Foonyak
11-01-2007, 10:30 PM
This thread is meant to be a guideline as to what any newcomer can do to make their time in-game easier. This is not faction specific, nor should it be. These are suggestions that any new player can apply to any character of any class, race, or faction. This should cover only the first 10 to 15 levels, maybe 20. By that point a new player should be familiar enough with the game that they have some idea of whether or not they like their character or not, have some personal goals set for their character, and an idea of whether or not they should attack such-and-such mob or buy so-and-so equipment.
First Things First
Talk to every NPC (non-player character) with a yellow question mark over their head. These are your quest-givers, advancers of the plot, and after you've completed the quests and returned to them, they'll reward you with experience (almost always), money, equipment, consumable items (potions, recipies for trade skills, etc.), or a combination of the three.
Find your class trainer as early as possible. There are class trainers for everyone, and they can all be found in the first or second lowbie town in your starting area, plus every capitol city. Why do I need to find my class trainer?, you're asking. At every even-numbered level you can upgrade your skills found in the spellbook (hotkey 'P'), which will greatly increase your survivability. Everything from a Warrior's "Sunder Armor" skill to a Priest's "Flash Heal" spell can be upgraded at the class trainer. You can talk to a town guard and have them place a temporary beacon on your mini-map and your map screen that will direct you to your class trainer.
In the beginning, you will be short on money. One way to remedy this situation is to learn two gathering skills. Skinning, Mining, Herbalism, and Fishing are all skills that you can take at the beginning to help collect goods to sell. These trainers can also be found by talking to a town guard. I wouldn't recommend taking both Mining and Herbalism though. Both of these skills grant you access to a 'radar' sort of skill which will display either mining nodes or clumps of herbs on your mini-map, but you can only have one of these 'radar' skills active at the same time.
Read the entire entry in the quest log for every quest. Every time you get a new quest, it will be added to the quest log which is accessed by pressing the 'L' key. If you're having trouble figuring out where you need to go for a quest, what you need to collect or how many, or just what to do next, check the quest log. You can have up to 25 quests active at once, so if you're having problems with one, start working on a different one. The XP (experience) and/or items gained may help you out significantly on the one you were having problems with.
So You're Not A Noob Anymore
Firstly, congratulations. If you've reached level 10, you now have access to Talent Points. You can access the Talent screen by pressing 'N'. Talents are a way to further improve your skills. You get one point at level 10 and one point at each level thereafter. You don't have to worry about where you spend your talent points near as much as you did about where you spent your skill points in Diablo II. You can pay to have your Talent Points given back to you (referred to as 'respeccing'), so whatever you place them in is fine, as long as you are comfortable with that at the time you put them there. You can respec at any of your class trainers.
Don't be afraid to explore. Death is fleeting in the world of Azeroth, and there are many sights to be seen within the World of Warcraft. Many people say that you shouldn't die within the first 15-20 levels, and that may be so, but dying because you found some place that you haven't seen yet is nowhere near as embarassing as making it to level 30 (or higher) without ever having left the confines of Silverpine Forest.
Don't be afraid to solo quests. While it may not be advisable for quests within an instance, for the first 20 levels or so any character should be able to progress alone. And actually, with the right talents, most if not all of the classes can solo all the way to level 60.
For the most part, you can get some pretty decent equipment from quests for the first few levels. I wouldn't waste my money on many equipment upgrades for a while. The only equipment that I would spend money on for a while is weapons. Most of the early game content is fairly easy, so dropping silver and copper on armor (for melee at least) won't be very productive, at least early on.
Remember, these are just suggestions. Feel free to follow all of them to a T, or toss them all out of the window if they don't make sense to you. And if you have something you'd like to add, "Joo can doo eet!"
First Things First
Talk to every NPC (non-player character) with a yellow question mark over their head. These are your quest-givers, advancers of the plot, and after you've completed the quests and returned to them, they'll reward you with experience (almost always), money, equipment, consumable items (potions, recipies for trade skills, etc.), or a combination of the three.
Find your class trainer as early as possible. There are class trainers for everyone, and they can all be found in the first or second lowbie town in your starting area, plus every capitol city. Why do I need to find my class trainer?, you're asking. At every even-numbered level you can upgrade your skills found in the spellbook (hotkey 'P'), which will greatly increase your survivability. Everything from a Warrior's "Sunder Armor" skill to a Priest's "Flash Heal" spell can be upgraded at the class trainer. You can talk to a town guard and have them place a temporary beacon on your mini-map and your map screen that will direct you to your class trainer.
In the beginning, you will be short on money. One way to remedy this situation is to learn two gathering skills. Skinning, Mining, Herbalism, and Fishing are all skills that you can take at the beginning to help collect goods to sell. These trainers can also be found by talking to a town guard. I wouldn't recommend taking both Mining and Herbalism though. Both of these skills grant you access to a 'radar' sort of skill which will display either mining nodes or clumps of herbs on your mini-map, but you can only have one of these 'radar' skills active at the same time.
Read the entire entry in the quest log for every quest. Every time you get a new quest, it will be added to the quest log which is accessed by pressing the 'L' key. If you're having trouble figuring out where you need to go for a quest, what you need to collect or how many, or just what to do next, check the quest log. You can have up to 25 quests active at once, so if you're having problems with one, start working on a different one. The XP (experience) and/or items gained may help you out significantly on the one you were having problems with.
So You're Not A Noob Anymore
Firstly, congratulations. If you've reached level 10, you now have access to Talent Points. You can access the Talent screen by pressing 'N'. Talents are a way to further improve your skills. You get one point at level 10 and one point at each level thereafter. You don't have to worry about where you spend your talent points near as much as you did about where you spent your skill points in Diablo II. You can pay to have your Talent Points given back to you (referred to as 'respeccing'), so whatever you place them in is fine, as long as you are comfortable with that at the time you put them there. You can respec at any of your class trainers.
Don't be afraid to explore. Death is fleeting in the world of Azeroth, and there are many sights to be seen within the World of Warcraft. Many people say that you shouldn't die within the first 15-20 levels, and that may be so, but dying because you found some place that you haven't seen yet is nowhere near as embarassing as making it to level 30 (or higher) without ever having left the confines of Silverpine Forest.
Don't be afraid to solo quests. While it may not be advisable for quests within an instance, for the first 20 levels or so any character should be able to progress alone. And actually, with the right talents, most if not all of the classes can solo all the way to level 60.
For the most part, you can get some pretty decent equipment from quests for the first few levels. I wouldn't waste my money on many equipment upgrades for a while. The only equipment that I would spend money on for a while is weapons. Most of the early game content is fairly easy, so dropping silver and copper on armor (for melee at least) won't be very productive, at least early on.
Remember, these are just suggestions. Feel free to follow all of them to a T, or toss them all out of the window if they don't make sense to you. And if you have something you'd like to add, "Joo can doo eet!"