Beginner's Guide For World Of Warcraft - Topic

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Jan 22 2013 03:52pm

A World of Warcraft Guide for Beginners
by Arkhen

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Table of Contents

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1.0 World of Warcraft Introduction
So what is World of Warcraft? WoW - which is the game's acronym - is a MMORPG which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
That is the videogame genre which is linked with a massive world where an incredible amount of people are interacting with each other.
World of Warcraft consists of one base game and four expansion packs. Having all these expansions linked to your account is neccesary in order to play the latest content released by Blizzard. It's not possible to skip an expansion or skip the base game.
The first installment was released November 23rd 2004 (US) and February 11th 2005 (EU) and the game and community has expanded ever since.

1.1 Acronyms & Explainations
There is a vast amount of acronyms and terms used in World of Warcraft and I've taken my time to explain the ones I'm using in my guide here. They are sorted alphabetically.

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2.0 Picking Your Server
Picking your Realm/Server to play on can be hard, and there are many things you should think about when you do so. Like many other cases you have to ask yourself whether if you are going to run into any issues playing on the server you have in question.
Especially if you are completely new to the game this can be a problem, as you probably won't know whether if you like PVP or PVE the most. So what can you do?
What I found to be the best solution back when I started playing WoW in 2008 was that I had someone to play with, and an insurance that would grand me the option to continue playing even though my friends might stop.
So what I found to be the best solution was to pick a realm which had a high population and which had one of the top guilds in the world. You can check top ranked guilds, players and achievement hunters here: http://www.wowprogress.com/
That insured me with a consistent high population, rich with PVE guilds and because of the high population also a continously active PVP environment and auction house.
There are also Realms/servers which are notorious for their very high ranked PVP and who host some of the best arena gladiators in the world.

2.1 Alliance/Horde Ratio

Another very important issue which many people tend to overlook is the ratio between Alliance and Horde on the realm you are choosing.
You might end up on a realm that has 95% Horde and 5% Alliance where you wanted the exact opposite.
Checking the faction ratios of a realm can be done here:

http://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/eu

http://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/us

On the picture below I've highlighted what you have to look for. The white text is the actual number of players on the server. The red indicates Horde and the blue Alliance.
To give an example, if you are aiming for a very high populated horde server, based on the example below you could pick Eredar, which has around 95% horde.

Note: This picture is just an example, the numbers on the picture may have changed!

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3.0 Character Creation

Like picking a server to play on can be a difficult choice, creating a character is no less of a hardship to deal with.
There are currently 11 different classes you can play while you can holster up to 10 characters per server. The different classes have special specifications, some are only designed for DPS while other classes have multiple options available.

A good idea to approach this game in the beginning, is by creating a class you find interesting. Read the information provided by Blizzard in the character selection screen.
Take you time and pick the one you think sound most like your playstyle. Picking the wrong class can result in you wanting to quit the game, as leveling a new class can be a time consuming process.

Personally I rolled Druid to begin with as I found it had many advantages as when it came to learning the game's mechanics. I learned how I was supposed to play as all the different roles I would later use when I rolled other classes.
As a druid I was able to play every roll there is in PVE, a tank, healer, melee DPS and caster DPS. When I got bored in one spec I just swapped to another.
That being said I was never the underdog in PVP, if one way of playing was nerfed I could just switch to another.
And now this might sound like a commercial for druids, but this was just the choice I found the best and still do to this day.

Another great way to get an idea of the class is to try every class and level them to 10-15.
This will give you a general idea of the class as you will be using some of the core elements of the class to progress.

3.1 Benefits of Each Race

Picking your race is less important than your class as this will mainly only affect your character look wise.
There are although a few features that should be noted, which if you want to play highest of the highest end-game can actually affect your results. Those features are also called "race traits".
Those can be found here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Racial_trait

Picking your race trait wisely would be so the traits are to your advantage. An example would be for hunters.
Picking Forsaken/Undead (horde) as a hunter would for PVP'ers be a great choice as it provides [Will of the Forsaken] which removes any Charm, Fear and Sleep effect at a 2 minute cooldown.
Where on the other hand if you are playing PVE picking an Orc or Troll would be wiser, as Orcs has the ability to increase attack power and spell damage by an amount based on level/class for 15 seconds every 2nd minute and Trolls the ability to increase attack and casting speed by 20% for 10 seconds every 3rd minute.

In the end most people will tell you to pick the one you find coolest, but as mentioned above, if you really want to maximize your character you should pick the race based on the traits and the advantages they can give you, and not the looks.

