about to start WoW for the first time, advice?

[Eratosthenes]

WoW has this annoying "bind on equip" on all its gear because it doesn't have a real economy like FFXI. So when you buy equipment, it's always a loss since you can't sell it back when you're done with it.

[izembo]

which isnt completely bad either though as it keeps the flow of money in the economy under control.

[Guyverarmor]

Play the class and race you want to look at everytime you log on.

Personally, Paladin is fun. So Is shaman(<3 my lvl 70 ele shaman)

[Venture]

Paladin is the best multi-mob AoE tank in the game, but is considered inferior to Warrior when it comes to the main tank position in raids. I, as a healer, love Paladins because their threat control on the huge packs of mobs you end up pulling in most WoW instances is easy mode and keeps them off the healers, which is the number one problem in WoW when it comes to the tank/healer relationship. Warriors and Druids have to put a fair amount of effort into hanging onto multiple mobs, but a Paladin presses Consecration and pretty much magnets everything to them with little effort, and a ranged Taunt to get monsters back that slip past him.

Paladins are mostly shafted to healing, though, when it comes to 10+ man raids, as they are fantastic when it comes to healing one target at a time(Tanks) with their massive single-person heals. They have no AoE heals or heals over time, but when you need to give 6,000 health back to someone in one cast-they're the guys to call on. The Holy Tree is for healing, the Protection tree for tanking and the more advanced levelling trick of using AoE multi-mob pulls to grind, and Retribution is basically the red-headed stepchild DD tree that's gotten little love or respect since it's inception. Retribution will prolly be your best bet to get to 70, though.

Anyone can tank before 60 as instances before Burning Crusade have been nerfed to crap, and Paladin, Druid, and Warrior even in their DD specs make passable tanks in regular 5-mans in Outlands. You don't see the massive disparity in specialization until you start raiding and doing the Heroic versions of the same Outlands instances where the line between the common player and the real endgamers are drawn.

Don't bother with a equipment or weapon craft getting to 70: Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting etc. They're HUGE money sinks that will take away from your levelling and mount money. Herbalism, Mining and sometimes Skinning will produce major money if you take the time to utilize them in your travels. Once you get to 70 and have all that money stockpiled; it'll be nothing to go back and quickly grind a creation craft to 375 with the money you've saved up from gathering. Gathering crafts are the best money makers in the game, and creation crafts outside of Alchemy are basically picked up for certain items that are Bind on Pickup craftable that benefit that class i.e. a Sword for a tanking Warrior, cloth for a Priest etc.

I wouldn't bother buying armor off the AH until level 20, or so, but if the AH holds up like it usually does on most servers: The price of NPC vendored armor will rise to the point where you'll get better performance from AH sold armor with +stats, over stuff sold by vendors with no +stats for slightly less. If you're using your crafts and checking the AH- money won't be a problem. Loot everything, check Wowhead.com for white or better items that have a value to other players, and those unlimited AH slots will roll in the gold.

Only thing I would suggest buying from the AH before 20: Weapons as melee classes. A good weapon at level 5 for a melee class will make getting to 10 and your next weapon 3298472398 times easier, since AH weapons are far superior to vendor weapons at pretty much every point in the game except at 70. You will kill so much faster with an AH weapon.

Ask for a Teleport: Shattrah City as soon as you can come up with the one or two gold for a teleport tip, and set your Hearth location in Shat, which has a teleport hub to all your major cities, which will make questing and going about NPCs so much easier then using Zeppelins or Ships and Flight Paths.

Bookmark Wowhead.com. It is God :3 No lie. If you can, and you need money, i'd really advise finding someplace you can kill monsters that drop Small Eggs at a fast pace. If you're Horde: go outside Silvermoon City and destroy Dragonhawks. They drop 1-3 every kill. Last I checked- it's 1-3 gold for a stack of 10. You will make so much starter money selling Small Eggs, because high-levels just starting up Cooking will gladly pay out the nose with their abundant Outland's purses for the convenience.

