New to WoW? Read here

[Willeklong]

Hi there, thought we should have an informative thread for all new comers to WoW to assist them with any questions they might have about the game (prefferably not only ingame questions). Hopefully we can get this stickied and have all contribute to assist fresh blood into this awesome game.

K I'll start.

1) When buying the game, buy both the expansions as well and install all the discs before downloading any patches. If you don't do it this way, you will end up roughly having to download about 5gigs worth of patches.
2) Always keep hardcopies of your patches - for incase, god forbid, your pc melts down.
3) Keep all receipts when purchasing any Blizzard products as, as per their policy they might require you to produce some prove of purchase.
4) I know some people have issues about giving card details over the internet, but in 3 years I have had no issues paying for my wow account in this way. It's much cheaper than buying gamecards and as you will quickly find out, gamecards are sometimes very difficult to find in SA. If you are concerned about account safety, open an extra current account at your bank and deposit enough into it monthly to ensure your subscribtion gets paid.
5) Never give out any account or personal details. And do the X-Files thingy - Trust no-one. This goes the same for gold buying, power leveling etc. There are a lot of scammers out there and you will end up losing more than just your hard earned cash.
6) Change your password often and if you like to visit less desirable sites, make sure you have a good updated Anti Virus program running.
7) If you are concerned about internet costs, heres the lowdown (from my own experience). If you are a heavy player (playing 10h a day) a 2gig bundle is more than enough for one month. Anything from 2-4 hours daily, 1gig bundle will get you through the month.
8) Dont click, rather get the game play right from the start and get some hot keys and keybinds from the start. If you are unsure on how this works as well as on the use of macros, whisper me ingame or send me a pm.
9) If all the game jargon and abreviations are giving you a hard time, you can vist wowinsider.com for more information on "what the hell are they saying" from there.
10) Finally, this is just a game and balance is important. Browse the internet on wow addiction and equip yourself with knowledge. This game is seriously awesome, but dont let relationships fail and your friends become strangers because of it. Stay healthy do some exercise and watch the diet!

That's all for now. Choose the Red Pill and let's get some grinding done!

Regards
Willeklong.
PS Please contribute your ideas.

 

[Cam]

Rather get the whole WoW folder (game and patches) from a buddy and buy the cd keys you need online along with your game time. You'll be playing in no time

 

[pope24]

You can not play on an account that has been upgraded to WoTLK if your game client has not been updated as well.

 

[Skurm]

Point 7 is only applicable if you don't Vent/TS much/at all.

My best tips for noobs
-download & install Questhelper. Seriously, just do it. After levelling two toons without it, and only recently levelling my DK to 80 with it's help, I'll never be able to go back to a world without QH.
-don't worry too much about crafting initially, you'll get all you need ito gear simply by questing
-however, DO try and level fishing and cooking while levelling because the buffs are great and it's a majoir pita/boring levelling those two once you've dinged 80.
-try and get into a good, friendly casual guild, esp a SA one. Having help to run through instances and stuff will be a godsend, as will having the collective knowledge of a hundred WoW vetrans.
-If it's grey, sell it to a vendor. If it's white, sell it on the auction house. If it's green, get it disenchanted, and sell the mats on the auction house. Remember to set a buyout price, and check what the item you're selling for is worth (protip, get Auctioneer addon) before making a price you think is fair.
-Make a bank alt.
-Get 4 big bags asap. 16 or even 20 slot bags as soon as you can.
-bookmark www.wowhead.com. Do it now. And use it. If you think you're stuck, checking wowhead, finding the quest you're on and having a look through the Comments will usually solve your problem.

 

[zippy]

Also, dont bother buying your gear on the auction house while leveling. Just do every single quest you possibly can. As Skurm points out, the quest rewards are fine.

Worry about your gear when you start doing heroics at lvl 80. Before that, it really doesnt matter. XP > DPS

Use the gold to get your mounts and upgrade to epic ground mount and epic flying mount as soon as you can.

 

[noswal]

- a fair price on the AH is five or six times what the AH initially values an item at.

 

[Willeklong]

Always log out in an inn or in a major city - rested bonus helps.

Never do instances for xp, your xp/h rate falls through the floor. Only do instances if you have a few quests in them or if you are really bored of grinding quests. Also if you find a group that is going to do an instance and it starts really badly, rather leave early and save yourself the time and money in repairs. Unless you know some of the members in the group.

 

[Kuga]

A
Never do instances for xp, your xp/h rate falls through the floor.

Not true at all.. well depends.

I bought an additional 2 accounts, and linked them with RAF. I powerlevel toons through instances on my 80 DK. RAF helps a lot so >.> Did a rogue/druid 1 to 60 in about 16 hours.

