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New To The Game: Important Things I Should Know?Follow

#1 Aug 13 2012 at 4:08 PM Rating: Good
Hi, I just recently started playing WoW....like yesterday. Is there any basic information I should know?
#2 Aug 13 2012 at 4:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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1) Don't buy gold or pay for leveling services. Ever. As you level you will find that getting gold and leveling becomes easier and easier.
2) Enjoy yourself. Don't worry about rushing to 85. Mist of Pandarea is coming out next month so you can take your time and enjoy each zone as you come across them.

If you have any specific questions about the game as you go feel free to come back and ask them. Several of the people here are happy to help you with any questions you may have. Welcome to the World of Warcraft.
#3 Aug 13 2012 at 5:30 PM Rating: Good
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Since you have no higher level characters supporting your little newbie, take 2 gathering professions. Sell everything.
Check out add-ons at Curse.com. Awesome ones that I've used for years include Gatherer, Auctioneer, AckisRecipe, Fishing Buddy. You'll need DeadlyBossMods once you start dungeons and raiding.
If you're guildless (which won't last long, guilds recruit mercilessly just for bodies to level the guild up) and you see someone shouting for guild charter sigs, they're usually offering gold. Do it, then you can just leave the guild after it's founded. Starting out on a new alt, I've made as much as 100-200G just signing startups. This was on a high-population realm tho.
Secondary professions help. Fish and level cooking with the fish. Nice stat food as you go along.
Ignore the trolls.

#4 Aug 13 2012 at 6:47 PM Rating: Good
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By sell everything, what was implied is sell everything you can sell (mostly raw materials) on the Auction House. Go to the AH, see how much people are paying for whatever it is you are trying to sell, then price your goods accordingly. A good combo of professions is Enchanting + Other, Other being whatever suits your intended path best. Mining for tanking, Skinning for DPS and some healing.

And have fun.
#5 Aug 13 2012 at 8:40 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
Is there any basic information I should know?


Sure, YMMV. What you should know depends greatly on your background and goals. What are you interested in? What other games have you played? What do you want to get out of your game time?

Just taking a blind guess, I'd say, try different servers and different mixes of class/race/profession before you settle in. Play on a PVP server differs from that on a PVE server, but things like server population and balance make a difference too.

Expect the game to change a lot by September 25. You're coming in right before a new expansion and will go through the accompanying chaos before you really get your feet under you. Generally, you can expect that your skills and talents will change. There will probably be a rush of activity. Low level materials may be in high demand for awhile around that time because many people will rush to improve crafting skills.

Every crafting profession offers different advantages when you reach certain levels. Some of those advantages are better suited to particular classes. We can give better advice once you know what you're going to be playing, but consider Tailoring. Anyone can take it and I have an old character who is a warrior with Tailor because at that time the bags were useful and it made good money. Today, I wouldn't pick that pairing because after a certain level the special perks of the profession are a better match for someone who will use cloth armor.

Quote:
A good combo of professions is Enchanting + Other


This is generally true, but I wouldn't suggest it for a new player. At some point, you may want to play around with Enchanting because it can be useful. The easiest combination is probably Enchanting + Tailor because it takes no special gathering skill to feed that set up, everybody gets cloth as they kill certain mobs. As an alternative, Enchanting can be used on a second character so that you can disenchant things another character makes. For example, you might want to experiment with Blacksmithing and discover that you end up with a lot of things that don't sell well on the auction house (AH). Send those things to a second character with Enchanting and you'll find you can disenchant them into things like magical dust and essences that may be easier to sell.

With all of that said, you may want to stick to gathering professions for a first character. Gathering herbs and mining ore will help you get extra experience points (XP). Take Archeology early, the new expansion sounds like there will be more for you to do and it can give you a nice bit of extra XP as you level. Major cities will offer daily quests for Cooking and Fishing, get those skills and try to do the quests regularly. They'll bring you extra XP and a small boost to the skill that adds up over time. That may not seem important, but getting all the secondary skills will help you with a monthly event know as Darkmoon Faire (see below).

