I’d guess it’s because the people who complain about the inconvenience of PvP don’t find PvP fun. Just because some enjoy making people’s playing time miserable doesn’t mean all of us do.
Odesio, if you’re grooving on your Pali, then go for it! I like the class a lot too. One thing to keep in mind long term, Palis in WoW are more like spellcasters with swords rather than fighters with spells.
Warlocks are very powerful and so are priests. My favorite though are the druids. I love shifting between animal shapes.
Before you can ganked, you must be ganked. And frankly I don’t find the idea of reciprocity all that fun. “I was slaughtered endlessly when I was a lowbie, therefore it’s my right, nay, my duty to slaughter lowbies endlessly as a high-level!” I know you talked about killing people several levels higher (I find it hard to credit 20 levels higher, but as you say), but that requires hefty coordination.
I enjoy PvP on an equal footing, which World PvP is decidedly not. (Not that battlegrounds are much better if you’re in the low end of the bracket.) That said, I’ve toyed with the idea of making a character on a PvP server eventually just so I can say I have first-hand experience with it.
Exactly, to a T. I don’t talk about how fun it is to gank because it doesn’t really sound all that fun to me. Wow, I get to fuck over a low level character who’s trying to do their own stuff and have fun… that sounds like a real blast.
I know there are people who will play pretty fairly and only gank people who are around their level or above. But there are way too many dick holes who will camp a low level area to kill characters over and over again for laughs. Fuck that. That would seriously ruin any fun WoW has for me.
So that’s why I stick to PvE. And why I’m glad that WoW has both options.
WoW has no PvP level discrepancy restrictions? Wow! (heh) So a level 80 can attack a level 10 at whim? In EQ, you can only attack and be attacked by someone within 4 levels of you (up or down). I think that’s a lot less discouraging then getting constantly wiped by Highbies while you’re growing up.
Also: I really hate how WoW topics are all in that one gigantic monster thread. I guess it’s because otherwise WoW could dominate the Game Room, but goddamn! A lot of the stuff I read in there makes no sense right now because 1 - I’m new and 2 - Only even halfway know a bit about mages so reading a lot of it is like gibberish.
So knowing that I have to wade through 28 pages of a thread, most if it not making sense, then if I wanted to know something later on when I’ve learned more… I have to read through it again? Man.
My opinion would be to just jump into that thread and ask your questions. People will probably re-answer questions rather than go find the original answer.
I agree that the topic is not well served with a single thread, but it’s what we got.
Specific topic threads to come up from time to time, get answered, and then scroll on down the page into obscurity. But the humongous thread is apparently unkillable.
It’s actually (I think) the THIRD WoW omnibus thread we’ve had since the game came out. And they ALL went to something like 20+ pages.
Absolutely. I know I’ve answered one particular question about three different times over the course of the last couple gigantothreads. I’ve yet to see anyone brush off a post with “didn’t you read 15 pages back?”
It’s just an ongoing conversation. No pressure on anyone to follow it all.
We’re not the Elitist Jerks here, we don’t mind answering questions in the big threads, really.
As for PvP servers (I’m biased, I’ve been on one since I started), there really isn’t that much ganking of lowbies, and when it happens, it takes even less time for the gankers to piss off someone leveling an alt enough to get their friends/main to remove the problem. I wouldn’t recommend PvP to people who don’t want to join guilds or socialize though, as the benefits of groups are much more pronounced on a PvP server. That, and there’s less spam than on PvE servers.
WoW doesn’t have level based PvP restrictions, but it does have the concept of PvP flagging. On PvP servers, most zones turn on your PvP flag, which will last for ~5minutes after you level the zone. You get no honor for killing anything more than ~5 levels below you. If I recall correctly, the starting zones, and one adjacent zone do not flag you, but after that, every zone you enter will flag you. World PvP is actually pretty rare these days. Heck, I worked on my druid for over an hour on the weekend and not once was the Crossroads under attack.
Uncle Oakie, known for his kindness to nubs, sayeth:
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Forget about a PVP server for your first few toons. PVP is a whole different ballgame. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll get killed over and over and over, until you get frustrated and leave the game. PVE is a much gentler learning curve, and there are battlegrounds , and at high levels, arena and pvp zones even on PVE servers, plus you can always flag yourself for pvp when you feel froggy.
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Play whatever you like to play. Pallies are fine. You have the option to be a tank, healer, or DPS, depending on how you spend your talents points…and you can change that preference later.
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Do not buy armor/weapons at low levels. Whatever you get from loot/quest rewards is fine. Save your money for more important things…As a paladin, your first mount is free…but the flying mount at 70 costs 5K+, so you may as well start saving for it.
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Do buy the biggest bags you can afford. More storage = fewer trips to a vendor to sell = more time spent advancing your character.
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Take two gathering professions at first. Herbalism, skinning, or mining. You can sell that stuff on the auction house for a tidy profit.
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Driveby buffs are cool…ie, just running by another character and dropping a heal or whatever you have on them…but be careful. If you buff a flagged character, you just flagged yourself for PVP, and will be dead soon if any other faction players are nearby.
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Chuck Norris and/or “Anal _________” jokes in chat channels are crimes against all that is holy, and will cause your sexual organs to fall off. Don’t do that.
