you want to twink an alt, you can do it faster having an 80 in your arsenal.