Darkmoon Faire (DMF) is a special event that comes once a month. You will be able to do one quest for each profession that is at 75 or better skill and it will bring you XP, money and a boost of +5 skill points for that profession. [Be sure to check your professions before doing the quest! If you are at the cap for a level, you will miss out on points. This can be particularly helpful during certain phases of a crafting profession, where it is difficult to get points.] You will also get a special currency, prize tickets. Prize tickets can be spent for different things, but you may want to start by using them to get so-called heirloom items. Those items are bound to your account, not to the character, and that means you can use them to level more than one toon. Their stats improve as your character gains levels and you'll gain XP faster when using the armor. DMF is the easiest way for you to get heirloom items for a new character, so don't miss the chance. The daily game quests at DMF don't give XP, but they'll help you get prize tickets.

Bags can be a problem for new players. There are two kinds of bags, ordinary ones and special ones for a profession. The special ones usually offer more affordable space, but there are limits on what you can put in them. Bags are sold by vendors and on the AH. At least where I play, vendors are a better deal for regular bags smaller than 16 slot capacity and for special bags of 20 or fewer slots. You'll get some bags as your character goes through starting areas, but you probably want to buy a few as well. So, where do you buy vendor bags? They're in different places. In the Human city of Stormwind, there is a bag vendor in the shop with the Skinning and Leatherworking trainers. Go there for most regular bags. There is another vendor who sells expensive "Carriage" brand bags near the main gate, that's the place to get the 20 slot bag for herbs. Note that each major city also has a vendor, often near the flight point, that will sell you a tabard and a unique bag (meaning only one per character) once you have build up your reputation with that city. The bag is 16 slots and comparatively cheap. DMF also sells a 16 slot bag for one ticket, but it is also unique. You can use more bags than your character can carry by putting extra bags in the bank (usually close to a main city's AH). You start with some space, but will have to buy extra bank slots and there is a limit to how many bank slots you can have (count the bag icons you see when you open the bank by clicking on a teller).

We take it for granted, but you may not be familiar with equipment in WOW. You get it from quests and by defeating monsters (usually a fatal condition for them). Things are color coded: grey is usually sold, replace white gear as soon as you can and start selling it when you find it, green is OK, blue is probably better (but learn to look at stats) and by the time you see other colors you'll know what to look for. Gear gives your character a bonus that helps them be better at their class. For example, Strength is important for Warriors, but Intelligence isn't. As a Warrior gains gear, they will look for stats that give them the greatest advantage. Once you start getting beyond level 20, you should probably start to learn about things like weapon speed and DPS (damage per second), but let's keep it simple. The warrior in our example might be offered two kinds of armor, one with Strength and Stamina and one with Intelligence and Stamina (used by Paladins). The Warrior would be better off with the first, a Paladin might have a slightly harder choice because one play style might prefer Intelligence but another might use Strength. It sounds complicated at first but there are sites like Noxxic that will help you decide what is most useful for the class and specification you're playing.

There are a lot of other things that might be useful for you, but if I have to keep guessing, I'll end up writing even more of a Wall O'Text and ZAM seems to be disinclined to pay us regular folks by the column inch.

Good luck and have fun!

Edit: Yeah, patch day here. Rhode is bored, sober and his usual, verbose self.
Edit 2: Don't get excited, I'm also short on coffee. I meant, of course, maintenance rather than patch.


Edited, Aug 13th 2012 10:42pm by Rhodekylle

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 10:44pm by Rhodekylle
#6 Aug 13 2012 at 9:37 PM Rating: Good
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How about the unwritten (until now) rules?

http://wow.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=21;mid=1166865449206823673;num=52;page=1

#7 Aug 13 2012 at 11:46 PM Rating: Good
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Rule #1: Don't stand in fire.
Rule #2: No, seriously, don't stand in fire.
Rule #3: People are stupid.

Embrace those three rules and you'll be fine.

Good luck!

Edited, Aug 14th 2012 7:47am by Mazra
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#8 Aug 14 2012 at 12:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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Mazra wrote:
Rule #1: Don't stand in fire.
Rule #2: No, seriously, don't stand in fire.
Rule #3: People are stupid.