 

[charlieharper]

Good job Willieklong.

This should be stickied.

 

[Voicy]

http://www.mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php?t=132

(My apologies if my post below seems arrogant, making this type of thing a sticky is a very good idea though & has been stickied on mygaming.co.za as per link above)

Always log out in an inn or in a major city - rested bonus helps.

Never do instances for xp, your xp/h rate falls through the floor. Only do instances if you have a few quests in them or if you are really bored of grinding quests. Also if you find a group that is going to do an instance and it starts really badly, rather leave early and save yourself the time and money in repairs. Unless you know some of the members in the group.

Oh dear...that's exactly the type of behaviour that will get you added to the Don't-PUG-with-this-guy list. There was a lvl 60 paladin who did this to us and even now still at lvl80 nobody in our entire guild will accept him into raids/instances. Not a good sign on low population servers.

Seriously...if a lowbie group wipes continuously - it's more often than not a case of the players not knowing their characters. Solo play will keep you secluded from the exposure to other classes at your level and you'll never have a yardstick to compare yourself to. How are you going to manage lvl80 heroics and raiding if you quit a group after every wipe?

As for instances, we continuously boost new comers through these instances for gear and XP - even with the reduced XP when being boosted, it still helps a great deal.

 

[zippy]

My paladin is lvl 67 now. About 30% through. Im sure Ill be in Northrend tonight. I havent done an instance since deadmines with him. I have picked up the quests for Outland instances, but i have leveled too fast and dropped them. Im not even going to bother with a flying mount until lvl 77. No point.

I must point out that I used an Account Bound plate shoulders courtesy of my lvl80 warlock heroic badges. Thats a tremoundous boost. 10% xp bonus on killing mobs.

I started to lvl this char seriously from about lvl 40. This was about 10 days ago. Bearing in mind I cant play in the week that much and i raid on weekends. This long weekend, I leveled from lvl 60 to lvl 67. I did a raid on Friday with my main. So Sat, Sun and Mon i did 7 lvls.

The quests gave me good enough gear. Yes, the gear in instances is better, but i really never felt i was undergeared. I do however recommend that you do the group quests. They give some serious xp and nice rewards. Some can even be solo'd. I solo'd the entire Nesingwary Nagrand series, including the last one to kill Tusker. I was lvl 66. He is a lvl 67 elite. It was tough, I had 142 hp left after using all cooldowns, bubble, pot, elixir and food buff.

 

[Willeklong]

http://www.mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php?t=132

(My apologies if my post below seems arrogant, making this type of thing a sticky is a very good idea though & has been stickied on mygaming.co.za as per link above)



Oh dear...that's exactly the type of behaviour that will get you added to the Don't-PUG-with-this-guy list. There was a lvl 60 paladin who did this to us and even now still at lvl80 nobody in our entire guild will accept him into raids/instances. Not a good sign on low population servers.

Seriously...if a lowbie group wipes continuously - it's more often than not a case of the players not knowing their characters. Solo play will keep you secluded from the exposure to other classes at your level and you'll never have a yardstick to compare yourself to. How are you going to manage lvl80 heroics and raiding if you quit a group after every wipe?

As for instances, we continuously boost new comers through these instances for gear and XP - even with the reduced XP when being boosted, it still helps a great deal.

I understand your PoV and I have been probably in one of the best Pre Wrath end game guilds in the game, maybe I wasn't really clear in my OP. When you get into a PUG and the tank doesn't have a shield, the hunter is running off and pulling mobs, going ZOMG why don't I get heals, there is no dedicated healer in the group, most of the members are 3 levels + lower than the requirement etc etc, I suggest leave. I dont mind wiping in instances, but I hate players with "ebay-ed" accounts that form a pug without any knowledge of what is required.
Maybe I'm just one of those boring types that demand that raid members have: elixers/pot/buff foods/fully repaired/watched the vids for tactics before we start.

 

[werries2]

I understand your PoV and I have been probably in one of the best Pre Wrath end game guilds in the game, maybe I wasn't really clear in my OP. When you get into a PUG and the tank doesn't have a shield, the hunter is running off and pulling mobs, going ZOMG why don't I get heals, there is no dedicated healer in the group, most of the members are 3 levels + lower than the requirement etc etc, I suggest leave. I dont mind wiping in instances, but I hate players with "ebay-ed" accounts that form a pug without any knowledge of what is required.
Maybe I'm just one of those boring types that demand that raid members have: elixers/pot/buff foods/fully repaired/watched the vids for tactics before we start.

Agreed! I don't mind wiping a whole evening when I do it with friends, but in PUGs I have my standards and I expect that to be respected.