Travel

There are different ways to travel within the game. You are going to want to learn these ways and take advantage of them as they will be very important to your success in the game. Even from the very beginning at low levels, you need to know how to get back and forth from different places in World of Warcraft.

The regions are:

•    Northern Kalimdor
•    Southern Kalimdor
•    Lordaeron
•    Khaz Moden
•    Azeroth
•    Outland

Hearthstones

One of the first ways to move around in the world is through your hearthstone. Your hearthstone will automatically be set for your starting town. To reset the stone, you need to talk to an innkeeper in a town. Once you talk to the innkeeper, you can reset your stone to take you back to that location every time you hearth. When you click on the Innkeeper it will ask you “Make this inn your home” and you click on this to reset the stone. Most people will set their hearthstones for a major city or capital city like Orgrimmar. This makes it easy to get back to the auction house, bank, trainers and other locations you will need regularly in the game.

Mounts

You are going to hear quite a bit about mounts in the game of WoW. Mounts are available when you finally make it to lucky level 40. There are different mounts depending on your race and class. When you have honor, you can also get a discount on your mount. Below is a list of the mounts and their prices.

Riding is a skill, just like First Aid or Mining. Riding costs quite a bit to learn, so saving up to get trained in Riding at level 40, 60, and 70 will be one of  your main goals in WOW. It will cost 90 gold for Apprentice Riding, 600g for Journeyman Riding, and 1,000g for a flying mount in Outland.

Flying Mounts

In Outland at level 70 (the Burning Crusades area) and in Northrend (at level 77) you can purchase and ride flying mount.  There are a wide variety of flying mounts available. Many are only available for purchase when you have enough reputation with the correct faction.

Trainers

Your trainers are very important. Throughout the game, you are gong to find yourself looking for them quite often. But if you want to be really successful, you don’t want to waste any time. So learning where your trainers are or how you can quickly and accurately find out where your trainer is, will help you get through the game more efficiently.

Another thing to keep in mind if you are having trouble finding your next trainer is to read the message from the last trainer. For example, if you need Artisan, and you talk to the Expert trainer, they will tell you where to go to find the next trainer.

Dying and Resurrecting

You are likely going to become familiar with this image above. When you play, you will die. And when you die, you will come face to face with the Spirit Healer as a ghost. When this happens, you have a choice.

You can run back to your body and resurrect and you will come back with half health. The downside is when you rez in the middle of a mob or some other dangerous location. If you are in a group, they can protect you until you heal. Another downside is that sometimes it can take a very long time to run back to the location of your body and it’s pretty easy to get lost the first time this happens as well. Your body will show up on your mini-map to help you find it.

If you don’t feel you can run back to your body safely, you also have the option the let the Spirit healer bring you back to life. The only downside to doing this is that you will have “rez sickness” for a period of time afterwards. Items in your inventory will also be damaged and if you try to auction it later, you will have to repair it first.

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You will want to become familiar with your spellbook so you know what items are available for you to use. When you level, you can go to your trainer and if you receive new training, your skills will go into your spellbook. Be sure to update these on your hotkeys so you are using the best spells you have.

You want to be sure to go back to your class trainer regularly to get new spells. When you have them, you can check your updated spellbook and then update your hotkeys to be most efficient.

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Choosing a Side

So how do you decide whether you want to be Horde or Alliance? Well, there are different factors that may go into your decision. For example, I already had friends who played that I knew I would want to chat with so I chose Horde because they were Horde. Later, I also created an Alliance character because I wanted to see what the other side was all about.

I know some people that chose Alliance because they can be Humans and some people are prone to be more attracted to this. (Not to mention the characters tend to be better looking!) It’s really just a matter of opinion when it comes to this and both sides are just as capable when you know what you are doing.

Honor Points

There is something in the game called the Honor System that you may be interested in. You get Honor Points that can add up to rank. So just what does this mean and how do you get these points?

You get honor points from:

•    Honorable Kills
•    Killing racial leaders
•    Achieving Battlegrounds objectives

So what is an honorable kill? Well, an honorable kill is a player character within your XP range, (i.e. a character whose name is colored and not grey.) There are different factors that influence the Honor value of a kill:

•    Your victim’s level
•    Your own level
•    Subsequent kills: killing a character a second, third or fourth time within 24 hours after the first kill will give reduced points for kills (75%, 50% and 25%). The fifth and subsequent kills give no Honor at all.
•    Group or raid: killing while in a group or raid will share the Honor among team members in the same way as XP, with the exception of the raid penalty on XP not being applied to Honor. Lower level members will get a smaller portion than the higher level ones.
•    Your or your team or raid’s contribution to the kill: each solo character, group or raid participating in the kill gets their share of the Honor.
•    Your victim’s rank
•    Being present at the time of the kill

Killing racial leaders: killing one of the NPCs considered leaders of their race. The racial leaders are:

•    Thrall
•    Cairne Bloodhoof
•    Lady Sylvanas Windrunner
•    Highlord Bolvar Fordragon
•    King Magni Bronzebeard
•    Arch Druid Fandrag Staghelm

Achieving Battlegrounds objectives: the Battlegrounds contain several opportunities to gain Honor in addition to killing your opponents, one of them naturally being winning the Battleground.

