Not sure what all the restrictions on trial accounts are, but you might be able to do battleground pvp in the twinkie bracket. The downside there is you’d only have access to one “capture the flag” style battleground, called “WArsong Gulch”, and more importantly, you’d be competing against players that have chosen to turn off experience gain to remain in that bracket. The reason most people do that is because they have high level characters bankrolling the lowbie’s purchase of the best available equipment for that level. Rare drop stuff that sells for inflated prices, and can turn a lowbie into an overpowered juggernaut against similar level characters that can’t afford the spiffy gear. This practice is called “twinking”.
As an example, I have a rogue twink I was playing back before battlegrounds gave experience. That character has something like 1500 hp*, where most non-twinked characters at that level (19) have less than 1000 hp, and that character hits like Mike Tyson, whereas most non-twink characters at that level hit more like Elmer Fudd.
*I do not remember the actual numbers, but the point is the disparity in power between twinks and non-twinks.
Thanks for the explanations, guys. I’m familiar with a lot of the general concepts of MMORPGs from my experience playing Diablo 2 (not an RPG, but many rules still apply). My main problem with that game is that once you get to a high level and can kill any boss on the hardest difficulty, there really isn’t a lot you can do to keep things interesting. It tends to become a grind for items where you just keep doing the same dungeons over and over again, and there’s not much to break up the monotony.
WoW mitigates that problem to some degree. Many players feel like the “real game” begins at maximum level, because that’s when you get to fight the hardest bosses in the game…in small groups of 5, or “raids” of 10 or 25 players. You can’t solo the toughest bosses in the game. It takes a cooperative effort, with lots of coordination…and there’s always PVP…fighting a human opponent that’s trying to kick your ass is a whole different ballgame.
Yes, there are “grinds” where you do repetitive content to chase the latest shiny upgrades, but WoW has much to offer in the End Game…and releases new content through patches and expansions, usually aimed primarily at those that have mastered existing content at the hardest levels.
Another thing you might do to keep things interesting and set yourself up if you choose to activate is get to level 20 doing a minimal amount of quests. Once you max your level, since you can’t gain experience points, the coin reward for completing quests is disproportionately high as compensation. If you complete the bulk of quests after you reach 20, you’ll set a decent nest egg if you activate the account.
A few other things to do/try to extend the trial experience:
Get as many “achievements” as allowable/possible. As Horde, fish up Old Ironjaw in Ironforge. As Alliance, try to get Old Crafty in Ogrimmar. Get the Fishing Diplomat achievement. (Be prepared to die many times attempting these three achievements). /love as many creatures as possible. Eat and drink different types of consumables. Review your achievements list and try to knock down as many as possible one-by-one. Visit www.wowhead.com for information on how to complete specific achievements.
Level your crafting/tradeskills as much as possible. Max out your secondary tradeskills (fishing, cooking, first-aid) for your level.
If Alliance, do the Ragefire Chasm instance at level 20. You’ll get an achievement for this, but you’ll again die many times, not inside the instance, but just getting there.
You can PCP with a trial account, but it has to be in the world-at-large and you have to activate it by doing something aggressive against the opposing faction. Look for PVP-activated tons near your level in contested zones and have at them. Activating yourself for PVP at low level isn’t very wise though, because you’ll get much ganged. But if you can snipe a few isolated PVP-activated lowbies, it’s definitely more fun.
Get your first mount! You’re eligible to purchase and ride your first mount at level 20. It’s a bit expensive (though not as much anymore). Working to save up the cash for a mount is something that will keep the game interesting and leads to a very worthwhile award.
If a Hunter, go to Dark shore and get the elusive and much desired Ghost Saber for a pet.
And now the :smack: moment:
Trial accounts last for only 10 days. After that you have to either purchase the upgrade to a normal account or start over with a new trial account. I neglected to consider that in doling out the previous information, but you can realistically reach level 20 on day one or two, depending on commitment of course.
This changed recently (in the last week or two). WoW is free to play on a restricted (formerly known as “trial”) account to level 20 with no time limit. At least that’s my understanding of it.
This is true - there is no longer a time limit on trial accounts.
Of course, the point of a trial account is to try things out - if it entertains you for a week or a month or six months it’s all good. It’s all free, right? You are not forced to pay.
Even if you get a paid account - you can suspend it at any time, stop paying the fee, then come back a month or a year or two years later and resume playing where you left off.
I’d say try it. Level a couple toons up to 20, wander around, see the world.
The crafting/gathering skills should also be relevant to you character. If you pick a paladin, then your two primary skills should be Mining and Blacksmithing so you can make your own pieces of plate armor and weapons that are usually better than what you loot from the mobs.
A rogue usually chooses Skinning and Leatherworking to make the armor that he can wear.
Healers may opt for Herbalism and Alchemy or Inscription to make potions, glyphs or other items (I’m not really up on those crafts though)
Also, whatever gathering skill you choose, you can always sell on the auction house whatever materials you don’t use…you’ll need that gold for items that are harder to come by.
More than half my toons are Alliance, and many have done Ragefire by way of the Random Dungeon tool. Once you hit level 15 and queue up, Ragefire will likely be the first place it sends you.
*Of course, Blizz may decide trial accounts to 20 can’t use the dungeon tool, and if so, that stinks.
Generally good advice, although I’d like to point out that at level 20, you’ll have to see most of the world as a ghost running back to your broken corpse, after you’ve been killed by body-pulling 3 or 4 mobs from surprising distances, because out of the over 100 normal continent open zones, only about a dozen are within reasonable survival level of a sub-21 toon.
