Help two noobs get started in WoW

The Game Room
21

Yes, I’d heavily stress this. On a PvE server, you will never engage in PvP combat without choosing to do so. On a PvP server, your PvP flag can be set to active just by entering a contested zone.

Or an imbalance in your favor, if you roll that way. :stuck_out_tongue:

Arathi Basin.

WoW is *absolutely *that kind of game. You can get all the way to 80 (maximum level) without joining a group once, if you really don’t want to. Granted, you’ll miss out on some really epic group quests and all the dungeons until you’re high enough level to solo them. Which means you’ll miss a lot of the best gear, since most of that is BoP–bind on pickup–either as rewards from group quests or drops from dungeon bosses. But there’s still plenty of adequate gear to be had from quests you can solo–and some really nice pieces that are BoE (bind on equip) that you can buy from other players on the Auction House, though they may run a little pricy.

Since the advent of the RDF (random dungeon finder), you can even group up to tackle five-man dungeons without having any commitment outside of that single party. If you like having people around just to chat with, you can join a guild like Burning Dog Legion, or you can even just play by yourself all the time. (I personally have a super-secret character on a server where I don’t know anyone else and haven’t joined a guild, just for when I was to go play by myself.)

22

N00b/boyfriend checking in here. I’m following along and absorbing what I can while still at work, but I wanted to say that I really, really appreciate everyone’s input so far. And while I acknowledge this experiment could go horribly wrong, I’m looking forward to trying. :smiley:

23

To echo what everyone else has said, WoW is absolutely that kind of game, if you want it to be. Like Shot from Guns, I had a few “secret” characters stashed around on various servers for times I just wanted to do some quiet solo play, and I had my “main” characters for PVP, raiding, or guild-type stuff.

Also, newbie tip–sometimes it is good to have an alternate character on another server, just in case your primary server happens to be down when you have time to play.

24

I know it’s a cliche at this point, but I envy you (jsgoddess and Asimovian) because you’re going to get to see Azeroth for the first time. I’ve been playing for about four years now, and while I still play (a lot), it’s different now. That first month or so there’s a whole different feel…you don’t know where anything is, you don’t know who anyone is, you don’t know how the world fits together. You can catch the sunset over Durotar just right and have to just stop and stare at it (and take a screenshot). Your first sight of a new monster. The first time you get a quest whose name is a pop culture reference. Your first discovery of an easter egg (not the Noblegarden kind).

It’s corny, but it’s true.

25

WoW is entirely soloable – I hate grouping with strangers for much of anything, and my friends are at best unreliably schedulable (they’re doctors, mostly). So I spend most of my time soloing, and you can get maximum level soloing without much effort (the game isn’t terribly difficult compared to other online games, anyway).

But do note that they’ve been pushing ()*#@! raid content and dungeons for the last couple of years, almost to the exclusion of other things. That you can’t do without a group. While you might eventually get to the level where you could solo that stuff, there’d be no point (beyond exploration/completionism) since the items would be so far below your level. This doesn’t matter in general, but they’ve tied a lot of the specialization/custom skills (secondary skill specialties, better druid flight form (until the last expansion), fast mounts, etc.) to long involved quests that involve dungeons, so there will be some fairly mundane things you simply can’t do alone. Nothing in the game requires that you have those things, but it can be annoying that they gave no thought to the soloists in the design (as someone else mentioned, lots of dungeon items are bind on pickup, so you can’t even buy them from someone with more time). And the raids and such appear to require scheduling and time commitments that would baffle an accountant.

26

Well, here’s the problem. It’s an MMO and, as such, it’s expected that for the *really *cool stuff (in the sense of the most interesting boss encounters and the best gear), you’re going to have to team up with other people. Without completely homogenizing the classes, there would be no way to balance the hardest encounters so that they’d be equally challenging for everyone without making them also require a group to complete.

Not really–especially not now. Yes, there are people like me who have raid schedules that are like second jobs… but that’s for *hardcore endgame *content, which most people just don’t care about. A casual raider can easily show up pretty much any time and find a group to run with. At no other point in WoW’s history could someone hit max level, gear up in anywhere from a few days to a month, and step straight into the final raid of the game with a group of strangers. That was *literally impossible *with Naxxramas-40 in vanilla WoW or Sunwell Plateau in Burning Crusade.

27

Another thing about playing solo is that you level slower. I have a friend who never did groups, even with the RDF, and I flew by her pretty fast. I try to do a random dungeon every day I play. Once you ding 50 you make it to Outlands at 58 pretty quick by doing Blackrock Depths.

