Totally Lost.

[housepetmarla]

I'm not a big gamer (in fact i haven't played any video/computer games before WoW) but i've been playing WoW off and on for about a year and i'm a level 56 night elf hunter (I also don't have Wrath of the Lich King). Despite my level I'm definitely a newbie, i basically just run around by myself and play it by ear, i go onto thottbot or alakhazam or here and i usually have no idea what anyone is talking about. I really think I'm not using this game to its full capacity and because of that I'm getting bored. It would be a great help if anyone could answer some questions:

1. I really wanna join a raid group, I'm part of a guild mostly just to see what it's like, i don't do anything, i've never played with anybody from my guild, i'm basically useless. I'm pretty sure no one will take me seeing as I don't know any of the lingo. I looked on here and it said i should make sure i'm "geared," and "keyed," for Karazhan, all three words i'm really not sure what they mean by that, keyed for a specific area? How come I've never heard of Karazhan?

2. I'm pretty sure I'm way behind in everything as far as gear and everything goes:

Currently Questing in the Eastern Plaguelands
Using Thaumaturgist Staff of The Eagle 120-181 damage with +14 Intellect (what does that mean? does that even apply to a night elf hunter) +15 Stamina. My speed is 2.35, power 310 Hit Rating 0.
My Professions: Alchemy 300/300 herbalism 300/300.

3. Can I get a faster mount? Right now I have a Striped Frostsaber, where do i get a faster one? Darnassus?

4. My guild sucks, I think. For the longest time I thought somehow i wasn't in one anymore and then they started sending messages. I know I'm not doing much but I feel as though I should be looking for a better one to help. I read somewhere that this person was in a guild that had like instructions and university for people that didn't know too much about what they were doing. Can anyone recommend a guild that won't make me feel bad for being WoW stupid?

I've never done anything PvP.

As you can see, I'm totally lost any help would be fantastic. let me know if you need anymore information.

[Erinion]

Can you give us your characters name and the realm you're on (also EU or US)? Then we can look your char up on the Warcraft Armory and get a proper idea about your gear.

You could use the internet to look up the information you're after. I know people here will answer your questions, but if you look up the answers yourself you will learn a lot more. Try wowwiki.com (I suggest typing "Hunter" into the search function). Then you can read and learn everything you need to know.

As for raiding, have you done any 5 man instances? Have you ever done quests with a group? I wouldnt recommend raiding until you've got used to working in a group, learning your role and getting yourself geared up.

We can't recommend a guild until we know what realm you're on.

[Drizzd]

I'm not a big gamer (in fact i haven't played any video/computer games before WoW) but i've been playing WoW off and on for about a year and i'm a level 56 night elf hunter (I also don't have Wrath of the Lich King). Despite my level I'm definitely a newbie, i basically just run around by myself and play it by ear, i go onto thottbot or alakhazam or here and i usually have no idea what anyone is talking about. I really think I'm not using this game to its full capacity and because of that I'm getting bored. It would be a great help if anyone could answer some questions:

1. I really wanna join a raid group, I'm part of a guild mostly just to see what it's like, i don't do anything, i've never played with anybody from my guild, i'm basically useless. I'm pretty sure no one will take me seeing as I don't know any of the lingo. I looked on here and it said i should make sure i'm "geared," and "keyed," for Karazhan, all three words i'm really not sure what they mean by that, keyed for a specific area? How come I've never heard of Karazhan?

2. I'm pretty sure I'm way behind in everything as far as gear and everything goes:

Currently Questing in the Eastern Plaguelands
Using Thaumaturgist Staff of The Eagle 120-181 damage with +14 Intellect (what does that mean? does that even apply to a night elf hunter) +15 Stamina. My speed is 2.35, power 310 Hit Rating 0.
My Professions: Alchemy 300/300 herbalism 300/300.

