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WoW Rookie: What is a patch?
Here at WoW Insider, we've had extensive coverage of changes and updates that are being tested for the release of patch 2.4. It occurred to me that many of our newer players may not know what patching is all about. Blizzard regularly releases updates to World of Warcraft to add new content, fix problems, and otherwise improve the game. The game has evolved considerably throughout since its launch over 3 years ago. Many quests, instances, battlegrounds, events, items, and tools have been added through various patches. Clicking through the historical patch notes can be a source of nostalgia for many players.
A guide to instances
Recently we created guides to help WoW Rookies understand how instances work and their role in them. Author Palintheist over on Livejournal has done the same with a funny, informative guide to running instances for players new to World of Warcraft. Some highlights:"Mob: No need to ask the Godfather for forgiveness - a mob is a word for monster. Also known as creep.""Healer: Who's keeping the tank from floor-hugging? Your powerful, puissant, never-to-be-offended healer. Seriously. Several classes can play this role and they all find it pretty much a thankless task, as people are very quick to blame healers when people die [but you won't, because you know better!].""Pat: Don't look around for someone androgynous - someone is warning you that a patrolling mob is coming closer and will probably [if it hasn't already] attack you. ""Buff: Keep your clothes on. Really. ""Inc: If there's no time to type "pat" or "adds", sometimes you'll see "inc", for "incoming". [Why is inc faster than pat? No idea.]"Go take a look, it's not just written with its tongue in its cheek, it's actually pretty informative for new players to the game. Save time the next newbie run and just send them the URL.
WoW Rookie: Forming a Group
In the last two weeks we've discussed where to go for an instance and what to do once you get there. Since dungeon runs usually require five members, this week we'll talk about how to find people to go with you. Remember that the typical instance group is made up of a tank, a healer, and three DPS members. It's not always easy to find people that match those requirements. Since there is a shortage of tanks, it's probably easiest for tank classes to find a group. That also means it's hardest if you are not a tank to find someone to play that role. The next most difficult is a healer. There's usually plenty of DPS to go around. It can take some time to make a group, but since dungeons provide excellent loot and good experience it's usually worthwhile to stick with it.
WoW Mom! An interview with the newest newbie on the block
I got a call from my mom on Friday night that she was having an emergency and needed me to call. It turns out the emergency was that she bought World of Warcraft and needed some instruction on how to play. Since I was at work, I told her to get started by reading up a bit on the WoW Rookie until I could spend a little more time with her. I was excited and somewhat terrified. I really hope she likes it and doesn't get too frustrated the first week. My mom isn't what you would call a gamer. I'm not going to tell you how old she is, but she could tell you where she was when Kennedy was assassinated. She's a master Euchre player and a wiz at Scrabble. Her video gaming experience is limited to Bejeweled and online versions of card games. She used to love me watch play Tetris, but would respond like the controller was made of lava when I tried to hand it to her. I invited her to join Dungeons and Dragons sessions, but she always declined. I moved 2,000 miles from my native Michigan for graduate school about five years ago. Since then my interactions with my mom have been limited to phone conversations and the occasional short visit. I'm really glad to get to share this time with her.
Breakfast topic: Getting started in WoW
Before I started playing World of Warcraft, I hadn't played any other MMORPGS. As a matter of fact, I didn't even play video games regularly at all. I was always fascinated by hearing horror stories about the crazy things people did while playing Everquest. But I was also amazed by achievements and the vastness of the settings. I've been playing WoW for about two years now. My boyfriend suggested I try it. I was hesitant to begin my adventures in Azeroth. I was afraid that buying the game would be a waste of money. I dragged my feet as I walked into the game store and grimaced a bit as the clerk swiped my debit card. I was dreadful at navigating in video games and was overwhelmed by the amount game knowledge it took to be successful. It took me about ten months to get my first level 60 character. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first started playing. I really wish I had discovered WoW Rookie sooner. In the end, I discovered that WoW is awesome. I love being part of the community.
Blazing through the newbie zones
I hate the first ten levels. When I say I hate them I mean I really, really hate them. Oh sure, they may only take an hour or so, but how many times have most of us done them by now? I've been playing the World of Warcraft since the day it launched. Earlier than that if you count the beta testing period.The first ten levels are so, so boring. I have done it dozens and dozens of times by now. I have ten characters of varying levels, and I've had many many low level alts I've deleted over time to make room for new ones, due to my Altoholism. Redoing the starter levels after you have a 70 are as if you are riding your bicycle, and when you decide to take a street you haven't taken before for the adventure of it, someone comes along, pushes you off of your bike, and puts your training wheels back on. Then straps floaties to your arms just in case you ride through a puddle. After that you will probably want to just turn around and go home.I've taken to solving this predicament with fire. Fiery, to be specific. My good friend Dirk has been with me on many alts now, preventing me from quitting yet another class within 10 levels due to sheer boredom. Dirk does quite a bit for me, one and two-shotting mobs straight out of the newbie zone. He doesn't Bind on Equip, so he is a friend that will last forever. I know that others put Lifestealing on their Dirk, but it just isn't the same. What is life without fire? Not a life for me, that's what.