And, uh, since it probably would have taken until level 20 for me to figure it out if someone hadn’t told me before I started playing…always try to end your gaming session at an inn or one of the BIG cities. You’ll notice because your character portrait will show ‘zzz’ instead of your level. When you’re resting like that, you generate time at which you gain 2x the experience.

28

I think I’ve followed everything in the thread except this. So, um, huh? :smiley:

29

You want to be on the side that your friends are, if you’re going to hang out with them. Horde and Alliance can’t group together, can’t talk in-game (the words come out garbled), can’t trade gear or money except through selling gear in the neutral (goblin town) auction houses.

I know about Horde, so here’s a breakdown of their races:

Blood Elf: Only accessible if you buy the Burning Crusade (first) expansion. Skinny character models, extremely metrosexual men, all very self-absorbed. Bad history (their leaders were following whatever would get them power, and they have a tendency toward magic addiction) but getting better. Only current option for a Horde paladin.

Tauren: Large character, which can be annoying to see around/get through short doors. Have cow-like heads and broad-shouldered bodies. Modeled heavily on Plains Native Americans, semi-nomadic people that settled down, deep connection with Nature (only current option for Horde druids) and hunting. Pretty gentle for a hunter race, not warlike or cruel - good history for them.

Forsaken (Undead): Used to be part of the mindless undead hordes ravaging the countryside until their queen, Sylvanas, regained her autonomy and freed many people. Kind of gross, rotting. Human-sized - all player character Forsaken are former humans (and nearly all non-player character Forsaken too, with Sylvanas a notable exception). Tend to have more worrisome quest lines, sometimes involving poisonings. Have a rather justified paranoia about outsiders, considering that many think they’re abominations.

Trolls: Their relatives are cannibalistic and fairly primitive. The group of trolls in the Horde swore off the old ways and are pretty mellow, but strong defenders of the Horde. Modeled vaguely around some Caribbean peoples. Taller than all races except (IIRC) for the Tauren.

Orcs: The “common” race of the Horde - all Horde speak Orcish (and all Alliance speak Common) and their other language, if a race other than troll. They used to be marauders fueled by a curse of demon blood, inflicted on them by foolish, power-seeking leaders, but they were cleansed of that. Their leader, Thrall, is noble and well-respected generally, but that’s not always true of his commanders. IIRC, a bit shorter than humans/Forsaken, but more stocky.

With the third expansion (Cataclysm) later this year, the Horde will get goblins as a playable race. Goblins will be the “shorties” of the Horde; the Alliance already have them with gnomes. Goblins are merchants, and interested in making mechanical gadgets that blow up (intentionally or not).
jsgoddess, he’s talking about what’s called a “rested XP bonus,” which is I think 5 or 10%. You get XP faster at your next session if you log out for the night in an inn (if in a small village) or anywhere in a capital city. It doesn’t last very long, but the longer you’re logged out, the more “rested bonus” time you build up. If you log out while sitting out in some pond or something, you don’t accumulate a bonus, I think.

30

To expand: Each level bar is divided into 20 smaller “bubbles” of XP. For every eight hours you spend “resting” (in an inn or in a capital city), you get one bubble of rested XP. So, when you log out for a whole day, you get three bubbles. The maximum amount of rested XP you can have at any given time is two levels’ worth (40 bubbles).

Any XP you earn from killing monsters that falls inside the rested section counts for double. So if you kill a spider and earn 50 XP, you’re credited with a total of 100 instead. XP from completing quests does not get any bonuses, but it does push the boundary of your rested XP forward by the same amount, so none is consumed.

Rested XP is another reason to keep an alt or two–while one character is gathering rested XP, you can be playing another. :smiley:

31

I suck - I meant “if a race other than orc.” I was also off on how much extra XP you get for the rested bonus.

32

IIRC, you do also gain rested XP if you log out somewhere other than an inn or a capital city… Just at a very, very, very reduced rate.

FYI, jsgoddess: the old-world Horde capitals are Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity; the old-world Alliance capitals are Stormwind, Ironforge, and Darnassus; the neutral capital of Outland (TBC expansion) is Shattrath; and the neutral capital of Northrend (WotLK expansion) is Dalaran.

Many zones will have at least one inn. Most inns are faction-specific, though some are neutral (e.g., in Booty Bay at the soutern tip of Stranglethorn Vale). Each inn has an innkeeper. By talking to the innkeeper, you can attune your hearthstone to that location–an item that everyone carries that allows them to teleport to a set location once every 30 minutes. Once you attune your hearthstone to a location, using it will always teleport you there, until you reset it. There is no limit to how frequently you can reprogram your hearthstone or how many times it can be reprogrammed.

