It takes roughly triple the xp to go from 98-99 as it does 1-98.

I can't even fathom how long it will take to farm that amount of experience. This is not necessarily a bad thing but reaching 99 isn't an accomplishment, it's a mind blowing test of endurance. I think it's a bit much, I don't even plan on going for it. I was already close to 98 when I decided to farm some gear so I pushed it this far.

Dying at lvl 98 is like losing a hardcore character 3/4 of the way through 97.

Wow, that's crazy.

Sounds like a crazy statement but I'll vouch for that (more or less.. you obviously don't gain a constant xp while leveling up and it takes a while to get to hell, etc... but if you look at my record I replaced Pons pretty quick then hit a big wall with Cosmos shortly after).

Not that I think the the xp curve is so unreasonable on the top end. Its more about achievement at this point and staggering the leaderboard. A bunch of 99s up top would be kinda ugly... happy that it will be a tiny % of folks up on top. When I was first starting I thought I'd hit 99 in a couple days. Boy was I humbled.

For us, we're fighting for season first 99s and that will be recorded as a nice achievement, but for others... I've been mulling over some ideas for rewarding accounts with lv 99 chars... will have some suggestions soon. Maybe a removal of race/class restrictions so those guys can be any combo they want? Might be cool but just an idea.

I agree - honestly I'm only doing it because it's season 1. The risk is huge - you'd lose roughly 20m xp in 98 and the end result when you get to 99 is 1 talent point. Hardly worth it, but I'll play along for now

/fitzor