The Gaming Den

I got a 10 day trial from a friend and I'll be playing on Chamber of Aspects on the European server. We're playing Horde. Since I'm leaving for the Army in a month this is one-shot only.

Anything I should know?

Trial accounts have a lot of limits they don't tell you about.

You can't:
• Get above level 20.
• Directly message people you are not in a group with.
• Use the auction house.
• Probably some other stuff I've forgotten.

Horde early content (except for Blood Elves) is just plain less good than early Alliance content: less rewarding and less interesting.

If the Blood Elf area is anything like the Drenai area.... just catch a boat/blimp/whatever and travel to the Blood Elf area when you're starting out. Doing the starting quests wherever you are will probably suck.

The quests in the "new" areas are always better I've found. I tend to take all of my new alliance characters to do the Drenai quests as soon as I've got enough levels to leave the area that I'm currently stuck in. Usually that's only 4 to 7 levels, but, those first few levels are easy to get.

Try to find someone else and "reccomend" them to play WoW, you can get linked accounts and that will get you 3x the normal XP from both monster grinding and quests. People are able to get to 60 in a matter of 2-3 days b/c of this.

Of course, selecting a good pairing of characters is a good idea. Something like a heavy DPS class and a healer/ranged DPS (Druid, Shaman, Paladin, Priest as the healer and rogue or warrior as the DPS) isn't bad.

Neither is using a pair of pet-using classes. Warlocks and hunters can really synergize well, or work well in same class pairs. You bring 4 creatures to every fight that is given to two characters as XP. This would be a pretty good grinding combo, as both are resiliant against sudden surprises (like additional monsters showing up) and have lots of damage abilities.

An other benefit would be that if one player has a more 'Tanky' pet, then the other can bring out a more 'DPS-ey' pet to help burn down monster's HP faster; a hunter with a bear/turtle/gorilla and a warlock with an imp (later maybe a succubus) wouldn't be bad, or a hunter with one of the alien things that are on the starting Drenai island (look up low level Ravagers on thottbot.com, you want something level 10 or lower, which is when hunter's get to tame their 1st pet). Warlocks have their Voidwalker as their tank.

1) Keep any cloth you find.
2) Get professions as quickly as possible.

Neeeek wrote:1) Keep any cloth you find.
2) Get professions as quickly as possible.

I was thinking of picking up tailoring. But there was nobody to train me at the first village. Hopefully I'll find somebody on the second. On the other hand, I can only play till level 10 with my trial account and I'm already 6 so yeah.

shirak wrote:I was thinking of picking up tailoring. But there was nobody to train me at the first village. Hopefully I'll find somebody on the second. On the other hand, I can only play till level 10 with my trial account and I'm already 6 so yeah.

Professions are usually strongly suggested by the class you take. Cloth-wearers are well-served to take Tailoring, for instance. Paladins have a lot of synergy with Engineering, which itself has a lot of synergy with Mining.

Your account tops at lvl 10? Ouch. The free trial you can sign up for at their website lets you get to 20.

Friends accounts can talk to their friend, if you signed up with them, and sometimes summon them, if you had referral. I think the friend accounts only say they top at ten, they probably go to twenty like the other free accounts now. They're bad at fixing old web pages and notices.

The first twenty levels in WoW is all about learning how to use the client. Click on everything, learn how to use the mouseover/popups, learn how they hide quests, etc.

Much of the game is like the first twenty levels - you wander around and find quests and do them, generally alone. There are no instances until level ten, no Talents, etc, and there are quests to tell you about them - but it's up to you to click on whatever pops into your screen, else it'll never tell you. (which is bad design, but ohwell).

After 20 it becomes a much more social game. You focus on zones, ask/look for other people doing the same things, and then do them when you find enough people. After 50, you use the LFG tool and quests and use channels to find people, though the tool doesn't really become useful unless you're at cap and doing the newest thing.

Whatever you do, don't ever sign on and expect to find what you want. It's a solo game unless you've arranged ahead of time, with sometimes you might find a group going your way.

