World of Warcraft Newbie (or is that n00b?)

Well, I took the plunge and bought World of Warcraft: Battlechest and it comes with the base game and the Burning Crusade expansion. Thanks to a $20 Best Buy coupon the entire thing ran me $23. I’ve played a little EQ II but this is my first foray into WoW.

I haven’t even created a character yet but I was just wondering if anyone here on the Dope played? If so, any tips?
Odesio

I believe you want this thread in The Game Room rather than starting out in the Pit.

Oh my goodness. How in the heck did this end up in the Pit of all places? Rather than insert a bunch of expletives I fervently hope the mods will move this to an appropriate forum.

Done.

Note also that in the OP of the thread that Broomstick linked is a link to a previous thread which had gotten completely unwieldy, thus the starting of that thread. Since we tended to cover and re-cover similar topics several times (an almost unavoidable hazard of threads that long), you could probably just read the thread that Broomstick linked, unless you have plenty of time and patience and want to go ahead and read both.

That said, there are a lot of WoW players here at the Dope (and also at the splinter boards), so you have plenty of advice for the asking!

I ended up creating a human paladin named Odesio and got him up to level 3. I’m really tearing that server up!

Oh God, not a human pally.

Firstly - server choice. You’ll find a lot of players ultimately regret their choice to start on a "normal server"or PvE. This is partially because their attention later turns to PvP, but I’d say largely because players seems more mature, PvE seems to be filled with 11 year olds (at times). In relation to this Horde seems to have older players in general.

Secondly - pick a highly populated server, not the fullest of servers, but something that’s fullER. This is because you’ll find a fuller auction house, and more people to play with (eg Boulderfist). The flip side of this is that the “new” servers, or ones where WoW will automatically suggest to you are also full of new players, so you may find less pressure to hurry up and level, and find more people at your pace.

Thirdly - download and install Auctioneer, learn how to use it, but avoid programs like QuestHelper and Carbonite for the time being. Later when you’ve already experienced the game - feel free - until then avoid easymode programs and enjoy the full game. TitanBar and XPerl might be useful but by no means are necessary for a while.

Fourthly - create several characters and play a few classes before you settle into one. You don’t want to arrive at level 80 with a mage and wish you’d leveled a healer or tank… which brings me to my next point.

Five…ly - there are three roles you’re probably familiar with: tank, healer, and DPS (damage per second, or Teh Hurt if you will). Hybrid classes can fulfill more than one of these functions. Hybrids are:

Shaman
Paladin
Druid
Priest
Warrior
Deathknight (unavailable to you at the moment)

I’d recommend a hybrid for the time being, because you can change your “spec” with your play type. THOUGH I wouldn’t recommend a Paladin (partially because it’s a flavor of the month class that everyone seems to play right now, partially because it’s a boring class to play in the beginning). So that means I would highly suggest a Shaman (my fave), Druid, or Priest. Other none hybrid classes I liked were Warlocks, and Warriors - but you’ve gotta decide these things for yourself. Most people don’t end up playing their first class to the bitter end. As luck would have it I started with a human Paladin, aaaand looking back did not enjoy it. The fastest classes to level are Hunters and Warlocks.

Sixth - get both your professions early and keep working on them - herbalism (with alchemy), skinning, and mining are good choices. Don’t bother with crafting professions til later, their benefits now are meager and expensive (and gold is something you haven’t got a lot of, yet). Don’t neglect first aid, cooking, or fishing if you can.

Seven - find some friends and join a guild, WoW is broad and somewhat complex, and best enjoyed with friends!

I’ve played in mad bursts for three years, and am currently traveling. I love the game, but it can be addictive.

Mature? In PvP? Pardon the incredulity, but I find that difficult to swallow. At least you can simply ignore the d-bags on PvE servers instead of being forcibly and repeatedly ganked by them.

No, unless you already know you’re going to want to try PvP, stick with a PvE server. Battlegrounds are always there if you end up wanting a taste of PvP, and if you do decide eventually that you want to get onto a PvP server, well, leveling a new character isn’t going to be an uncommon experience anyway. But if you start on a PvP server and find you hate PvP, while you can still change servers, that’s going to sour you on the game.

And what’s wrong with Pallys? I see no reason to avoid an FotM class, especially on this game where there’s not too many classes to choose from anyway. They’re a very solid beginner class, being simple to play (boring to you isn’t necessarily boring to someone else) and solo-friendly while still being welcome on teams. FotM hardly matters in a PvE environment anyway; that’s more of a PvP concern.

I do heartily agree that you have to decide on what class you enjoy the most, of course. I couldn’t get into my Shaman at all, and the DOT-based classes (Warlock and DK) and combo-based (Warrior, sorta, and Rogue) aren’t fun for me either. I’ve had success with a Hunter as well as my Pally (the Pally’s 61, the Hunter’s 55, next highest character is 18) and I’m really looking forward to working up a Mage. But it’s different for everyone.

