A few questions.Follow

Hello.
I had a few questions before picking up WoW and I thought I'd ask them here mainly because I remember using Allakhazam for EQ quite some time ago.

Alright, so, my first question would be, What is the max ammount of players allowed onto a server at one time? I've looked for some PvE servers, trying to find somewhere, where I'd like to play, and get settled in, and I'm wondering if I should go with a server with more or less players. I found a few servers with 10k+ players, but I also found some servers with around 7k players (Does anyone know how accurate the Warcraftrealms Census is? I got the numbers from there.) But I was wondering what a good ammount of players is aswell, because I still want people to play with, but I also don't want to wait in Queue for a long time.

Another question would be, what is a good class that can solo well, that can do well on it's own, but can also be decent with groups, that I don't have to respec just to join a group, ect. Also, with the class, what's a good race? I know that after level 20 or so, racial traits don't do much because of equipment, but I would still like to know a good race to start out as, a race that has a nice starting town, ect.

My last question is, would it be absolutley necessary to pick up The Burning Crusade when it come's out? I can see getting it once I've hit level 60, but is it worth getting before that?

I believe that is it, thank-you.

- Kiileero

I'm not sure on the population questions as the main server that I'm on used to always show as 'medium' until these past few weeks. I'm not sure how long a server takes to go from 'new' to 'full' these days.


All classes 'can' solo most normal quests and can reach level 60. I've heard that Hunters and Warlocks are great for fast solo leveling but Warriors and Priests are in the most demand for high level instances (group play dungeons).

Choose class before race since not all races can be all classes. The racial traits seldom make any real difference though I've heard that a few are nice to have in PVP situations.

You can have up to 10 characters on one server and up to 50 total so you can feel free to try several and level them up to 20 or so before you decide which suits you best.


Burning Crusade.
While it adds the 60-70 level content, it also adds two new races and a new profession which are inaccessable without the expansion. I'm not sure if you can even enter the new low-level zones for those races without the expansion.

I started the game on day one and I’ve stayed on the same server, save for my horde characters. So I don’t have much experience in what is a good balance between low and high population servers. I can tell you that Blackhand has been fun to play on. One of the benefits to a high population is a lot of choice of items on the auction house. My horde characters on Thunderhorn had a much harder time finding items they wanted, as the server was not as populated in general and the horde side held the minority of players. The down side of a high population is that Blackhand usually has a queue during prime time. And sometimes that queue is freaking huge. With my hours I can get on before any queue forms, so it’s not been a problem for me. But if I need to log in later for some reason I can expect to start the game and wait at least half an hour before I can play.

In my opinion you should try to figure out what class you would most enjoy instead of which class solos best. All classes can solo. Some classes will kill more slowly, but I feel its better to take longer to reach the level cap than to get there faster playing a class you don’t enjoy. That having been said, hunters and rogues solo very well. And if you are more into the caster classes, mages and warlocks can also solo very well. Often spending your points in a particular talent tree can make a difference in how well you solo. For example, a holy priest will kill more slowly on his way to 60 than a shadow speced priest. A fury warrior will solo more quickly than a protection warrior.

But don’t overlook the hybrid classes. They may not kill as quickly, but they can be a lot of fun to play. I enjoyed my druid a lot. He could play like a warrior in bear form, a rogue in cat form or a caster in humanoid form. Unfortunately, druids require a lot of different gear if you are to take full advantage of all those skills. And they are most often expected to play healer in groups.

As for starting areas, it really just depends on your own personal taste. I like the human lands best, with their trees and green lands. The snow covered dwarven / gnomish areas are also fun for me. I don’t care much for the color scheme for the night elf starting areas, so I’ve not played through them as often. But they do have some nice quests.

On the horde side, if you like haunted houses and have a bit of an evil streak you’d most likely enjoy playing through the undead areas. The grasslands of the tauren are enjoyable. It’s very reminiscent of the American Indian culture. I don’t care much for the orc / troll starting area. The quests are fine; I just don’t care for the stark, desert environment. But again, it’s just a mater of personal taste.

The expansion is not required. You can play the same game we have today without it. However, I expect you would miss having it. Without it you will not be able to play either of the two new races nor visit their starting areas. And while most of the flashiest content is for the 60 plus crowd, there will be many small things you’ll miss out on by not having the expansion. But if that doesn’t bother you then don’t worry about it. Unless you desire a copy of the collector’s edition of the expansion, I’d suggest just getting the basic game and trying it out for a while. If you find you like it, then consider buying the expansion.