-Crissa

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

To expand a bit, don't do PUGs if you decide to make the account permanent.
Trust me on that. I got screamed at one time via tells for an hour because I was playing a warrior, and told the Warlock in the group to either change his demons or turn off Torment if he insisted on using a voidwalker. It seems that if I was a good warrior, I'd be able to hold aggro not only from all the monsters, but steal it back from the voidwalker easily. Which may be the case, but it would make it a lot easier to do that if he was using an imp or succubus.

I asked several warlock and warrior players I knew that had a bit of experience under their belts, and they all told me that I was pretty much right.


Oh, and expect everyone you argue with to have 3+ level 80 characters. Seriously, that's the default arguing style.

In all honesty, the game isn't too bad, but assume anyone you don't know personally to be a complete and utter tool. That way, you'll be pleasantly surprised to few times you're wrong.

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote: Oh, and expect everyone you argue with to have 3+ level 80 characters. Seriously, that's the default arguing style.

Do you mean that is the standard case or it's a case of the classic argumentative style of --

"Trust me, I know that the golden elite bear in Loch Modan can't be tamed at level 16. I know because I have 5 level 80 characters..."

Classic argumentative styles. Expect people that can't string together a coherent sentence and can't play for spit to have multiple level 80 characters if anyone challenges their fail

If a pet class continues using aggro-catching abilities, just switch to DPS gear. The pet can tank, kill the owner, and then we can go on our merry way.

And since there's a handy /ignore feature as well as an ability to report other players for following you around for an hour... There's no reason to avoid pick up groups (PUGs).

If someone says something can't be because they've an 80? That's dumb sauce. The game changes quite frequently rules that once 'never would be' often come true. Druids and Paladin Tank. (patch 1.6) Druids get weapon special abilities. (3.0) Healing can't be targeted via addons. (2.0) Druids get Feral AP from weapon DPS. (3.0.8) Spells become regular instead of talents, talents move from tree to tree (I can never remember which type of Paladin has the buff I want, Prot or Holy now, but once upon a time, it was Ret that had it). Monsters which once weren't tameable become table (tons in patch 3.0, patch 2.0, patch 1. uhh...) What once didn't work, often now is the good thing to do. I literally can't think of all the things that changed, because I've just named off several 'they'll never do that!' things, and yet, I can think up more, making for a wall of text here...

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:If a pet class continues using aggro-catching abilities, just switch to DPS gear. The pet can tank, kill the owner, and then we can go on our merry way.

The issue with that was that I was on an expensive server, and didn't have the gold for more than one set of gear. The gear I had was the gear I was wearing. Although I should have switched to arms stance and done that, it would have been pretty funny. The thing is, when I'm in the game, I'm actually a lot nicer than you would expect. I was damned determined to not let anyone die if I could help it. Also, the rest of the group agreed with me that the warlock didn't know what he was doing.

And yes, that was a weak argument. I replied "Oh yeah? I have a thousand level 80 characters. It's fun to make up lies on the internet". He didn't see the humor in that statement. Or maybe he did and I didn't understand him, he had a thick chatroom accent and I didn't actually know what he was saying half the time.

I'd reccomend against any crafting proffessions until you're able to spend enough gold maxing them out.

Dual gathering proffs will be more helpful in lower level play, when you can still buy useful equipment upgrades (below the level cap).

Really, nearly everything can be researched, from online sources, like thottbot.com, wowwiki.com or allakhazam.

The first is great for solving quests, and quick rundowns of what is needed to make certain recipes.

Wowwiki is a good source of info for builds, lists of useful macros for characters (more pvp-related, but w/e); Allakhazam is good for guides on how to max up a crafting skill and using as little gold as possible

Although, honestly, be prepared to drop 2k gold starting a skill out; and probably an other 2k-3k more to max it out. Crafting is more for end-game play imo, you need a real money-maker, and only high level characters can do that.

I used to /ignore people for a single obnoxious whisper, badgering me to tank being the prime culprit. Its a good plan, no way am I listening to tools in a game.

I did end up in a party where I had the healer on ignore, I was amused at least.

1) Never buy gear, unless you know the crafter or the specific market.
2) Crafting professions are not meant to make money.
3) Don't be afraid to let someone die for their stupidity.