3. Can I get a faster mount? Right now I have a Striped Frostsaber, where do i get a faster one? Darnassus?

4. My guild sucks, I think. For the longest time I thought somehow i wasn't in one anymore and then they started sending messages. I know I'm not doing much but I feel as though I should be looking for a better one to help. I read somewhere that this person was in a guild that had like instructions and university for people that didn't know too much about what they were doing. Can anyone recommend a guild that won't make me feel bad for being WoW stupid?

I've never done anything PvP.

As you can see, I'm totally lost any help would be fantastic. let me know if you need anymore information.

For a starting player a good resource is the official world of warcraft website,
as it is targeted to new customers with no background in the game.
Despite you have played for a while I think you fit that category.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/#gettingstarted

WoW is first and foremost a social game (despite it can be played totally solo).
The first skill to master regardless what others might suggest is communication.
Discover the various chat channels (/chatlist command can help you) and how to talk in them.
Use them to seek assistance (with game information or game tasks) but do not beg or impose.
In other words involve yourself.

In regards to your hunter:
Mail is the highest class armor you can use (Cloth > Leather > Mail > Plate).
You can also wear items of the lower classes (cloth + leather) but you should try to use Mail whenever possible.
Different statistics (or bonuses) on gear benefit different classes.
As a hunter (especially a leveling one) you are mainly interested in Agility then Stamina then Intellect.
As each item has a limited amount of value spent in bonuses, better items for you are the ones that have one or a combination of the above stats and no other stats that do not benefit a hunter (for example strength or defense or spell power) as then those stats are wasted (provide no benefit to your character and so the item is "poor" for you).
Item quality affects the amount of stats an item has.
You want to be using at least uncommon quality (green) items and rare (blue) whenever possible.
Epic quality (purple) are even higher quality but you shouldn't aim for those while you're still leveling.

Combat:
Your ranged weapon (your ranged shots) are you primary source of doing damage as well as your pet.
Your pet is also your personal tank (that takes damage from enemies instead of you)
If you find yourself doing melee combat (close quarters combat where you're swinging your hand-weapons at an enemy)
you are playing wrong.
You want to be at a distance shooting at enemies your pet is holding in place when you are soloing (playing alone).

Groups/Raids etc:
Partner up with other players to do group quests in the area of your interest.
The outside world is a low risk environment as you can always run away if you get in trouble and mobs will soon "reset".
Instanced play (dungeons and raids) is alot more demanding for a new player and mistakes cost more to the party.
It is better to take it one step at a time.
Solo Play -> Group Play in the outside world -> Instanced Play with a party of 5 -> Instanced Play with a raid.

The game offers challenges according to the level of your character.
You haven't heard of Karazhan because it is a raid instance (for teams with 10 members) for lvl 70.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/regionlevels.html
and
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/dungeons.html

will provide some info as to what regions and dungeons are appropriate to your level.

[Wintrow]

If you're not shy of reading a LOT start with this one:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Hunter
and click on anything you don't understand. The good thing about that website is that nearly every topic is clickable for more information.

As a quick pointer:
- Gear = equipment (like gloves, bow, chest, ... anything you can add to your character)
- being geared can be translated into "having sufficient quality/level of gear to be able to complete a certain task". You are "geared for karazhan" if you're gear provides you with the bonuses you need to not be dead weight or even a liability in there.
- being keyed means that you must literally have the key to the place in your bag/keyring. Typically involves finishing a (long) quest of sorts or attaining a certain level of reputation with the appropriate ingame faction.
- Intellect does benefit a hunter. It increases your mana pool. But, as mentioned, other stats like agility and ranged attack power are higher priority. Aspect of the Viper should ensure you hardly have to drink at all...
- Ranged Attack Power directly influences how hard your shots hit. A percentage also gets translated to your pets attack power.

This is all findable on wowwiki.

