Tips For All World of Warcraft Players

Tip 1 - Read your Quest Journal

Now we hate to snipe here, people, but the "L" key on your keyboard opens up your Quest Journal. This handy-dandy little item contains literally all the information you need to solve whatever quest your given. Check it early and check it often because if you're cluttering up the "General" chat channel asking "Where's the Wailing Caverns?" 47 times not only will you learn all sort of new Azerothian insults, but when you eventually find the place, it's not going to win you any friends when you then start looking for a group to explore with. Your Quest Journal has directions so precise they make MapQuest look vague to avoid precisely this situation. Read your Quest Journal! Read your Quest Journal! Read your Quest Journal!

Tip 2 - The City Guards are your friends - use them well.

This is kind of an adjunct to the whole "Read your Quest Journal" thing, but the other thing that clogs up the general chat channels is people asking for directions in the hub cities. Fortunately Blizzard has come up with a simple solution - just ask a city guard! They'll give you directions to everything in the city and even provide you with a little flag in your mini-map! You know, the employment situation in Azeroth must be pretty bad when you consider that most of these guards are level 75 or so and can easily wipe out virtually every monster in the game and they're taking the time out of their busy schedule to help you. The least you can do is avail yourself of their services. I don't even think they get paid!

Tip 3 - Every trade skill in World of Warcraft has a complement.

Players can only learn two "professional" trade skills (Fishing, Cooking, First Aid and a few others don't count). Be aware that with the exception of Enchanting and Tailoring, every trade skill has a "gathering" skill and a "crafting" skill. Blacksmithing, for example, requires raw materials that can only be retrieved by Mining. Be sure you select the appropriate skill; otherwise you will end up buying raw materials at auction or trying to trade your raw materials for finished goods.

Tip 4 - The Num Lock key is your auto run.

This should be obvious, but you'd be surprised how many players forget to use their auto run. Auto run is your best friend, though. During long runs you can be checking your quest log, futzing with your inventory, or chatting with friends. Use it!

Tip 5 - Control your Pets.

This, of course, only applies to pet classes (Warlocks and Hunters), but if we had a gold piece for every Warlock and Hunter who left his pet on "Aggressive" we'd - well, we'd have a lot of gold pieces. Your pets are tools. They're used for very specific purposes. Putting them on Aggressive lets them attack indiscriminately and can draw a lot more monster attention than your group is ready to deal with. All too often a pet on the loose means death for the group and a long, boring corpse run.

World of Warcraft Alliance Player Tips

Tip 6 - Looking to solo? Get yourself a Night Elf Hunter or a Warlock.

While there isn't any one particular character template that works perfectly for soloing, this is about the best that there is on the Alliance side. First, there really isn't any equal level monster in the game that a properly tricked out Hunter can't tackle one-on-one without breaking a sweat. While Warlocks are a bit more fragile, they have an excellent complement of damage dealing spells that will let them survive - albeit while taking more damage. Unfortunately, many creatures will attack in groups if they notice one of their buddies getting pounded on (Elite creatures are particularly nasty with this).

That's where pets come in, Any "Pet" class can use their animal (or demonic) companion to do what's called "crowd control" - basically pulling one creature away from a group and a time and killing it. The Warlock's Void Walker is particularly good at this. Night Elves quest lines at low levels are also pretty self-contained within the geographically isolated Teldrassil, meaning you never have far to run to reach a quest destination or to retrieve your corpse.

Tip 7 - Gnomes have the best (worst) dancing emotes.

Trust us on this one. Simply typing /dance into the game while playing as a gnome will show you what we mean. Gnome dancing is the most offensive thing in Azeroth - rumor has it that the Horde offers 10 gold pieces to anyone who can actually manage to kill a Gnome in PvP during a dance. Therefore it makes Gnomes perfect for role-players who want to annoy other players and have a good laugh.

Tip 8 - Everyone loves a Human Priest.

This is the perfect class for players looking to group. Humans' racial talents help a Priest hold his or her own in combat and there isn't a group alive that isn't thrilled when a Priest shows up just before heading into an Elite dungeon or an instance. Priests are also pretty rare in the game, there aren't really all that many players who enjoy taking on the social/support roles, so your skills will always be in demand - and you'll level pretty fast.

Tip 9 - You don't have follow the quest lines for your own race!