ETA: Blizz really reallyreally wants you to buy the game and start paying monthlies. I don’t think camping on a trial account is viable, but YMMV.
I don’t know if this has been posted yet, but here’s what you can’t do with a trial account:
There’s some pretty significant fun-limiters in that list. Most obvious is the stunted social features, which I (as a paying customer) am grateful for, since it puts a damper on gold spamming using trial accounts; but this means that you’ll have to use out-of-game communications channels to coordinate any kind of social ingame features (the key to which is “added you to their friends list.”).
No explicit mention of PvP or instance queuing in the list, though.
I would actually recommend differently. For starting out I would recommend getting 2 gathering skills instead of a gathering/crafting combo. Generally while leveling by the time you have enough skill points and material to craft something useful you will have leveled past the point where it is useful. And a crafting profession will never be profitable unless you are at the max level and have invested a good amount of time/gold into it.
Having 2 gathering professions will allow you to sell any materials you gather while leveling on the auction house. Many low level crafting materials can be sold for a good chunk of gold since the supply is generally low. This way you will always have a good supply of gold, and if you want crafted gear it is almost always cheaper to buy it on the auction house than crafting it yourself, since the cost of the materials used is usually higher than the cost of the item. This is because most non-max level crafted items are made to gain skill points in the profession, and since the demand for these items are usually low the crafters will try to sell it below cost to recoup at least some of their expenses.
Herbalism and skinning are my preferred combination as they are easiest to level. All of my alts start out with these 2 professions, and by the time they hit max level they’ll have made at least 5000 gold from auctions alone, without any extra effort expended other than picking up what I can along the way. At a later point, you can always drop the gathering professions for crafting ones as you see fit.
That restriction list is pretty brutal. In particular, this restriction will make leveling with your spouse rather annoying: “You can’t invite other players to a party.”
Headrush042 said it has changed recently, so it may be different, but when I was using trial accounts extensively (about a year ago), you couldn’t join queues for PVP from an NPC or use Dungeon Finder. You also weren’t able to even use /say. The chat restrictions were obviously enacted to prevent the irritating plat spammers, as you say. I didn’t know you could join a group though. I just presumed you couldn’t because I wasn’t able to use /invite and I never received an /invite request.
Way back when I was able to join a group someone else /invited me to (that was under the old restrictions). But I remember back then I couldn’t /invite others.
A lot of your questions were answered up thread well, but I have a few thoughts to add to some of them.
Tanks and healers are typically in the highest demand in that order, but queues have gotten a lot shorter for DPS as well. The thing is, you shouldn’t use that as a reason to choose a particular role. Instead, I suggest playing around with a few different classes and see which ones you feel and which ones you don’t. Different classes have different abilities, different resource mechanics, and that can easily mean the difference in whether you enjoy it or not.
Personally, I play a healer and love it, and it’s worked out well for when, in the past, I’d been looking for a raiding guild, or currently when I feel like running a random dungeon. However, I’ve also known people who have rolled healers or tanks because they knew it would be easier to get into a raid, but they end up not really enjoying it and/or not being very good at it.
So, really, play a role that you really enjoy first and only concern yourself with that other stuff as a secondary concern.
Blizzard has done a pretty good job of balance so far with the most recent expansion, or at least better than they’ve ever done. Every tanking and healing role is viable for most circumstances and within maybe 5-10% of performance. Every class also has at least one viable DPS spec as well.
That said, picking a class or spec that is currently on top is a poor way to choose, as all it takes is a patch with a buff or a nerf to change that. Beyond that, really enjoying your class and making playing the class intuitive will easily outweigh most balance concerns.
For instance, I play a Holy Priest, but some encounters favor a Discipline Priest healer. I can play Discipline well, but I simply find it incredibly boring and tedious, which in turn leads to me making not enjoying it and being more likely to make big mistakes. So there have been times where I could theoretically have benefitted my raid more by swapping to that spec, but I felt that my intuition with the class (I’ve been Holy since classic for raiding, so I have a lot of it) ultimately outweighed the potential benefit of the spec, and I still performed exceptionally well. And that’s even in a progression guild.
So, by all means look and see who is performing well and where, but make sure you enjoy it and are good at it, not just that they are doing well.
You’d be looking at either a tank or melee DPS. So, if you’re looking into tanking, that’s Protection Warriors, Feral Druids, Protection Paladins, and Blood Death Knights, or if you’re looking into melee DPS, you can add all flavors of Rogues, Fury and Arms Warriors, Retribution Paladins, Frost and Unholy Death Knights, and Enhancement Shamans to that list as well. If she’s not sure whether she’d want to tank or melee DPS, I’d suggest trying one of the classes that can do both and experimenting with both options to see which one she likes.
These depend a lot on the culture of your server and, if you join a guild, how helpful they are. It’s generally advisable to join a guild, even if you intend to play solo or with your wife, because there are bonuses associated with guilds like additional XP and reputation. Some guilds are made specifically for leveling and will have lots of characters at various levels that will be available for doing runs if you want to team up with people. If you want to run dungeons, you can always use the random dungeon finder. However, if you want to group up for quests, that relies on either asking around in chat, but often you will run into someone else in the area and they may be willing to help out.
And you can solo or duo all the way to 85, but all of the more difficult content requires some level of cooperative play, it IS an MMO afterall. Raiding is obviously where the most challenging PVE content is, but it’s not for everyone, and generally higher progression requires greater commitment. Many are happy just to run the Heroic 5-mans instead. There’s also PVP content, and one can queue for battle grounds or do arenas as well, and all of that can be queued for solo or duo (for 2v2 arena at least).
What other questions should I be asking?
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