Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just started playing World Of Warcraft. I've resisted World Of Warcrack for years, but this Christmas one of my presents was WOW and 2 1/2 months of game time. I figured I might as well give it a whirl.

All good MMO's seem to have a steep learning curve, and a million little secrets, so I'm asking all the WOW vets for thier dirty little secrets or any good advice they are willing to share.

I've been playing a week and I'm currently playing a lvl 22 Orc Hunter, on the Draka server.

so far I've learned that:

Shift + Rclick = Loot Everything

Fog of War + No Directions = Misery, without a Map mod of some sort

Teeth sound like crap loot, but they sell for good money in the low levels

Kissing a Merry Maker of the opposite gender will get you free stuff. YAY for virtual prostitution !!

For tradeskills (if you're inclined to work with those), be sure you have the complimentary gathering skill. Nothing stinks more than selling your hard-earned vendor-worthy loot and turning right around and sinking it back into materials. As a hunter, I'd say skinning/leatherworking or mining/engineering. Alternately, you can just focus on just gathering skills, and profit off those too lazy to gather them for themselves.

Run instances early, so you can learn the dynamic when less is on the line. It's quite stressful to try and jump in the deep end later on, when everyone expects you to know what you're doing at an expert level.

Join a guild. It's like a in-game FAQ file that occaisonally cracks jokes and gives you help to beat harder/confusing quests.

Do research on your talents and plan how you're going to spend them. There's been so much head-sweat dedicated to it already, it'd be silly to try and reinvent the wheel. As a hunter myself, I'd say focus on Beast Mastery for leveling up; the stronger pet will be like a personal tank to let you unload on the targets.

Ignore the a$$hats in the trade and general channels; getting into it with them is a losing proposition, because idiots bring you down to their level and beat you with experience being that stupid.

If you are just starting out, you are going to need a guild to get a lot of things done because of the smaller amount of other low level players. It's not a necessity but it will make life easier.

On tradeskills start with two gathering skills (Mining + Skinning is good) to be able to make money. When you get higher level you can drop one to get a trade that uses the one you keep. So if you want to do alchemy do Mining and Herb Gathering so later you can drop mining and have your gathering leveled.

This thread will work better in Videogames.

download WoW matrix, it'll manage and update / dl any mod you can possibly need for the game.

get:

Atlasloot - shows you where to get every dungeon armor,
and what can be crafted, reputation reward everything.

Carbonite - best type of quest helper mod there is.

Recount - Most accurate type of DPS tracking mod as it syncs and doesnt have bugged range issues.

DrDamage - very important for anything that uses mana.
it gives you almost 100% accurate number for your attacks. it factors in your gear, your spec etc etc.
shows how many time you can use the skill before OOM, even factors in your regen rate.

Sell pretty much anything thats white or better on the AH, this doesn't work for everything, but good trade item whites will happily sell for 10 times what a vedor will give you, if not more.
Oh and always search for the item you intend to sell to see what other folks are charging.

If running to a city everytime your bags clog up is too much hassle make yourself a bank alt, and post stuff to him/her to sell.
The 30 copper you send for posting means nothing if the bank alt then sells something a vendor would give you a silver for, for say 20-30sil. Obviously as you get higher in lvl those silvers eventually turn into gold, and you'll be rolling in money.

I give this tip as it was something I didn't pick up on for the first year I played WoW, then when I started to sell anything I didn't need that was grey and I started to finally make decent money.

Pick up mining, mine everything. Sell the bars.

That's all you need you need to know on the money front.

Occasionally run instances to get equipment upgrades.

Other than that, just learn to play your class well. Your a hunter, things will be easy.

Don't play WoW.

Play CoH instead, or WAR if you comp can handle it.

How about, if you don't have anything constructive to add, you bugger off?

Buy lots of socks, cheetos, and mountain dew (code red optional). Trust me on this.

The User Interface mods are golden. I scoffed at them, once. Then I
tooled around on my brother's rogue using some kind of helper. It was
simply a different experience.

My first toon was a Hunter, though, so I wasn't used to being that disoriented
without mob radar.

OK, I'm not trolling or being elitist with this response. My advice is simply don't. Seriously don't play WoW.

I have lost several friends to this 'Game'. I have seen them transform from social creatures with lots of friends and a balanced lifestyle into addicts. I don't use this term lightly.

They are withdrawn have virtually no friends that do also not play WoW and to whom they primarily speak to on-line. It's even gotten to the point when I refuse to attends the few events them manage to attend because the topic of conversation will almost certainly be dominated by WoW. I have seen relationships destroyed by WoW, that my flatmate and his GF are still together is a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

I view gaming as a fun distraction, WoW is a lifestyle choice. One that offerers no reward other than the next tedious grind. Kiss goodbye to your 'real' friends should you get into this game.

LuciusAR wrote:OK, I'm not trolling or being elitist with this response. My advice is simply don't. Seriously don't play WoW.

I have lost several friends to this 'Game'. I have seen them transform from social creatures with lots of friends and a balanced lifestyle into addicts. I don't use this term lightly.

They are withdrawn have virtually no friends that do also not play WoW and to whom they primarily speak to on-line. It's even gotten to the point when I refuse to attends the few events them manage to attend because the topic of conversation will almost certainly be dominated by WoW. I have seen relationships destroyed by WoW, that my flatmate and his GF are still together is a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

I view gaming as a fun distraction, WoW is a lifestyle choice. One that offerers no reward other than the next tedious grind. Kiss goodbye to your 'real' friends should you get into this game.

