Starting Out in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a remarkably easy game to get into once you actually start playing, with a variety of beginner's areas and quests designed to ease you into the game, even if you have never played anything similar before. The players on the whole tend to be pretty friendly and helpful, and will usually answer any questions you have. The hardest part for the truly new player is arguably creating a character and the setup before you actually start playing, and it is this aspect I shall concentrate on.

Before even loading the game, I would recommend the installation of two mods, both of which make the game experience smoother and more understandable. The first is Auctioneer, which manages anything you sell at auction, or indeed anything you buy at auction, and compares prices, recommends how much to sell items for, and generally runs invisibly in the background except when needed. The second is Titanbar, which adds a thin status bar at the top and bottom of the screen. This holds as much or as little information as you like, from your co-ordinates on the map (invaluable information which the game is somewhat reluctant to provide), time to next level based on your gain of xp per hour, how many inventory slots you have free at a glance, and dozens of other options.

Secondly, I would recommend bookmarking the Allakhazam website. This is a searchable site containing pretty much every quest, mob, and item in the game. If you're not sure what to do on a particular quest, say, type a couple of keywords from the quest title into the search engine. A brief description of the quest and awards is a click away, along with comments from other players on how to best go about it, and (again) co-ordinates to where you can find key mobs, items, etc. Remember that almost without exception, whatever quest you are doing, someone has already done it, and is likely to be able to offer some advice.

Finally, choosing a starting race and class. Race is not the major factor you might expect in other games. The difference between a gnome and an orc's hitpoints at level 1 may appear significant, but as you gain experience, the gap doesn't really widen. Read the backgrounds in the character creation window, and simply pick something that appeals to you, you like the look of, or simply looks fun. Class will depend more on your playing style, and what you expect to get out of the game. My first character was a hunter, and I found this an extremely easy starting character; reasonably proficient at hand to hand combat, /very/ good at ranged attacks, a range of abilities to detect mobs, and after level 10, a companion to help you in combat. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, though. I would merely say experiment; nothing is limiting you to one character, or even one server. Play around, and see what works for you. The game is remarkably forgiving to new players, and you should be up and running in no time.