Good luck to you, unless you rolled a Blood Elf Paladin

[Guyverarmor]

Hey, I love my blood elf :elmer:

[berticus]

One thing that was tough for me to understand going from FF to WoW was that no class sucked - no matter what you choose you'll be useful to someone somewhere. Paladin typically ends up being a healer at level 70 but you can do whatever you want well until then.

As for what some people are saying in the thread WoW is ruined if you play 40+ hours a week for a year+ because you'll run out of stuff. They're really going balls out to get it to the global mass market, so they're targeting the top of the bell curve. But if you're starting for the first time, aren't playing to win, like MMOs, and just want to experience a different game than FFXI you'll have an amazign time for a while no matter what you do.

My advice: go with as many friends as you can and plan your future.

[moguri]

Good luck to you, unless you rolled a Blood Elf Paladin

whats wrong with a blood elf paladin? O.o

[raginbull]

one thing i have always felt about WoW - PvP is what sorts the really skilled players from the also-rans and trash. Notice how very often it's the same players and teams who dominate in arenas and battlegrounds. You never really know what a human opponent is going to do. Compare to raids and instances, where you can always anticipate what they (cpu opponents) are going to do and are prepared for it. For me PvP is the most interesting aspect of the game.
Also, don't get disheartened if you are getting your butt kicked a lot by other players. You learn from experience. Of course if you are a pansy and can't handle it you can always roll PVE.

[Shuemue]

Or be like me and regret rolling on PvE.

[Vacht]

id go play DAoC :3

[Royal]

If you want, there are private servers that you can play on and those can kind of let you choose what class you want to play.

[wintersquall]

i just started WoW 5 minutes ago... and i can't even talk to people. i did kill a rabbit though.

starting a new MMO sucks ass Q_Q

[Royal]

What do you mean you can't talk to people?

[wintersquall]

well, i kind of figured out how to talk... i've never played an MMORPG besides FFXI. i just hit / and then backspace, then type what i want to say.

spending some time reading the damn game manual lol... hate that!


edit: k, this sucks... my bag's completely full, i'm level 3, and i have no idea what i'm doing^^ yay for new mmos!

[Royal]

Sell all the gray shit to a vendor and that will give you some money so you can buy skills and everything. Just do all the quests and you will level up pretty fast(much faster than ffxi).

[wintersquall]

managed to sell stuff to the innkeeper at lions pride, but i'm still not sure how i did it.

some dumbass lv70 keeps following me around and challenging me to a duel >.> good thing i went PvE for my first char i guess.

[Marcin]

Starting on a pvp server isn't as bad as people think. My first(and only) character was started on a pvp server. Honestly if you're not too far ahead on the pve server I would suggest making a new character on pvp, you'll probably end up having more fun in the long run. Ganking does happen but it isn't really even that bad. STV is a popular area known for its consistent ganking, but even then there's alternative areas you can level in besides STV.

Sure at times someone'll one-shot you as you're travelling along to get to another area but usually those people just continue going about their buisness once they kill you. Occasionally you'll find some prick (and in my time levelling that was rare) they'll camp your corpse to keep killing you, to which you can just go afk for awhile, usually 15 or so minutes before they get bored or just follow them around on your ghost.

My server's Gorgonnash, by the way.

Oh yeah, and even though STV always has ganking, I personally found it hilarious watching each faction constantly killing each other every minute. It actually felt like a warzone. Goodtimes.

[Aerin]

PvP servers are fun, I never found it fun ganking lower level players. Unless I'm running through a low level zone and some idiot hits/shoots me and then realizes I'm level ?? to them. Then I have my fun.

[wintersquall]

i might try out a PvP server, but honestly i'm so clueless right now i doubt it's a good idea.

the playerbase in general seems to be a bunch of tards relative to FFXI so far, hopefully that's just the newbie zones ; ; random invites, random duel requests from morons (a lot of 70s doing this), random guild invites (one of my chars is still in a guild i can't figure out to leave lol, i quit playing that char and rerolled) >.>

i do enjoy actually playing the game so far though, it's more... involved, and faster-paced than FFXI (which i still love, but i went on for my nyzul group last night and swear i was just shocked at the slow speed of everything). of course i re-acclimated in 5 min though.

[Marcin]

Filter General and Trade and you'll be okay!