For people who are annoying in channels, I generally use report-spam, as it's an ignore that goes away when you log out. Very infrequently do I run into the same people again anyhow... Unless they want to harass me, then that's their problem, really.

Apparently asking someone to please follow the rules they agreed to when they joined the server is too much for some people.

-Crissa

PS, the best sites are either wowhead (better than thottbot for quests) or class/role specific forums - Emmerald's Feral Druid lists, for instance.

As I am now level 11 the cap was a damn lie.


My advice to new players of WoW is this: USE MODS!

Seriously, Quest Helper+ Cartographer turns the game into Oblivion with quest markers and all. Gatherer plus DB will have you set up with money for forever. And these are only a few of the many, many awesome mods out there.

On the other hands,you need to remove them every patch and reinstall the new versions. Apparently, they will break your game if you don't.

Gatherer is awesome, but I rather like looking for the things myself. It's cheesy to know where all the chests might be hidden.

I use dozens of mods, I'd never play the game if I couldn't.

And, no, they won't break your game every version. Only sometimes, because they change the scripting language in some patches - add functions, take some away, refine others - which breaks the addons.

Just take them out when funny stuff happens after a patch, or keep a list of where you got them, and see if they've been updated or abandoned. The bigger the addon, the more likely it'll break (Gatherer, for instance, dies a horrible death with every new big version).

I have one addon I'm literally still using even though it's not been updated since the WoW client 1.6, and it still works perfectly. (It changes my visible faction reputation to the one I've gotten a positive result from most recently, it's that simple). Other things have come and gone completely in that time (which is, by the way, years); I miss DefendYourself.

-Crissa

Crissa, would you mind listing what you use (and, if possible, what it does)? Here's my list:

Advanced Trade Skill Window (allows queues on Professions as well as many other goodies)
Auctioneeer (awesome mod if you plan to ever use the Auction House. Also very useful for Enchanters)
Cartographer3 (Best Map mod I've found. Makes Map a window so you can have it on your screen, allows zoom, notes and waypoints)
CastTime (shows the time remaining for a spell to be cast over the casting bar. I just like it)
Enhanced Tooltip (many mods show info on the tooltips, this one makes it easier)
OverAchiever (suggests Achievements and improves presentation)
QuestHelper (basically, the MapMarker system from many RPGs, particularly Bethesda's Oblivion and Fallout 3)

I am thinking of adding XLoot which improves the look of the Loot window. Not that I use it much (or ever)

AlphaMap (you can have the map open and see where you're going)
Gatherer
CastTime
TipTac (moves, recolors tooltips)
ItemRack (saves what you're wearing, makes buttons for trinkets)
oGlow (pretty)

There's a couple party-display things I use as well, I'll hafta be on the computer that runs it to get a full list ^-^

Carbonite is, in my experience, better than QuestHelper. Also, AtlastLoot helps if you're looking for gear upgrades or want to see how you'd look in stuff.

I remember this game. A friend wanted me to try making a character on his account, so I created a troll mage with an awesome backstory. I thought the idea of a spell-slinging mad scientist cannibal was pretty fun, so I abused out-of-game knowledge to go to the necessary trainers to learn how to make dynamite and guns.

This was when the weight of the world came crashing down upon me. Prior to this, I had regularly complained about the limitations in the types of gear mages could equip. I was somewhat mollified when I was told that "Anything you can craft, you can use." It was my belief that this meant I could use a musket just as soon as I built one myself. I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I had my character commit suicide by throwing himself off a bridge between 2 flying islands, and that was the end of Tukano the Educated Troll.

Don't expect the items you can use and/or equip to make sense. You need to be like level 5 to drink milk.

If you wanted to play a crazy troll scientist that used guns, you should have rolled a huntard.

The mage would be better of using wands, mostly b/c wands never run out of ammo, have really high attack speeds, and most importantly, give you caster stats.

Going for enchanting and making your own 'guns' (wands) would have been better RP.

An other mod that hasn't been mentioned here that I really like is Outfitter.