Ding!

Also, when I can literally ignore the game I'm playing for a while during a boss fight, it just isn't interesting enough.

And grinding is the most boring thing you can do. You are paying Blizzard to BORE YOURSELF.

I play WoW casually and I have had fun with it. Although I think I have spent a total of something like $600 on the stupid game including taxes, expansions, etc, etc. I do not know if it was really worth it in the end. But fun. And as a gamer I consider it to have been a necessary experience of a sort.

Heh... Welcome to the darkside of WoW Gamers. My classmates got me and my wife hooked on WoW.

Best piece of advice I can give is to find a decent guild that will take newer players in and show them the ropes. Be an elitist when it comes to choosing said guild since some players just want to get more players in just for the sake of getting them in. If you happen to be on the Kirin Tor or Farstriders server, I can recommend a couple of guilds that are really great for newer players.

Next best piece of advice: Try to ignore the general chat in A: the major cities, B: Elwynn Forest and Westfall (If you're Alliance), and C: The Barrens (If you're Horde). You will inevitably see pointless, mindnumbing, and irritating chatter come across that makes you cry out "oh dear God, why?". Once you get to lvl 20 or so and bypass these areas, its all downhill from there.

Ignore duels and PvP (Player vs. Player) fighting until you get to know the basics of the game and the basics of your character. You don't have to fight other players until you are comfortable with the game.

most important: HAVE FUN!!! WoW has lots of stuff to do like everyone has mentioned. So have fun with it, take your time, and get to know people.

Don't let people boss you around, don't spend all your time playing WoW. Don't forget you have family and friends and needs like eating, sleeping, and working. Be prepared for lots of nerd rage at end game. 25 people getting smashed by a boss, all yelling at one time can be a bit overwelming. Remember It's just agame. If you lose an roll for an Item don't throw a fit, that is the breaks! Don't be afrid to leave a guild you don't like. I was in a guild that loved to spout racisis anti, jew, black, and asian, stuff all day. I ended up stop playing. And remember build your Char the way YOU want, not the way everybody says you should.

sexiest_hero wrote:And remember build your Char the way YOU want, not the way everybody says you should.

Yup. However, I'd just like to add that if you intend on joining a premade raiding group,
everyone involved will be making concessions so don't think you have to always stick to a
solid idea if it won't work. You'll have to be flexible for those kind of things.

No need to shift-click for loot, as you can change to auto loot in the user interface section. Also, learn about the "focus" function and turn on 'see target of target."

Take talents in buttons you press a lot. Don't take talents in buttons you never press.

Don't take advice from people until you're sure they don't play Alliance.

Delete the night elf hunter, roll a horde Holy priest on a PvP server, run pickup instances until max level, join a guild from among the three good players that you've met, and trash talk shadow priests all day in the forums.

Next, run high level instances for three more months, go berserk over the new patch, lose a girlfriend, mistake guildies for friends, browse for craft gathering spots while at work or school, read WoW comics, threaten to play other MMO's, dump $400 on a max level Night Elf hunter because you miss the character, feel all but the hand muscles atrophy, watch the WoW South Park for the thirteenth time, get sick of the lifestyle, quit cold turkey and go outside and play some ball. Good luck and FOR THE HORDE!

biztheclown wrote:
Don't take advice from people until you're sure they don't play Alliance.

Good sir you are a clown and I resent that.

We only lost all three battlegrounds I played in this morning.





..although we did win Wintergrasp, zerg ftw.

Most people who aren't clowns are resentful of us. We're just that cool.

Friends don't let friend's roll night elves.

For the Horde.

Mattlov wrote:Don't play WoW.

Listen to him, this is the wisdom of the ages.

Tips for a wow virgin? Kiss your social life goodbye.

And use lots of lube. Damn right, I went there.

most people say dont play this dont play that because it sucks.

but as you can see everyone here know its so good that its addictive enough to ruin your real life.

so basically you ask yourself how much self control do you have against addiction, because the game

IS THAT GOOD.

LOL.

Thank you for the advice.

I'm a 15 yr veteren of GW games and 42 month City Of Heroes Veteren. In that time I've managed to get married and have 2 children without becoming a hermit.

W.O.W. is the pinnacle of grindtastic gaming, and I'll have no patience to suffer people screaming about DKP over ventrillo in the endgame.

In the meantime, I'm in a small guild, and I'm actually enjoying reading and playing through the quests as I come across them. I know mechanically it's all "kill this", "collect that", "collect this while killing that", but the stories have been authored with a sense of humor, and I find it comperable to a decent D&D campaign that I can play at my leisure.

Advice? Save it for marriage.

LunaHound wrote:but as you can see everyone here know its so good that its addictive enough to ruin your real life.

so basically you ask yourself how much self control do you have against addiction, because the game

IS THAT GOOD.

Just because something is addictive doesn't make it good.

Platuan4th wrote:

LunaHound wrote:but as you can see everyone here know its so good that its addictive enough to ruin your real life.

so basically you ask yourself how much self control do you have against addiction, because the game

IS THAT GOOD.

Just because something is addictive doesn't make it good.

Indeed. Meth is addictive, and isn't such a great thing to get into.

Vidya game companies exist to make monies, blah blah addictive nature of MMOs.

I think it would be fun to see a company take the social networking fad, combine it with the MMO, and boast at least 1 billion regular subscribers annually.