Yeah, I just started WoW about a month-ish ago and I’m having fun probably because I started on a PvE server. There are douchebags but you can just ignore them. Far better than having a dickwad level 60 come up and slaughter the area of level 20s.

I don’t play obsessively (over a month and I only have two characters, only at level 7 (rogue) and level 22 (mage)), but I’m having a lot of fun. I’m in a guild with some friends who love to help me out with questions and my fiance and I have our paladin/mage team to quest with (he has a bunch of other characters he plays when I’m not on). I find the mage fun to play. Not sure about the rogue but I’ll give it some time to get the feel of the class.

I’m going to be bold and assume he doesn’t want to wade through a 27 page thread hoping to find, months later, some general starting tips and suggestions. I could be wrong of course.

My recommendation: try all the classes, up to about level 10. That will give you a feel for the basic mechanics of each class. Try each of the races too, both Alliance and Horde side. Most races will start in a different area, so you can still have fun trying all the classes.

Once you have each class up to about 10, then decide which race and class combo you like best. Or maybe two, but not three. Delete characters you know don’t like.

I would encourage you to stay away from PvP servers, unless you enjoy hunting and being hunted by other players. For a new player, it’s probably better to stick with PvE servers, where you can’t be attacked by other players unless you allow it.

If you decide to go Horde, there’s a good-sized group of us Dopers on Cairne. Do a /who burning dog and you’ll get a list of us online. Do /tell charactername and say you’re from the SDMB (or a friend of Cecil, etc) and would like a invite. Guild chat is friendly, and you can get a lot of advice in-game from us. If you’re really stuck at a quest, someone will come and help you finish it.

About deleting the extra characters: keep one extra character around of the same faction and server as the characters you decide to stick with. This will be your “bank alt” – you can mail the bank alt character stuff to store in the bank or sell at the auction house so you don’t have to run your character back and forth all the time to the capital cities, which is more of an issue once you’ve hit 30th level or so and you’re adventuring a bit farther away from the capitals.

Level 10 is definitely recommended. That’s when most classes get their first really cool thing. Hunters get pets (and those first 9 levels without pets suck), Warlocks get their Voidwalker, Warriors get Defensive Stance, Druids get Bear Form, etc.

I still have yet to try using a bank alt. I probably should make use of it, but I kind of like the concept of returning home to Ironforge to handle stuff.

I concede Bosstone’s point. Admittedly you can simply pay 25$ later on and shift into a PvP server. After leveling three toons to 80, my same group of real life friends and I had sorrly wished we’d chosen a fuller PvP server. The grass is always greener, I suppose

I was also going to add, “nub” seems to be getting popular, as opposed to noob, n00b, newb etc etc etc etc

Sorry for the triple post! My editing surpassed 5 mins:

Oh, and another addition.

You might find “blue humping” beneficial. When you log off your character you gain what’s called double xp, and you experience bar that is normally purple will be blue, and during that time you earn twice the xp from killing monsters and +10% from completely quests. Take note logging off in a major city or in an Inn is require to gain any meaningful amount of double xp. So what you do is you create many characters, one of each class if you like, and only play the toon until they run out of double xp, then log out in an inn, and log into the next character etc etc etc. This means all your time played maximizes xp earned, plus every time you sit down you’ll get a couple levels, so you get to train some funky abilities.

That might also be the behavior of a burned out raider. Dunno. I made 7 non max level classes doing that to 37 doing that once. Then shortly after deleted all my toons and account in a fit of self loathing.

I came off overly harsh, I think. I know PvP can really get some folks’ gears going, and depending on the crowd you run with it can definitely be more fulfilling than PvE. But when you consider the population at large…there’s nothing like walking into Westfall and being greeted by a pair of level 80 Hordies who want to say hi. (Or Durotar/Allies, depending on your side.)

I’m really digging my paladin. I didn’t know if was flavor of the month but Paladins were what I really loved playing in D&D. So far I’ve helped heal a bunch of people I just happened to run across as they were getting their asses handed to them and all of them have thanked me. On occasion someone will provide me with a buff just because it’s a sunny day and that’s always nice as well. I’ve only had one bad group experience so far. Some guy asked me to join his group, didn’t communicate with me at all despite my numerous attempts, and finally kicked me out. No biggie.
I also have an undead Mage and it’s ok. I don’t think I’ll enjoy it as much as the Paladin. Might try Warlock instead.
Odesio

PS: I’m out with kidney stones so I have plenty of time to play right now.

Exactly. It’s annoying enough on a PvE server to run around Westfall (to continue your example) and have a lvl 60 be taking out all of the level 14 monsters that you need to do for a quest. It’d be far worse to be running there and have that lvl 60 just demolish you since you got in his sight.

I love how its always how much it would suck to get ganked and never how much fun it is to do the ganking.

I had a group of friends with a pile of rogues and one warlock…we called him bait. Allies would see a lone warlock and come running only to end up on the wrong side of a 4 rogue stunlock fest, we used to kill people 20 lvls higher on occasion doing that.