Embrace those three rules and you'll be fine.

Good luck!

Edited, Aug 14th 2012 7:47am by Mazra

Addendum to rules 1 and 2: Sometimes, you should stand in electricity. No, you won't know which times its good unless you read the strat.
Addendum 2: Read the boss strats.
#9 Aug 14 2012 at 9:40 AM Rating: Good
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Mazra wrote:
Rule #1: Don't stand in fire.
Rule #2: No, seriously, don't stand in fire.


Shade of Aran would like a word. Smiley: tongue

#10 Aug 14 2012 at 11:41 AM Rating: Good
Thank you guys! You have all been very helpful(:
#11 Aug 14 2012 at 1:04 PM Rating: Good
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Criminy wrote:
Mazra wrote:
Rule #1: Don't stand in fire.
Rule #2: No, seriously, don't stand in fire.


Shade of Aran would like a word. Smiley: tongue



Blizzard be trolling, man.
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#12 Aug 14 2012 at 2:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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1). Always, always, always loot your kills. See what sells and what doesn't in the AH, if it doesn't sell for enough to bother with, then vendor it. Leaving stuff on kills is like throwing money away.

EDIT: If the item's name is in grey letters, it is "useless" -- vendor it, except for equipment from level 1 to 10; sometimes grey equipment is better than quest reward whites, YMMV.

2). It is highly recommended you start your first character with gathering professions -- Herbalism, Mining, Skinning. You can choose two of these. When you're doing your first character, a gathering profession will make you a lot more money than any production profession would, especially early-level materials. No production profession can make you 10-20g in <15min of work during early levels like gathering professions sometimes can. Once you get to later levels and/or decide you might want to level another character, some production crafts work well hand-in-hand to make a lot more money than gathering professions alone could, but this usually takes multiple max-level characters to do effectively, something you won't have as a new player for awhile.

3). Get to know your class and specialization (which you choose at level 10) -- the o-boards have guides, and you can find general guides here in Allakhazam too. Each class has a primary stat -- from now until max level, you probably won't be caring too much about what stats items have on it except their primary stats. There is Strength, Agility, and Intellect -- every class/spec has one as their "Primary" stat, you should be looking for these when choosing what stuff to wear. Warriors, Paladins (except Holy), and Death Knights want Strength. Rogues, Hunters, Enhancement Shaman, Feral/Guardian Druids (and with MoP) some Monks will want Agility. Magic-users will want Intellect. Also, different classes/specs will want different types of weapons -- Protection Warriors will want one handed slow strength weapons + a shield, while Arms warriors will want a two-handed strength weapon and Fury Warriors will dual-wield, for example.

4). Read some basic dungeon guides before queuing up in Random Dungeon Finder (at Level 15), if you choose to do that (it isn't required). If you've never played this type of game before, you will want to know what is expected of you (basically) when you show up in your first 5-man dungeon. They are optional, but can be fun and rewarding, but nobody likes to die unnecessarily and the dungeons are dangerous enough that 5 people are usually needed to clear dungeons that are relevant to your level. DPS are usually recommended for first-timers; tanking and healing generally needs more working knowledge of the game and/or the MMO genre in general.

5). It is highly recommended that you roll your first character on an RP or PvE server; PvP servers are usually for those who already know how to play the game well. On a PvP server, once you leave the first couple questing areas, players of the opposing faction can attack/kill you anytime they want, while on an RP or PvE server, they can't unless you choose to PvP, or you do something to get yourself flagged (Wandering in an enemy town, attacking/aiding something that's flagged, typing /pvp, etc).

6). If you roll your first character on an RP server and if you're Alliance, stay away from Goldshire unless you're into Adult content.