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4.0 Trading

As in many other MMORPGs Blizzard has implemented the element of trading. In World of Warcraft you can trade various things, such as materials for your professions, gear, collectables and consumables.
There are although certain things you cannot trade, and there are terms you should make yourself familiar with.

You can trade another player by right-clicking his or her portrait and then click "Trade". A window will then open up, similar to the one shown below.
In this window you can trade items by dragging your items from your bags into the upper slots. The lowest slot is used to buy/sell enchantments.
Enchanting via the trade window will allow you to sell or buy a gear enchants without any part having to give first. You can also use the bottom slot for applying Armor Kit, Sharpening Stone/Weightstone, Poison and Pick Lock.

4.1 The Auction House

If you want to sell or buy items from other players then The Auction House, or AH, is the way to go. The Aucion House contains countless amounts of items, recipes, mounts, materials, junk - generally everything sellable in World of Warcraft.
You can access it in every major city such as Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, Stormwind and Ironforge. If you are unsure of where to find it, just ask a guard (NPC), they are everywhere.

There are a few extremely important issues about AH you should know about before you start using it.

make sure you enter the correct amount

do your research before buying!

Another thing to note, is there are two seperate Auction Houses. There are the ones in the big major cities which are linked together, only separated by faction And there are the goblin Auction Houses.
The goblin Auction House is interesting because you can trade items between the factions. That means a Horde player can put an item up for sale and an Alliance player can purchase it.
It is although worth noting that the goblin Auction House is not half as active as the big cities'. The reason for that is they are not as accessible as they are located in Tanaris and Booty Bay - they are linked together though. And because of the 15% cut, up from 5%.

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5.0 Leveling

For some leveling is an unfortunate thing, as there is no way getting around it. If you want to play World of Warcraft's end-game content, this must be done first.
A level is gained by reaching the cap of your experience bar, and as you progress in levels you will need to earn more experience. But as you progress in the environment you also get higher amounts of experience rewards.

Blizzard has made leveling more interesting compared to the beginning of WoW as you don't have to grind your way to the top, unlike many other MMORPGs.
In World of Warcraft there are many ways you can tackle the leveling process.

5.1 Via PVE

Most people prefare to do quests to level up. Questing has been made extremely simple over time as you can activate quest markers on your map, so you know exactly where to go, find stuff or kill NPCs. The default key to access the dungeon finder window is i.
And not only do you get experience for quests, you also attain better PVE gear and gold. The higher level the quest is designed for the better items and gold is rewarded.
That being said some quests, especially in Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria are good to have finished, as they "phase" you. That means you won't be able to see people who have done the quest in that area or zone if you have not completed what they have.

There is also the option of leveling through instances or dungeons, though this process is very dependant on your group. If you have 4 other friends to do it with, this along with PVP is the funniest way to level up in my opinion.
But if you level up via dungeons only using random people from a pick-up-group, or PUG, you might end up being frustrated and angry. During the leveling dungeons not many people know what to do, especially in the healer and tanking roles.
You should also note that raiding will not grand you any experience hence out of the question for leveling.

5.2 Via PVP

You can also level by PVPing in battlegrounds such as Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterec Valley. The default key to access the battleground window is H.
Here is the order of the PVP brackets and when you can join them (numbers refering to levels. The questionmarks indicates the bracket change):

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6.0 Professions
A profession is a trade-oriented set of skills which you can learn in order to gather, make, or enhance items. The different professions are taught by different trainers all located in the big cities. If you have trouble finding them, ask a guard.
To begin with you'll have access to a small variaty of items to craft, enhance or gather. And like regular leveling you will need to level it up from the bottom.
As you progress you will need to consult your trainer in order to get higher ranked/tiers of what your profession provides. The ranks/tiers are displayed below.
The default key to access the professions window is K.

While you can only learn 2 primary professions per character, everyone can learn all of the secondary professions. Those are: Fishing, Cooking, First Aid and Archaeology.
The primary professions consists of: Herbalisms, Mining, Skinning, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting Engineering, Inscription, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking and Tailoring.
And then there are the pseudo professions such as: Lockpicking (Rogues only), Riding and Runeforging (Death Knights only), where Riding is needed in order to ride/fly mounts.
Note: You can unlearn primary professions to learn new ones.

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7.0 Last Notes
For any unanswered questions you should refer to the World Of Warcraft Unified Sticky.
You are of course also welcome to PM me.

Thank you very much for reading this guide, I hope it is going to help you if you decide to start your journey in World of Warcraft.