Blood Pact: Why we Lock
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.I've been playing my Warlock main since forever. While some guildies have kept themselves busy by bring their fifth or sixth toon through Karazhan attunement, I've been content pottering around with my warlock, dipping into alts only when there aren't any groups or raids going on.I've talked about leveling a Warlock, but haven't really looked at why people would pick this class in the first place. Or why some don't. So all the WoW rookies out there still sitting on the fence of class choices, or seasoned players considering yet another alt, consider this an expansion of the Warlock section in Elizabeth's excellent "Choose your class!" article.
Breakfast Topic: When did you get hooked?
Straycat's story of "getting it" reminded me of when I first realized this game was something special. I'd played MMOs before, and I'm a longtime gamer, so I always knew that I'd get into it. But it was during my first group, right around level 7, where three people I'd never met and I did a few quests together, and traveled all over the Night Elf starting area (yeah, yeah) All of us kind of figured out just how great this game was-- even at that early point, we realized how different our classes where, and how much this game really had to offer.So the question for today is: was there an exact time at which you "got it" too? Lots of WoW players are first-time gamers (at least first-time serious gamers), and there were probably a lot of surprises out there when it was discovered that video games really could be as fun as they say. Was there one point at which you "got it"?
Breakfast Topic: Help a newbie!
If you could offer one piece of advice to a new World of Warcraft player, what would it be? It is the holiday season, after all -- time to lend a helping hand to those less fortunate. So for all of the new players reading today, let's tell them what they need to know to survive their adventures in Azeroth (and hopefully make it to Outland, Northrend, and wherever else Blizzard might have in store for us in the future)! I'll get us started: Pick up absolutely everything from a corpse, even if it seems useless. You can sell it for cash -- maybe not much, but it adds up in time. Train first aid! Even if you're a class that can heal itself, there will be times you're low on mana, and you'll be glad you have those bandages. Cooking may sound dull -- but food can provide useful buffs, which makes cooking a worthwhile skill to have. And... if you want to become a successful chef and make all sorts of awesome, higher-level food the easiest way to skill up is to train it up with fishing. (Though fishing is dull, dull, dull -- you'll thank me when you don't have to go from skill zero to skill 375 because you need a rare fish to make your favorite food.) Don't forget to have fun! So what advice would you give a newbie?
Nominate your favorite Second Life newbie to receive 10,000L
Do you know someone completely new to Second Life? One of the very first questions the newbie asks is 'How do I make money?' Well, your favorite newbie can receive 10,000L from Ecstacy Realty in a new contest, who appear to be quite into paying it forward. Cynical types will call it mere marketing, but 10,000L is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you're a new resident. What can you do with ten grand? You can shop for a new outfit and skin, which is one of the things that keeps the new player from blending in with established residents. You can sell your prize money for $34.97, at current market prices. Or, you could play Santa Claus and just wander the world dropping loot on random people, which will assuredly establish some kind of reputation for yourself. If you know someone deserving, you can go to this thread to nominate them. There's no one nominated there yet, but there's also no displayed deadline, so I suppose that evens out.[Thanks, Steve!]
Don't pay extra for the white
If you think back to your first character, you will probably cringe at the memories of some of the mistakes you made. At the time, I remember things being very confusing; later, it just seems silly. One of the most common mistakes made by new players is spending money where they shouldn't, or spending more than they could have. This may not be of consequence to a level 70, or to those who have level 70s funding their lower characters; but for anyone leveling for the first time, getting swindled can severely eat into your wallet. When leveling professions in particular, which is a very expensive endeavor, one must take extra care. The various recipes you can purchase in the auction house are sometimes overpriced, and other times, are scamming you out of figures such as 80x more than you would have otherwise paid. How can this be? The main way in which you'll see players getting away with this is through selling patterns that are white, as opposed to green, blue or purple. White patterns are vendor-quality items, which means that there are vendors out there, somewhere, that are selling them. Often for 25s-1g pre-Outland, and 4-6g in Outland. These same patterns often sell on the Auction House for up to 20g. In fact, many players go out of their way to hunt down white patterns and sell them at marked up prices. Here are some ways to determine whether the player selling your item is a reseller: Is that player selling multiples of the same pattern? Does the player have other white patterns for sale?
Twelve handy links for EVE Online newbies
CrazyKinux has decided to help all those struggling to get a foothold in the complex EVE Online, by providing a list of links which will get you on your way. Originally there were 10 websites linked to, but the list has grown to 12.The featured sites range from the official player guide at EVE's homepage, to help with character creation, to various information-packed wikis, and even an EVE Online humor site. It can be extremely daunting to start up in EVE Online, as it is quite far removed from the standard MMO fare and also unforgiving of mistakes, so if you are thinking of trying the game then follow the link below and get bookmarking.