Raiding

Below is a screen shot taken of a raid just before I jumped in. Alliance was putting a hurting on the town of Crossroads. In fact, this is pretty typical. Participating in a raid gives you an opportunity to rack up some honor points as we have explained above.

Raid groups are groups of more than 5 people and are typically used to defeat unique challenges at higher levels. In WoW, up to 8 separate groups can be linked up to form a group of 40 players and these groups are called raid groups.

Raid group members cannot earn credit towards most non-raid difficulty quests, or more specifically, the ones involving killing creatures and collecting items. Raid groups usually give less experience for defeating monsters than normal groups. However, raids allow players to overcome challenges that might otherwise be nearly impossible.

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•    Choose the randomize option
•    Create your own name

When you click on randomize, the computer will automatically give you options of available names. You can click through them until you find one that you like. If you are having trouble coming up with a name, you can use this feature. You might even find that flipping through the random names will help you think of your own name.

If you do not like the random choices or just prefer to be creative and choose your own name, then there are some guidelines you should try to follow.

1.    You can not put a space in your name.
2.    Do not use a name of a famous person. If you are caught with a name like this, you will likely be asked to change it so it is best not to even try it.
3.    Keep your name simple. While it might seem cute, having a long or complicated name will make it harder for other players to communicate with you. As a rule, you should make it simple or easy to remember.
4.    You should avoid rude or offensive names, insults and religious figures.
5.    You should also avoid well known fiction characters.
6.    Do not name your character after any existing WarCraft character.
7.    Some people choose to keep the same name they use from another game.
8.    Combine different names or combinations of words to get a unique name.

There are also some name generators that can be found on the internet. If you are having trouble thinking of a name for your character, you might want to try one of these. Another way is to think of things you like, or think of a good way to describe your character. For example, Zombiewitch got her name because she is an Undead Warlock. You might also use something that describes the way you like to play or the mission of your character.

Name generators:

http://www.mapmage.com/namemage.htm

http://rinkworks.com/namegen/

http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mule/smurfgen.html

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mule/smurfgen.html

http://www.emmadavies.net/fairy/

http://www.ninjaburger.com/fun/games/ninjaname/

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/

http://www.albans.demon.co.uk/NoFrames/Generate.html

Many people choose the same gender for their character as themselves but still many males will choose female characters and vice versa. So it is really all up to you. That is the beauty of the game – you can be whatever you want!

When it comes to appearance, you also have several different options. The game was designed to allow you to customize your features and combination of features so that you get a character that is unique to you. You can change facial structures, markings, tattoos, and more to give your character a different look. Later when you start putting on armor and gear, it will also change the appearance of your character.

Well, this is the popular game has conquered the world and that’s why we have written this World of Warcraft guide to help you out. We have provided basic information for those of you who are new and we have taken information from the best players in the game to help you.

After you read this WoW guide, you will be playing like a pro. You will be leveling your character, your skills, making gold and more really fast. People will be wondering where you learned your secrets and how you got so good! If you are a noob (new player) or someone who has been playing a while, you can still benefit from this World Of Warcraft guide. Don’t be that person that is always asking silly or annoying questions. We have all the answers for you right here!

So what are you waiting for? Aren’t you ready to begin? Read on to learn more. If you are new to the game, you might decide to read straight through from beginning to end. If you already own the game, you might choose to skip to specific sections you are wondering about. It’s all up to you. We’ve written the book so that you can quickly and easily find whatever you need.

World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a class-based massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was created by Blizzard Entertainment. In an MMORPG you will find yourself playing the same game at the same time with people around the World. You will be able to interact with someone from Florida while you’re in California without having to pay long distance charges. You are playing in a real time chat and play environment and your decisions can shape your character. If you are into the gaming world, you have likely heard of Blizzard before and some of their other games such as Warcraft and Starcraft.

History

So what is the story behind World of Warcraft? What is it all about anyway? Well, this is the story of the Third War and the founding of The New Age. The history of Azeroth is filled with tales of war and struggles. The most destructive conflict know to the world is the invasion of the demonic Burning Legion. They planned their return to the mortal world over the course of many centuries. Four years ago, all of this planning came to action.

If you have played World Of Warcraft before then you might already understand the story line and have a good idea for what is going on here. But even if you haven’t, you can pick up everything really quick. The controls and overall game play are also easy to figure out.

Gameplay

So now that you understand a little more about the history of the game (also called lore of the game), just what is the game play all about anyway? What is the point of the game? Well, the great thing about MMORPGs is that there are many different objectives and the point of the game depends a lot on what type of player you choose to be.

In general, your goals are going to be to level your character. You are also going to want to complete quests (which help you level and give you things). You are going to want to level your professional skills. This means you become better at your profession and you are able to make better items to use or sell for profit. You also want to make money. The key point of making gold is to buy a mount. (We explain this later). But there are other reasons why you need money in the game. Money can be used for buying items at auction, bartering with other players, travel, buying healing and mana potions and many other items you need in game.

In an MMORPG you’ll never have to worry about saving your game! Everything is saved server side so even if your computer crashes you can start up right where you left off. You can quickly quit the game and never have to worry about saving! You do not have to be online to receive anything in the mail because the server will save it for you and once you log on you could grab it!

It also costs you money to learn new skills as you advance in levels and it costs money to repair yourself after damage. So you can see that you need a good way to keep money coming in and to stay productive.

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