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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You will need to choose your:

•    Race
•    Class
•    Gender
•    Appearance
•    Name

If you are Alliance, you can be a Dwarf, a Gnome, a Human, a Draenei or a Night Elf. If you are Horde, you can be an Orc, a Tauren, a Troll, a Blood Elf,  or an Undead. There are different class selections and different starting points depending on which of these you choose. We will explain them all below.

Alliance

Dwarf

Class selection: hunter, mage, rogue, paladin, priest and warrior
Starting Area: Coldridge Valley, Dun Morogh
Capital City: Ironforge

Gnome

Class selection: mage, rogue, warlock, warrior
Starting Area: Coldridge Valley, Dun Morogh
Capital City: Ironforge

Human

Class selection: mage, priest, paladin, rogue, warlock and warrior
Starting Area: Northshire Valley, Elwynn Forest
Capital City: Stormwind

Night Elf

Class selection: druid, hunter, rogue, priest and warrior
Starting Area: Shadowglen, Teldrassil
Capital City: Darnassus

Draenei

Class selection: Hunter, Mage, Priest, Paladin, Warrior, Shaman
Starting Area: Azuremyst Isles
Capital City: Exodar

Horde

Orc

Class selection: hunter, rogue, shaman, warlock and warrior
Starting Area: Valley of Trials, Durotar
Capital City: Orgrimmar

Tauren

Class selection: druid, hunter, shaman and warrior
Starting Area: Camp Narache, Mulgore
Capital City: Thunder Bluff

Troll

Class selection: hunter, mage, rogue, priest, shaman and warrior
Starting Area: Valley of Trials, Durotar
Capital City: Orgrimmar

Undead

Class selection: mage, priest, rogue, warlock and warrior
Starting Area: Deathknell, Trisfal Glades
Capital City: Undercity

Blood Elf

Class selection: Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Paladin
Starting Area: Eversong Woods
Capital City: Silvermoon

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