WoW Rookie: Money-making 101
Once a week, WoW Rookie attempts to bring new players useful tips and tricks on improving their game.My first character rarely managed to keep more than a gold to her name until after she hit level 60, and I imagine the story is similar for most new players. There are plenty of skills to buy, so many professions to learn about, and always the lure of the auction house attempting to part you from your hard-earned coin. If I only knew then what I know now, mount money at 40 wouldn't have given me such grief -- instead of being frustrated over my lack of funding, I could have been frolicking through Azeroth on a brand new pony. But for new players struggling with money right now, I'm going to offer a few reasonable financial suggestions to help you on the road to your first big purchase.
WoW Rookie: An overview of professions
While some may argue that World of Warcraft doesn't have enough professions, there are enough choices to leave any new player at a loss when it comes to selecting one for the first time. So today we're going to discuss the good and bad of the game's ten primary professions and six secondary professions -- and hopefully give you the knowledge to make some informed decisions next time you need to chose a profession for yourself.Interested in knowing a bit more about the game's professions? Keep reading! Want to tell us which professions you find the most useful (and why)? Leave us a comment!
WoW Rookie: Choose your class!
UPDATE: See our updated guide for Wrath of the Lich King-era classes at WoW Rookie: Choose the right class.The first question many players have when they first tear open their World of Warcraft game box is, "What class should I play?" And I'm afraid that my standard answer to the question is terribly unhelpful, "Why don't you try them and see which one you like best?"I still think that's the best answer (I simply can't know all of your likes or dislikes to simply tell you "Mage" or "Shaman"), but today I'm going to try to give you a more helpful answer by defining the playstyles of each of the nine classes, and making some suggestions on which ones are the most newbie-friendly. So if you're trying to figure out which class might be best for you, read on!
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 4
In the conclusion to this series of posts, we're going to be discussing the game's defensive stats -- which are probably only of minor importance unless you're interested in tanking. Though if you're one of those people (like me!) who has to know everything about the game, this is interesting information which will explain a lot of things about how damage is handled in World of Warcraft. If you're tuning in to all you needed to know about stats for the first time, it may be worthwhile to go back and read part 1 (covering the five basic attributes), part 2 (covering physical damage stats), and part 3 (covering spell damage stats) first -- but if you can't wait to know all there is to know about defense, resilience, spell resistance, dodge, parry, and block, keep reading!
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 3
In today's continuation of our series on what the various stats in World of Warcraft do for you, we're going to be discussing caster stats. And, while a long-time player probably knows everything I'm talking about here, someone who's newer to the game might find spelling all of these things out to be handy. Curious as to how gear with +spell damage helps you out? Not quite sure how useful gear with mana per five seconds on it is for your class? You're in the right place.However, before you keep reading, it's well worth it to check out part 1 (covering the five main game attributes) and part 2 (covering statistics effecting physical damage). Coming up our next installment we'll talk about defensive statistics (armor, dodge, parry, resilience, etc), so stay tuned!
Adventures in Azeroth: Introducing Cat
Last time we talked about my adventures as a newbie hunter running around Zangarmarsh with my pals in WoW Insider's It came from the Blog guild, I was a newly minted level ten trying to figure out what pet to tame. And knowing little of what I was doing, I asked for your advice on what I ought to tame. From the image above and the title of the post, I'm pretty sure you can guess what the results are, but I'll break it down for you anyway. Out of a total of 762 votes, cat won out with a total of 198 votes. However, boar was very close behind with 190 votes. And in third place, the noble owl, with 82 votes. (If you want to see the full results, check here.)So, as you can see, I went out and tamed a cat in Eversong Woods -- and I have to say, it's a completely different game after getting a pet! With a pet doing the tanking, I didn't have problems with monsters rushing up into melee range, where I can't use my bow, and beating on me. (Really, I'm hopeless once something gets into melee range!) And if something does get into melee range? I can just call my faithful cat in to pull it away. Oh yes, it seemed like the game was going to be eeaassssy sailing from here out. But of course nothing's ever easy...
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 2
For those of you who have been playing World of Warcraft since launch, this information is going to be ancient history. However, for players newer to the game, I imagine that many of the stats you'll find on armor and weapons remain something of a mystery -- and it's for the new players in the audience that this post was written. That said, if you haven't read our recent post attempting to explain the five basic attributes, you ought to start there, because the basic stats all impact the more advanced stats we'll be discussing here.In part 2, we're going to be talking about stats that improve physical DPS -- if that sounds interesting to you, read on!
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 1
I don't know about you, but when I first started playing World of Warcraft, I couldn't have told you the difference between strength and spirit. I equipped every piece of gear I found without regard for what statistics it had. Intellect for my rogue and strength for my warlock -- why, yes, that sounds almost exactly the way I must have started my adventures in the land of Azeroth. But, yes, I did learn eventually. I read my class forums a lot, took advice from fellow players, and finally figured out what all of those funny numbers meant on my gear -- and whether they were good for my class and playstyle or not. But I imagine there are some new players in the audience who haven't gotten to that phase yet -- and this is written to help them out. Curious to see what the five base statistics -- agility, intellect, spirit, stamina, and strength -- actually mean? (Note: there are many more statistics to consider than these base five, like attack power and critical rating, but all of the other statistics are influenced by the main five -- so we'll discuss these today and the rest later this week.) Keep reading to find out all about them!