Besides one or more inns, each capital city also includes banks (where you can store your personal items as well as access your guild’s shared bank if you’re in a guild and it has one), trainers for professions, vendors, etc. Old-world capitals also include the Auction Houses* and class trainers.

*Regardless of what location you access them from, all Horde AHes are linked, all Alliance AHes are linked, and all neutral (Goblin) AHes are linked. So there are really three AH economies on any realm. Banks, too, are linked–and it’s important to note here that the ones you can access from neutral towns and cities are the same ones you access from faction-specific capitals.

33

There are also two other capitals: The Exodar (a SPACESHIP!) for the Draenei and Silvermoon City for the Blood Elves.

34

:smack: Thanks for reminding me. If you hadn’t guessed, js, nobody ever really goes to them. They’re huge and deserted–partially because their layout isn’t great, and partially because you can only access them if you have the TBC expansion, and partially because they’re a giant pain in the ass to get to (especially Exo, which can’t be reached by a flyer–only by boat). People who’re leveling characters in the area will come by, as well as characters who need to train Jewelcrafting but can’t get to the trainers in Outland or Northrend yet. But that’s about it.

Sigh, jayjay, it’s not a spaceship. It’s an interdimensional ship. The difference is, um, subtle but key. Or something.

35

Well, not 'zactly. If you’re in to twinking*, or trying to powerlevel an alt, you might want to two-box a dungeon, so your little twinkie can soak up experience and loot while your uber main blasts everything in sight.

*Twinking is using a high level character or friends to provide funds/equipment to a lowbie they’d be unable to obtain for themselves. You see it mostly in PVP, where people will use their main to fund the best available gear for a low level character to dominate a battleground. I did this on one of my secret characters. Made a rogue twink that even if I were still playing, will never reach level 20. All I ever do on that character is pvp.

36

Side-note (OP please ignore as this will be close to incomprehensible): this has been significantly changed. Battlegrounds now grant XP, which means that a geared-to-the-gills level 19 who plays in a battleground will have to face larger competition shortly; however, it IS possible to turn off your XP gains. In which case you will be put into PvP competition only with other players who have also turned off their XP gains, that is, other twinks.

This has also significantly changed the process of gearing up a twink, as they can now run various regular instances to their hearts’ content until they have all the gear they need.

37

Wowza…so they finally did it, huh? There were rumors going around that a fix was coming right about the time I stopped playing. I kinda like it. I mostly used my twink to hunt other twinks in regular BGs. Or to run the flag. :smiley: Would occassionally bump into other twinks I know, and we’d divide the flag runs…All three of us clear the horde flag room, then two stealth while the first guy makes the run, soon as he scores it, the next guy goes. Good Times. And short games.

Kinda wondering how this affects AV though. I got most of my PVP gear by running AV constantly, saving the points to buy last seasons Arena Gear on the vendors. Sounds like that’s not so doable anymore. I suck at arena, but did manage to get a couple of the non-rating required pieces from that season…think it was Season 4. A really nice wand and a dagger/offhand combo for my mage. The rest of my gear was all Season 3 stuff.

Heh…I really had to watch myself in PVE groups. In PVP, you just unload massive burst damage ASAP. No worries about drawing aggro because everybody is trying to kill you. Can’t do that in PVE. The tank has not been born that can hold aggro off a foolish gnome that tends to introduce himself with PoM-Pyro. (though I learned in one of the other threads that my favorite spell combo is either no longer viable, or maybe non-existent.)

38

While we’re going on about the races, I gotta ask: why is there a portal to Undercity in Silvermoon? It confused me badly at first. I play a Blood Elf and I was just wandering around getting used to Silvermoon and found the portal and thought Undercity was an extension of Silvermoon.

I mean, they’re both Horde races, but you’d think the Blood Elves would try to avoid the Forsaken. Or do they give them a pass because they’re still kinda cool with Sylvanas?

Or was the portal there before Lordaeron became ruins and Silvermoon was destroyed and neither race cared enough to try and get rid of it?

39

The Blood Elves and Forsaken feel a kinship because they’re outcasts (the Blood Elves are outcasts from the High Elves, and the Forsaken are outcasts from every race they used to be) and because Sylvanas, the leader of the Forsaken, used to be a High Elf.

The Horde is really two broad factions that play nice with each other: the Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren, and the Forsaken and Blood Elves.

40

I haven’t played WoW for many years now, but this was something that took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out: “keyboard turning” turning using the keyboard. It’s slow, hard to control, and you should rarely use it. You can maneuver much better by holding the right button on your mouse, and moving it.