Through the insight of Amazon wishlists, my mother gifted me with World of Warcraft. I installed xmas night, and now am totally, utterly addicted.
Any other newbies out there?
Any advice from the veterans?
Less than three hours until I can leave work and head back to Azeroth.
Welcome to Azeroth, fellow Kool-aid drinker!
I had a demo disk from PC Gamer sitting around the house for many months. Then in September, I finally installed it and was utterly hooked. Had to rush out and buy a ‘full’ version before my 2-week trial expired so I wouldn’t lose my characters.
I still feel like a total noob myself sometimes. Not as bad as when I first began, but still.
The best advice I can give you is to explore on your own (and by that I mean guildless) until level 20 or so. Get a feel for the game, the other players in your realm, how to find a good pick-up-group, what you can solo, what you can’t (paladins can solo orange quests, which are considered to be HIGH RISK, where as a priest trying to solo an orange quest will die, over and over and over). Learn how to play the Auction House. Vendor EVERYTHING that’s not blue. Dance naked in Ironforge for gold. And don’t EVER let on that you’re a n00b. 
Firenzio, lvl 58 pally, Perenolde <Serfs of Morton>
Explore by yourself, die a lot. Learn.
READ THE MANUAL READ THE MANUAL READ THE MANUAL.
It’s shocking how many new players can’t send a tell or talk in general chat.
If you have friends that play, get on their server (all my characters are on Doomhammer, which was an original server and is quite full). If not, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Someone will make fun of you for not knowing, but most people are pretty nice and will help you out.
Also, play horde. All my experience with the alliance side has been really awful, lots of annoying 12 year old boys playing female night elves. Not all alliance players are like that, but I never would’ve lasted if I’d made an alliance toon first.
Heck, I make most of my money from selling greens in the auction house. Is there a reason this isn’t supposed to work?
Excellent advice. I’m a newly born lvl 7 tauren, and I am loving it. Wish I could run a bit faster, and my inevitable altitis is ALREADY kicking in, and I’m indecisive as to which skill to pick…but I love it. Anyone want to grow up together, I’m Longshadow on Thunderhorn (seemed appropriate for a tauren, which I’ve always wanted to play).
Wait till you hit the Barrens. Then you’ll REALLY wish you could run faster. I just want to note, as well, that all the character races run at the same speed. It’s just that Tauren are so big that it looks slower. You should see Gnomes run from a player viewpoint! Whoosh!
What class is your moo cow?
I am a hunter, just because I wanted to do physical damage, but I wanted a pet, too. The Tauren are the WoW version of Indians, really, so why not? I like the idea of running across the plains, having an animal friend to help me…the gun is a bit jarring, but I got used it it.
Can’t I hire a mount? I’m a lazy moocow :D.
You CAN buy a mount at lvl 40. Some classes have speed skills, too. Hunters eventually (not sure when) get Aspect of the Cheetah, which increases your run speed by 30% (I think). Later, you get Aspect of the Pack, which increases your whole party’s run speed. Note that both of these come with a big disadvantage…any damage taken while Aspect of the Cheetah or Pack is active will Daze you.
Shamans get Ghost Wolf at lvl 20, which increases run speed by 40% (I think). Rogues have a 15-second Sprint ability. Mages, of course, can teleport and make portals to all their faction’s major cities, which negates run speed entirely.
Oh, and Druids get a travel form at lvl 30 that increases run speed (looks like a cheetah).
That sounds excellent. Saw somebody on a big flying machine…I’m assuming it wasn’t his, but hired? I’m a patient guy, as long as I have something to do I can run around all day. (though the teleport stone is very nice, I think I’d get frustrated if I didn’t have it.)
Flying…machine? Both sides have flying taxi services (Horde has the manticores in Kalimdor and southern Azeroth, and the bats in the Forsaken areas) but no machines that I know of. There are flying machines made by the gnomes and goblins but they’re not usable by players.
I’m mistaken…there are the goblin zeppelins (that carry characters between the continents), but unless you’ve managed to get to Orgrimmar you wouldn’t have seen one yet.
Things I was told when I first started playing that were incredibly helpful:
http://thottbot.com is your friend. Use it. A lot. Quite often a quest won’t be very specific on where to go (“Find So-and-So in the Barrens”-- the Barrens is freaking huge) and looking it up on thott will cut down on a lot of frustration.
Read your class forums on Wow’s main site (surprisingly enough, it’s http://worldofwarcraft.com). If you can get through the whining about how terrible Blizzard is for not giving everyone uber powers, there’s a lot of good ideas on how to play your class better.
Begin saving for your mount now… don’t buy stuff you don’t absolutely need.
Try to get Honored with the other races on your side as soon as possible. 10% off purchases and flights will save you a lot of money.
If you’re not a healer, learn First Aid.
Get the biggest bags you can afford. Sometimes you can find people in the noob zones selling 6 and 8 slot bags pretty cheap.
Don’t forget to tag flight paths whenever you go somewhere new.
Plan to do all your errands Tuesday mornings.
And, of course, have fun!
Cheetah at lvl 20, Pack at 40.
–Hedril, 60 human mage (Alleria) and Ghworg, 59 troll hunter (Llane)
If you venture into the forums, you will probably experience two things: (1) The urge to bitchslap people for poor grammar and spelling. (2) A newfound appreciation for the level of discourse of the SDMB. (There are occassional nuggets of wisdom in the WoW forums, but you have to sift through lots of whining and counter-whining.)
I second CreaseMunky’s recommendation of Thottbot. I try to complete quests without help as often as possible, but there’s no point in wandering around for ten minutes trying to find the one NPC that you need to talk to for a quest when you can look it up in a few seconds.
You’ll probably find that most people are friendly and polite, even the ones that are obviously only 12 and can’t spell worth a damn. If you need or want help with a quest, you probably won’t have much trouble finding someone to help you.
Oh, and if you haven’t seen a Druid in Moonkin form dancing, you simply must. I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding that amusing.
(Oakroot, 60 Tauren Druid, Balance specced, Thunderhorn)
Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball.
(glug glug glug glug glug)
Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball. Fireball.
(glug glug glug glug glug)
Fireball. Fireball. Fire…OH SHIT-Frost Nova-Blink-run
(glug glug glug, munch munch munch)
Mage rules.
Dang, I have an alliance on thunderhorn … level 38 human warlock named sonnenschein …
>actually, chances are if you run across a character on many servers named sonnenschein or aruvqan it is me =) i wasnt sure which server we were going to end up playing on so i made them on most of the original servers>
ROFLMAO
Sic Pet Void
Curse, Siphon Life, Immolate, Searing Pain, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt
Lifetap, Lifetap, Lifetap
Drain Health
Loot mob
Warlock FTW
Frost Shoooock!