[Bancduese]

As mentioned earlier, do try to use the chat channels in game to talk to other folks, and again as mentioned, not to beg for help but simply to ask questions, to offer to help and to ask for help. Offering to help is perhaps the most important thing you can do.

The social pages has a friend listing as well as a guild listing. If your guild is one of those that exists simply to put a guild name over it's members, then your friend list becomes even more valuable. Talk to folks and eventually you will find those who you like to talk with and who in turn like talking to you. Both sides of that equation are important.

Don't be afraid to ask questions in game using the say command (white text invoked with either /s or /say) or the whisper command to a specific person that no one else will see (/tell player-name and hit the space bar once to direct it to that specific person). Try to always be friendly and helpful and or inquisitive.

You will run into those types who don't want to be sociable and because of the nature of the net, you will run into some anti-social types who are down-right rude (and possibly crude in their response) but don't let those types discourage you. Most gamers are in love with gaming and like to be able to help others a bit with their game.

Gradually you will find folks who become your in-game friends and that will likely eventually lead you into a guild that does more than exist to put a name over your head. In the meantime, you can begin to gain some experience (and not just experience points) in grouping with one or two or more other folks and using the party chat (/p command which allows you to chat with the person or persons you are grouped with no outsiders reading the chat).

It takes time, but honestly, it is worth it to find folks who will play with you. I am, by nature, a very shy person, and have a difficult time in-game making casual conversation with folks I have never met before, but it is a catch-22 situation. To get folks who you can enjoy chatting with and playing with, you have to take the chance on folks you never have spoken to before.

One very good way to do this initially (and actually always) is to be on the look out for someone else who seems to be doing the same quest you are on in an area. If you are, ask them using the /s or /tell commands in they are on the same quest. If yes is the answer, follow up with another question as to whether or not they would like to group up. Again, not always, but very often the answer will be yes as more hands make lighter work and quests go faster.

What others suggested about doing your own reading out of game will increase your knowledge base considerably. What I am suggesting is a course of action to put that extra knowledge into play. Good luck to you and I hope you increase your enjoyment of the game to where eventually you find yourself amazed at how far you have come and how much you love playing WoW.

[Tater]

I'm not a big gamer (in fact i haven't played any video/computer games before WoW) but i've been playing WoW off and on for about a year and i'm a level 56 night elf hunter (I also don't have Wrath of the Lich King). Despite my level I'm definitely a newbie, i basically just run around by myself and play it by ear, i go onto thottbot or alakhazam or here and i usually have no idea what anyone is talking about. I really think I'm not using this game to its full capacity and because of that I'm getting bored. It would be a great help if anyone could answer some questions:

1. I really wanna join a raid group, I'm part of a guild mostly just to see what it's like, i don't do anything, i've never played with anybody from my guild, i'm basically useless. I'm pretty sure no one will take me seeing as I don't know any of the lingo. I looked on here and it said i should make sure i'm "geared," and "keyed," for Karazhan, all three words i'm really not sure what they mean by that, keyed for a specific area? How come I've never heard of Karazhan?

2. I'm pretty sure I'm way behind in everything as far as gear and everything goes:

Currently Questing in the Eastern Plaguelands
Using Thaumaturgist Staff of The Eagle 120-181 damage with +14 Intellect (what does that mean? does that even apply to a night elf hunter) +15 Stamina. My speed is 2.35, power 310 Hit Rating 0.
My Professions: Alchemy 300/300 herbalism 300/300.

3. Can I get a faster mount? Right now I have a Striped Frostsaber, where do i get a faster one? Darnassus?

4. My guild sucks, I think. For the longest time I thought somehow i wasn't in one anymore and then they started sending messages. I know I'm not doing much but I feel as though I should be looking for a better one to help. I read somewhere that this person was in a guild that had like instructions and university for people that didn't know too much about what they were doing. Can anyone recommend a guild that won't make me feel bad for being WoW stupid?

I've never done anything PvP.

As you can see, I'm totally lost any help would be fantastic. let me know if you need anymore information.

