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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