Edited, Aug 14th 2012 4:05pm by Lyrailis
#13 Aug 14 2012 at 2:03 PM Rating: Good
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Lyrailis wrote:
1). Always, always, always loot your kills. See what sells and what doesn't in the AH, if it doesn't sell for enough to bother with, then vendor it. Leaving stuff on kills is like throwing money away.
That's pretty good advice for real life, too.
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#14 Aug 14 2012 at 2:32 PM Rating: Good
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Rupina wrote:
Thank you guys! You have all been very helpful(:


If you start a character on Stormrage Rupina hit up Kathry. She is my dwarf hunter I have been playing lately and will happily help you with any questions or such in the game.
#15 Aug 14 2012 at 4:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
1). Always, always, always loot your kills. See what sells and what doesn't in the AH, if it doesn't sell for enough to bother with, then vendor it. Leaving stuff on kills is like throwing money away.
That's pretty good advice for real life, too.


Whenever I kill someone, I take their cash and some of their clothes. Once killed a guy and found a Greataxe of the Boar in his wallet. True story.
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#16 Aug 14 2012 at 4:34 PM Rating: Excellent
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Regarding classes: Don't stress the specifics - in as little as two weeks, a lot is going to change. Stick to generalities when you're trying to figure out what you want to play first (e.g. rogues skulk in shadows in order to surprise things and stab them, paladins wear heavy armor and use holy power to protect (or avenge) their friends). And don't be afraid to try a number of different classes out before committing to anything. At a minimum, I'd say to try at least one of the classes that gets up close and personal (warriors, paladins) and one of the classes that likes to kill things from afar (hunters, warlocks, mages). That way, when you roll a druid, you'll know if you want to be feral or boomkin...

Regarding items: "Gray" items have no use to anyone and can safely be sold to vendors (any vendor, regardless of what they sell, will buy anything). Especially on your first character, who has literally no money, pick up all the grey items you find - the copper you get from vendors adds up to silver, which you're going to need pretty soon. "White" items are ordinary, some are more useful than you might think (such as Small Eggs), and some are much less useful. If you go to the Auction House (there's at least one in each major city), you can see what other people are selling things for and figure out which are worth trying to hawk in the AH to other players and which go to vendors along with greys. Items that are colored (Green, Blue, Purple, etc.) are rare and much more useful and therefore valuable than white items. Unlike white items, many colored items will "bind" themselves to you as soon as you put them on (or sooner!), and you will not be able to sell them on the AH after taking them off (these are clearly identified on the tooltip as "Binds when equipped" or even "Binds when picked up"). So be careful not to equip armor, weapons, trinkets, etc. that bind when equipped unless you're sure you're going to be able to use it well for at least a little while (i.e. if it provides stat bonuses that are appropriate for your class and spec, and sufficiently better than what you already have equipped).
#17 Aug 15 2012 at 12:37 AM Rating: Good
Thread derail: That chant has me begging for a Heroic Karazhan.

Cant ... stop ... thinking about it lol
#19 Aug 23 2012 at 11:14 AM Rating: Decent
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Don't be scared to jump into battlegrounds, dungeons, or other level appropriate group quests and activities. There's a lot to learn in group situations that you don't experience in solo play such as leveling. Most people are quite nice and helpful and only a few ********, that are vocal, ignore them. Remember, it's ok to make mistakes and learn from them.

DO NOT get discouraged by those that may call you 'noob' or any other term, we've all been called that at some point.

Have fun, remember, it's your money and your character(s) and you need to enjoy it.

Welcome to WoW.

#20 Aug 23 2012 at 3:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
Have fun, remember, it's your money and your character(s) and you need to enjoy it.


While I agree with your post, I'd have to point out that one has to be careful with this statement.

Yes, each player pays their $14.95 or whatever (cheaper if you buy 3 or 6 month sub), but yet so does everyone else you interact with.

Each player needs to pay his or her teammates some respect and put forth reasonable effort to do well. It is one thing to be new and to fail because of inexperience, it is something completely different to say something like "my money, I do it the way I wanna do it" and just ignore the "rules" and ruin everyone else's fun too.

A common saying is that it is your $14.95, and their $59.80 / $134.55 / $358.80 (5-man, 10-man, 25-man, respectively).

Edited, Aug 23rd 2012 6:01pm by Lyrailis
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