The Rest State modifier gives players a time-limited bonus to combat (PvE) experience. This frees up time for exploring other aspects of the game without penalty, such as tradeskilling and social activities, and helps players avoid level-grinding. Inns serve as a good place to hang up your sword or staff for the night because they confer special bonuses. Inns also act as home locations. Hearthstones provide a speedy way to travel back to an Inn when you need to take care of business in town or when you're ready to check in and call it a night.

Rest State

• The Rest state modifier only affects experience earned from killing monsters. It does not affect experience earned from quest rewards or other experience rewards in the game (such as future PvP experience rewards).
• As players kill monsters and gain experience points, they become increasingly tired. Their rest level reflects this tiredness in five tiers: well rested, rested, normal, fatigued and exhausted.
• Well-rested players receive bonus experience points for killing monsters. Rested players receive a smaller bonus. At the normal rest level, players receive no bonus experience points for killing monsters. Fatigued players receive half of the normal experience points from their kills, and when exhausted they will receive a quarter of normal experience from a kill.
• To become well rested and start earning bonus experience from killing monsters again, players must either log out or rest online at an Inn (see below) for several hours.
• Thanks to the comforts of a warm bed and a hearty meal, players who rest or log out at an Inn can regain energy up to the maximum level: well rested (it takes 8 hours to go from exhausted back to well rested). Players who log out anywhere else in the world will only regain energy up to the normal level.
• Note that while your character is resting at an Inn, you can play other characters on your account. The rest state is per character only.

Inns

• Players can rest or log out at any Inn in the world.
• Inns are located in all major cities and some towns.
• Whenever players enter an Inn or log out at an Inn, they will effectively be "resting," which is indicated by their portrait flashing yellow.
• Players can leave an Inn at any time and continue fighting monsters; the experience they gain will be based on the Rest level that they have rested up to.
• If players log out in an Inn, they will be able to instantly exit the game as opposed to having to wait 20 seconds before exiting.
• When players log in to play the next day, their well-rested characters will have slept off the ill effects of any nasty debuffs from the day before.

Hearthstones

• Players use Hearthstones (an inventory item) to cast a spell that teleports them back to their "home locations." Casting the spell will take a reasonable amount of time, to prevent it from being used as an escape mechanism from combat.
• "Checking in" with an Innkeeper will make that Inn the player's current home location, and the player's Hearthstone will then take the player back to that Inn (as opposed to any previous home locations). If the player doesn't have a Hearthstone, the Innkeeper will provide one at no cost.
• Because Hearthstones let players quickly return to town, players can easily log off from within an Inn when they're done playing for the night (or day). If they so choose, players can also use Hearthstones just to return to town to sell items, trade, or train. However, Hearthstones can only be used once per hour.

Information

Monsters vs. Quests
Because experience from quests does not change with the rest state you can continue to do quests while being tired. You can focus on delivery quests or other quests that don't require a lot of monster killing. You can continue to fight monsters as well if you plan to get the majority of your experience from completing a quest.

"The Bar"
When you are going to change rest states within your current level a special bar/divider will appear on your experience bar. If you place your cursor over this bar, you will see additional information. You can "advance the bar" or move it forward by completing a quest. If you complete enough quests you can push this transition bar to the next level. This will allow you to continue in the current rest state for longer.

Monsters vs. Quests
When your rest state changes you will receive a message in the left text window. Additionally your experience bar will change colors.

Why was Rest State added

1. Increase some sense of realism and role playing in the game by incorporating the concept of Inns and characters sleeping.
2. To try to balance the speed at which various play styles level in the game. Even though World of Warcraft has a faster level curve than many games, we found that casual players were still feeling the "grind" in later levels. We didn't want to make the level curve even easier, since many other players would zoom through the game too fast.
3. Rest State, Inns and Hearthstones all go together. We wanted to give people some limited teleportation around the world to alleviate some of the long travel complaints, we wanted to encourage people to go to towns and cities through Inns, and we wanted to balance the level curve.
4. It gives people an in-game alarm clock where each time you change a rest state, you can decide whether you want to log, continue or do other activities (trade skill, pvp, etc).
5. It reduces the pressure for every area to be perfectly balanced experience/balance wise. For example in other games, it was common during any level range to go to the "perfect" grinding spot. With rest states and questing, the world should stay more evenly distributed.

Reasons why it was NOT added

1. To prevent players from getting to the "end game" in X time. We know that power gamers are going to get to max level in a fraction of the time of everyone else. We know that we need plenty of end game options available. We intend to provide these when we release the game, not buy ourselves an extra month or two to get them done.
2. To force people to sit in Inns. We intend just for people to log out at Inns naturally at the end of their play session. You can only rest online at Inns so that you don't accidentally log a character on that isn't rested and then lose your "rested" time. Also, for some people it does give them the change to chat and roleplay while "resting". We have also given some thought to let you "rest" while in cities.

Common Questions


How do I check my current Rest State?
Your experience bar changes colors for each rest state. Well Rested is bright blue. Rested is darker blue. Normal is purple. You can also check your rest state by moving your cursor over the experience bar. A tip window will pop up showing you your current rest state.

Where do I get a Hearthstone?
You will receive one when you check in with the Innkeeper.

Where do I find an Inn?
Ask around, players will tell you. There are some located in Goldshire, Lakeshire, Darkshire, Kharanos, Thelsamar, Menethil, Southshore, Dolanaar, Auberdine, Astranaar, Razor Hill, Bloodhoof Village, Crossroads, Ratchet and Booty Bay, Brill, Trisfal, Stonard, Swamp of Sorrows, Theramore, Dustwallow Marsh and all major cities.