1) Raids start at level 60 but there aren't alot of people running the old level 60 raids. You want mail armor with agility/stamina/intelligence and attack power. These are your key stats. Strength and spirit are worth almost nothing to a hunter. Kara is a level 70 10 man raid in outlands and again, you might find it tough to get a group due to lack of people still in outlands. "Keyed" simply means that you've done the prequest or chain of quests to be able to enter the instance.

2) You can equip multiple weapons at the same time. Hunters can dual wield. I suggest dumping the staff and get a couple of daggers and a bow or gun. Your primary weapon should be a bow or gun, your melee weapon is just mainly for stats. Turn your pet's growl on and just stand back and hit the mob with ranged. Good job working up your professions. You raise them when you get to outlands at level 58-60. It doesn't matter as much on a hunter if your gear is behind but if you are more than 15 or so levels behind, I would suggest upgrading in the AH. Be careful though because once you get to outlands, there are quite a bit of gear upgrades from quests. You get to outlands by going to the big green portal in the southeastern side of the blasted lands.

3) You get your next mount at level 60 purchased in Darnassus. You must be exhalted with Darnassus to purchase. I don't know the cost but maybe 150ish gold? You can also purchase a level 60 (faster) mount (horse) from the Eastvale logging camp (Stormwind exalted) or a (robot ostrich) from a town just south of Ironforge (Ironforge exalted).

4) If you don't like your guild, quit and find another one. To leave, type "/gquit". It sounds like your guild just has a few members if you didn't realize you were in one. There are lots of guilds out there with hundreds of members with all sorts of useful information and willingness to help. At least on my server, you can go to Stormwind, by the bank on an unguilded char and get 5 guild invites in an hour. You can tell if you are in a guild easily. On your toolbar, there is a chat bubble icon. Open it and click the guild tab. If you can open it, you are in a guild and it shows you which guild members are online (you can toggle to not show all the offline folks).

Don't be afraid to ask questions here. I've only played a year and a half or so (although, i'm probably a little more hardcore gamer than you) but check some of my older posts when I was learning the game on my hunter.

Tell us what server you are on and I'm sure that if anyone here is on your server, they'd be willing to help.

[snowieken]

Housepetmaria made this post at 9:20 AM and at about 4:14 PM we have five wonderful and helpful replies. On the official forums, there would already be about twenty replies, but 80% of those would be flames, oneliners or "lolz" posts.

I have absolutely nothing more to add to what the posters above me already said. Only that I love you guys. :cloud9:

Good luck housepetmaria!

On a side note, in response to what Tater said, you don't need to be exalted with Darnassus for the faster mount at level 60. You need to be exalted with any other faction you can get a mount from, but since Darnassus is your own faction, they'd be more than happy to supply you with a fast kitty. :)

[lulabell]

I agree with above.
To put your mind at ease, i know many who have been playing the game for a months now who are still getting to grips with terminology and routes.
I might be a n00b to the game but i have a partner who has played it for 4 years as well as friends who are in guilds who often talk about WoW - my usual response is when at the who at the what everytime. I really should have picked up some info by now!!!

but yeh :D this is great information - i cant wait to get home and read it all thoroughly to help me too :D

thanks guys xxx

[Kodonn]

wow...lots of good advice.
I can think of one other thing to consider. Banc already gave you some good info on finding and grouping (called partying) with others who might be doing the same quests as you. While you do this, try to remember who you had good experiences with. (You can add them to your friends list if that is helpful. "/friend Bob" will add Bob to your list and you can then see whenever Bob is playing and if he is in the same area as you)

Over time, if you keep bumping into the same person (that could mean they are doing the same quest lines as you) throw out a few questions about their guild (if they are in one that is). Most guilds are always open to new members, and some are very helpful. You just need to find one that's suitable for the way you play. And don't be discouraged, because those guilds are out there too.