Is there a good Gamer manual for WOW?

[Boneshaker]

You know a book that helps with more detail than the manual that came with the game? SOmething that better explains ALL the many details of thegame and its options. tallent trees, quests, etc? ANything like that out there??

[Khab]

WoWWiki (http://www.worldofwar.net/wiki/Main_Page) is an excellent resource. The official wow forums contain lots of great threads that have good information for beginning and advanced users. WOWDigger (http://www.wowdigger.com)is a great online database of all things WoW.

[Twoflower]

there are many books that try to do that, but IMO they all fail because of two things : First they are outdated allready while they are printed. Second they can never cover everything because the game is way too big.

your best bet is to read around on the internet. Depending on what information you want there is always a place where someone allready has answered the question you want to ask.

Generaly, for class mechanics i go to the elitist jerks forum. For builds and talent tree questions i check the class forums on this forum here. You can look up quests and items on our Wowdigger database (http://www.wowdigger.com).

The good site about it is that it will always be up to date.

[Mollymog]

You know a book that helps with more detail than the manual that came with the game? SOmething that better explains ALL the many details of thegame and its options. tallent trees, quests, etc? ANything like that out there??

The manual isn't great. And I don't find the official website that great either. There are guide books available online or in book or computer stores. They're not bad, but you might want to go and look through one before you buy. There are levelling guides available free online (most of the paid-for kind aren't good value for your money). I have used Jame's Levelling Guide (available to download online) with success. And it's free. It points you to the quests that are most rewarding. Several websites offer useful information of all sorts, so try doing a search for 'World of Warcraft' and the specific topic you're looking for and you'll turn up a lot of helpful stuff. This forum is a great resource. You get good answers to questions from members here who've played it intensively, all classes, all levels, and very good about sharing their knowledge with you.

I think you learn most by playing it yourself. You won't know what questions to ask until you play and run up against something that's baffling or puzzling. Quick questions ingame on Channel 1 will often get you helpful responses (they may get you a lot of silly stuff too, but ignore that). It is, like most things, a learn-as-you-go-by-trying thing.

[semiiramiis]

My resources are all websites:

Be Imba is great at endgame raiding. Wowwiki (http://www.worldofwar.net/wiki/Main_Page) answers most questions. Elitist Jerks gave me the insight to unstubborn and go to my often questioned spec, which I love. (Shaman resto build, 8/0/53) Any of the database sites.

But no, not a book. As mentioned, they go out of date way too quickly.

edit : Dont mention database sites with goldselling ads or similar. Greetings, Twoflower

[Davemetalhead]

Something else that should also be mentioned - a good guild. Although these can be troublesome to find, once you're in a good guild they should be able to offer all sorts of instant advise and answers.

If you're not already in one, then check out your realm forum on the official boards, and see what guilds are recruiting and what they offer.

[Beruen]

I have to agree with twoflower here. These forums plus EJ make for solid class understanding, especially in a game where class functions and balance gets tweaked from time to time. The various wikis and databases, including one of each here, tend to give good info as well, though not as in depth as EJ when it comes to class mechanics.

There's a big change in class abilites and such every time that a new expansion comes out (actually, usually some number of weeks before the expansion), and they remain in flux for some time after the expansion, until the devs are happy with the class balance, and they're never completely happy with it, so the tweaks never end, they just slow down.

To make matters worse, even knowing what the changes are doesn't mean that the implications are understood at that time. For example, BM hunters weren't known for topping DPS charts in vanilla WoW, MM was a better talent tree for DPS. That changed when the expansion came out, but it took a long time for conventional wisdom to accept this, even with the evidence of BM hunters keeping pace or even out-DPSing MM hunters. And it wasn't just the casual crowd that had problems accepting this, even a good bit of theorycrafters developed models where MM was clearly best, and either dismissed the evidence to the contrary or couldn't explain it. That said, MM is still quite good DPS, especially after you gear up a bit, but at the start of raiding, BM was doing better.

The only way a book could be accurate for any length of time is to wait for the changes to slow down and for at least the theorycrafters to all agree on what's good and what isn't, then clean up the book and publish it. The problem with that is that the idea of not having a book on the shelves when the expansion comes out is really not very appealing to profit-oriented companies, so it doesn't happen.

There was a Brady guide for WoW a long time ago. They might still be trying to keep it up to date, I don't know, because no matter how hard they tried, the online information was not only free, but more accurate and timely.