Basically it lets you setup whole gear setups. Either based on pre-sets determined by each class, or by hotkeys, or by a bar (I remove the bar; I used to have it auto-switch, but now I have it hotkeyed).

This is 'usually' used on RP servers so that people can jump out of their Thorium Plate and into say.... a full suit of Twill (yes, Twill, it's a grey set of items, and looks like... brown fabric. >_> ).

I use it on my druid to auto-change my gear when I shift forms.

As well as really confuse other players when they see my helmet, armour, shoulderpads, weapons and overall gear suddenly vanish (I go to birthday suit) or switch back and forth between variations of my "caster" gear or back when I still was a feral druid into my two main sets of "feral" gear (1 for tanking, 1 for DPS).

Make sure that you've got the latest version of Auctioneer, and scan the AH at least 9 times (no, I'm serious) over the course of 7-14 days before you can rely on any price that Auctioneer gives you. Markets can fluctuate a lot in a WoW server.

Some other tips:

1. Remap your entire key bindings.

Everything past the 5 key should be rebound to take up keys beside your WASD movement keys.

I also rebound my W key to toggle auto-move, instead of it being my move forward button (the cursor can still be used for that).

2. Learn those key bindings

This comes with practice, but if you start early, you'll get the hang of it.

3. Remap bindings to make them more comfortable.

Abilities used the most often should be right beside your movement keys; abilities used less often should be further away.

You could very well have more than one set up for pvp or pve; I tend to have all of my current abilities bound and change them around as I get comfortable learning to use them better.

4. Actually use the keys you bound.

Nothing is more noob than a clicker. Don't click your abilities, hit those hotkeys. The mouse is only good for Camera Work in combat to get a look of what's going on around this fight, not clicking sheild bash or backstab or assclown.

5. Buying gear from lvl 20-58 works.

It keeps your gear up to date, you'll want to avoid overly pricey blues. However, dropping 30-40 gold on an item that will carry you from level 29-45 and then an other 50g at lvl 45 for an item that you won't replace until level 60 is a good idea, since you'll actually save a good chunk of change buying one good item that will last you many levels, instead of always buying cheap greens that only are good for a few levels.

6. Gear for the stats, not for your classes armour options

Mail/plate wearers can also wear leather. Armour is a stat, and if you're not a tank, and not in Outlands yet, then you don't need to wear mail or plate just b/c it's the highest armour your class can wear.

Many healers/casters that can wear plate or leather often wear cloth, for the stats.

7. Don't be a key-turner

The mouse can turn you 180* and 360* nearly instantly. You can even run forwards, spin back, cast an instant-cast spell, and spin back forward; without really losing any forward momentum.

You can only do this with a mouse, with a keyboard, your turning is painfully slow. Chaging your A and D keys into Left Strafe and Right Strafe will help to correct you from making the mistake of Key-turning.

8. Use and seeing all the possible numbers, or don't

Some people can deal with seeing all the numbers of combat flying up, enemy HP displayed, your character's HP displayed and party HP/Mana/etc. displayed in actual numbers.

Some people get future-schocked and reel back. I like being able to know that 50% of a bosses HP is 500,000 hp, or 50,000 hp; it helps me gauge what tactics to use at that point in the fight.

9. Turn addons on, but also turn them OFF

I once set up 3 or 4 new addons (Omen Threatmetre, Damage Metre and something else), the effects on me were astounding. I couldn't actually play from all the new info bombarding me, and went into a state of shock when several screen filling effects went off.

I turned these new addosn off, and then starting introducing them one at a time with each new login session.

Oh, yeah, professions don't affect what types of gear you can and can't use, only give extra gear if you can use it.

If you want guns, you hafta be a gun-using class - because that's a weapon - Rogues, Warriors and especially Hunters use guns. There are four classes that don't use any ranged weapons, even! Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Death Knight.

Saying 'oh noes, I wanna roleplay a gun using mage' is like saying you want your 3.5 or 4e Warrior to use wands. It just doesn't work that way.

-Crissa

That said, Engineering isn't terrible for mages. You can make some pretty decent cloth helmets at low levels, lower levels than most characters have any helmets at all.

Plus you get to throw grenades, bombs, and dynamite. So there's that.