Oh yeah, the thread seems really friendly and all, so I get the feeling I can jump right in, but I do like trying to read things, too. I guess I’m just RIGHT at that frustrating point, where I know enough about WoW to make a non-Wow player go O_o, but everyone experienced in WoW makes me go O_o. Sigh.
I disagree with this one. My priest became much more fun to play once I bought a suit of level-appropriate greens at the AH for him. But please, buy green (magic, with bonuses) stuff at the Auction House, not white items from the regular vendors.
Another neat tip is that if you turn off simple chat in the interface, and highlight where it says “general” in your chat box by pointing your mouse cursor at it, then right-click, you can unlock and move/resize or create new chat windows. I generally have 3 myself (one for trade chat/local defense, one for raid/party/whisper, and one for combat and treasure-looting/reputation). Took me a couple of years to realize I could do this, actually. 
And ditto on how fun Druids are, especially since they get free flight training along with their regular flightform at 67 (last I checked, 3 levels below where everyone else gets flight in Outland). And that flightform is instant-cast as opposed to the three? second cast for a regular mount.
Yeah, I really love my kitty-druid.
To each his own, of course, but I wouldn’t do it on a first character, before level 20. Reason being, you’ll outlevel that gear in a week, even with modest playtime. It’s not really worth it unless you’re funding the purchase with gold from a higher level toon. Quest rewards come fast and furious at low levels, and you can put together a playable set of gear as you go.
Then again, Priests are particularly squishy, and lack the burst damage of mages/warlocks at low levels. I can see where a little extra boost could make a noticiable difference there. Or if the OP wanted to main tank an instance run close to 20, like DM or WC, then it may help to get some green armor.
I’m gonna go against the grain of what other people have said and suggest that you pick one gathering profession and one production profession. All of my profs on all my alts have come in handy as they’ve leveled–and I have at least one of every profession.
For a Paladin, you might consider Mining/Blacksmithing (make your own armor and weapons) or Herbalism/Alchemy (make potions and elixirs to quickly restore health and mana or give yourself a temporary stat bonus). If you like gadgets, Mining/Engineering could be a good choice. Mining/Jewelcrafting will allow you access to rings, necklaces, and trinkets much earlier than you’d generally otherwise get them from drops or quest rewards. Tailoring or Leatherworking you probably don’t want to bother with. Inscription is something that’s much more useful on a high-level character. Enchanting is good for anyone, and you can pair it with any gathering profession and just sell what you collect, but it can be a pain to level on your first character with nobody else to feet it items to disenchant or money to buy DE-albes or mats.
Make sure to pick up Fishing and Cooking, too, and level them as you go when you get the time. First Aid isn’t as necessary for a Paladin, since you can just heal yourself.
Oh, and despite what some people have said, don’t feel like you *have *to run out right away and try out every class–it’s okay to save alts for when you’re getting burned out playing your main and want to try something new. Definitely give a class until at least level 10 before you pass final judgement on it, though.
I’m also going to come down on the side of starting on a PvE server versus a PvP one, unless you’re specifically rolling a toon there to join some friends or you’re really into player versus player combat.
Some really great resources for a beginner:
Wowhead - Searchable database of items, quests, NPCs, zones, instances, factions… You name it, they’ve got the info. A great feature is their talent calculator, which works like the official one on the Armory, but has some other bells ‘n’ whistles. (Basically, it’s a way to play around with your talent points and spec.)
WoWWiki - A WoW encyclopedia. Tends to be most useful for lore, but also a good place to go for strategies when you get to a level where you’re running instances or raids with bosses where there’s more to do than just tank ‘n’ spank.
WoW Insider - All the latest WoW-related news and analysis, with articles that range from being aimed at brand-spankin’-nubs to hardcore endgame raiders.
I actually second this, though I’d go with herbalism/alchemy personally, since your later pots/elixers/flasks will sell much better (at least on my server), than most of the blacksmithing stuff you can make. Conversely, you can acquire fairly decent armor for the level as you level with blacksmithing, so that may save you some equipment cash in the long run (you’ll have to buy some comps from the AH, such as leather for weapon hilts, but ore likely won’t be a huge problem until your 50s-60s). About the only advantage (other than a slight increase in gold flow) to two gathering professions is the two stat bonuses (bonus to stamina for mining, bonus to crit for skinning, bonus HoT for herbalism) versus one.
I’ve got Blacksmithing at the bare minimum you can get it. I just haven’t gotten around to actually using it. Whenever I think to find someone to teach me mining there doesn’t seem to be one around. Ah well.
I experienced my first dungeon with 5 other players today. I maxed out my bags with all the phat loot in short order. I’ve been making some money in the auction house but haven’t bought anything there for myself. So far everything I’ve auctioned has sold. yay me.
There’s a mining trainer in or near Stormwind. Think he’s in the dwarven section of town. you can talk to any guard and they’ll mark it on the map for ya. BTW, while you’re in the area, you can hop the train to Ironforge. There you can train weapons that aren’t taught in Stormwind, talk to the flightmaster to get the ability to hop a griffon there.
Always talk to the flightmasters…usually as the first thing you do in a new town or area. Griffon travel saves time when you venture out further from the starting areas.