One of the biggest misconceptions that new players have about World of Warcraft is that quests are restricted by race - in other words, that if you're playing a Human, you must take the "Human" quests in Elwynn Forest when you start out. That's simply not true. Players can take any level-appropriate quest regardless of their race. For Alliance players looking to level up a bit faster, there is a bit of a shortcut. Simply head to the hub cities of Ironforge or Stormwind as soon as you're strong enough to get out of the newbie zone (around level 5). From there, find the passage to Teldrassil, the Night Elf homeland and start collecting quests. Teldrassil is very small, contains the hub city of Darnassus that offers every service, and players rarely have to run far to complete quests. You'll find yourself at level 10 or even higher in no time!

Tip 10 - The Alliance means more content, but more people.

For whatever reason, the Alliance races as a whole (Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes) are more popular with players. This can often mean severe crowding in popular regions along with what we like to call "mass extinction events". That basically means that several quests in the area that require players to kill a particular animal may make it hard to find that animal for a while - and that you may be racing other players who are standing around waiting for them to spawn. The good news is that the Alliance has a lot more quest-based content than the Horde. While this isn't noticeable at the earlier levels, many Horde players often find themselves running low on quests around level 25-30 and being forced to just "farm" random creatures for experience.

World of Warcraft Horde Player Tips

Tip 11 - You will end up in the Barrens - accept it.

Throughout the beta process, the one zone that everybody complained about the most was the Barrens, a level 15-20 zone that is quite literally in the center of everything for the Horde. As a result, this zone has the dubious distinction of undergoing almost constant revisions. The good news is, it's much better than it was - the bad news is, it can still be long and tedious. The thing is, most Horde quest lines eventually send players to the Barrens and it contains access to one of the neutral towns where Horde and Alliance players can get together, so the place is absolutely crawling with players. While that can be good for making friends, it's also the place that's the most hunted and overcrowded on the Horde side. Unfortunately, the Barrens is just a fact of life for Horde players - better to go, do what needs to be done, and get out.

Tip 12 - Want to get to level 10 quickly? Visit dead people.

More accurately, visit Undead people. Since Quests aren't race specific, players can accept any level appropriate quest regardless of their race. That means that Horde players have access to a slight shortcut to level 10 similar to the one enjoyed by Alliance players. In the Horde's case it means hightailing it to the Orc hub city of Orgrimmar as soon as you can survive the trip and catching a zeppelin ride to Tirisfal Glades. Head south from the zeppelin tower to the Undead town of Brill and start looking for quests. Like Teldrassil for Night Elves, the quests in Brill are a bit easier and can usually be solved without a tremendous amount of traveling, significantly shortening your trip to level 10.

Tip 13 - The Horde has the best and worst hub cities in the game.

Both sides in World of Warcraft have three hub cities designed for players to congregate, buy and sell items, and deal with NPC vendors and trainers. The Horde is blessed with the best and cursed with one of the worst hub cities in the game. The best city to do business with NPCs in is the Undead Undercity. If you have a choice of heading to one hub city, this is the one to pick. It's the smallest major city, meaning you don't have to do a tremendous amount of running to get to the shops you want. The city is also basically a circle - meaning it's almost impossible to get lost. Orgrimmar, the Orc hub city, on the other hand, is incredibly confusing, with twisting paths that sometime loop back on themselves. Orgrimmar means a lot of running and it's all too easy to get lost. It's also kind of the center of the universe for Horde players, so you really do need to learn it if you hope to use the auction or make new friends.

Tip 14 - Tired of fighting for elbow room? Join the Horde!

For some odd reason, players seem to choose to play as Alliance characters far more often than as Horde characters. The good news for Horde players, though, is that fewer players mean fewer people jockeying for resources. Even the Barrens, probably the most crowded Horde region, never see the problems with "mass extinction events" that routinely plague the Alliance. If you're interested in questing and not interested in hanging around with ten other people (at peak hours) waiting for a monster spawn, why not join the Horde?

Tip 15 - The Undead are just psychotically cool!

While everyone has their own opinion, ours is that no World of Warcraft race gets as many "coolness points" as the Undead. First, the character models are just a riot with hairstyles that literally defy physics and a facial customization options straight out of the Velvet Dungeon. The designers also clearly had a ball putting the Undead lands together because every area and storyline within the Undead zones is filled with clever asides and subtle (and not so subtle) humor about the Forsaken's unusual situation. Role-players will also enjoy playing the Undead since they're as close as any World of Warcraft race comes to being "evil". True - they are an oppressed minority, but they're also planning universal genocide, so you make your own call.

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