So, I'm about to come around to 1 year of WoW playing. So, 14.99 x 12 = 179.88, guess what, i have lots more to come. I have not bought a single game in the time that I've been playing WoW, and I don't regret it at all. Here is what i have learned in 1 year of gameplay, and almost 2 max level characters.
1. Find your character of choice. My first character was actually a priest, who I deleted after about 2 hours of game play. I was lucky that I found my character of choice on my second attempt. A word of advice, which will be frequent throughout this post: RESEARCH! Yes, research for the video game. MMOs are more complex than you may think. WoW is no different.
2. L2P. basically, learn to play your class. Ive gone through the games almost twice now, and multiple times, (one of my best friends who is level 65) don't know how to play their classes. If you're a key class, for example, a warrior, you better know how to tank. You wont get anywhere unless you can tank, nobody want to hear excuses when running instances, if you're a priest, you better be able to heal.
3. Hybrid classes. Ive been one of these classes, a Paladin. Hybrid classes are meant to do whatever the group needs at the time, once more, no excuses. If you're going to make an excuse, leave the group. I hate paladin tanking, but i did it when I had too. Druids are the same, you heal if you have to, you tank if you have to. No excuses once more. One recommendation I have for this is have more than one set of gear. This may sound odd to new players, but if you have one set for soloing, and another set for say healing, when you have to heal, it makes life SO much easier.
4. Crowd Control. Only 3 classes in the game have legit crowd control, 4 if you want to count a crappy seduce. Mages, polymorph. Hunters, Freezing Trap. Rogues, Sap. And warlocks, if it comes down to it, summon your succy and seduce. The most annoying groups are groups without good crowd control. Example: Druid Warrior Shaman Paladin(Tank) Paladin(Heal). That group would FAIL any instance past level 30.
5. Time Management. I think this is the same for everyone. When my Mage got to 60, its /played was 22 days. For my Paladin it was 10. The record is 4. When you level your first character, its going to be slow, and painful. When you try again, you get the hang of it, and move faster. Some keys, FIRST AND FOREMOST: GRINDING SUCKS. Seriously. For a new player, grinding is probably the worst idea ever. And I did it on my mage, from 50-60. That took me a month of playing, I did 50-60 on my paladin in a week of questing. See the difference. Questing not only gives you good money, but sometimes, you might get a good lookin item. Second Tip: LOOK UP YOUR QUESTS! It takes more time asking people "Where is this quest" than it does for you to lookup the quest online at www.thottbot.com or wow.allakhazam.com . Take the time, get familiar with the sites.
6. AddOns. In the end, up to you, but extremely helpful. One that my guild uses is called Cartographer. Make sure you get the complete package, so you can get the full experience of the addon. On sites like thottbot and allakhazam, you can see that people posted coordinates, mods like cartographer help you find the proper coordinates of where to go. AddOns are mainly Blizzards way to say "Make our crappily programmed game nicer" Addons range on a scale from Anti-Spam, to stop those pesky asian gold farmers, to UI modifiers, that change the default blizzard setup.
7. Max Level (question mark). Will you spend the time and efffort(and money) to get a max level character? I did, and it felt great, remember, this is really upto what you want to do. in my opinion it's a waste of money to play the game for a few months, and not have a decently leveled character. I got to 60 from june --> mid september on my mage, with all of july spent working. So I went slow, but I know others that are slower, and some people who have been playing the game since it started and STILL dont have a single character over 40.
8. Level 40, Quitting Time? Well, you're level 40, and youve got your mount. Do you really have any other reason to play? Once again, this is entirely up to you, i know TONS of people who got to 40 and quit, because two things happen. 1. You have your mount... Whats next? Everything is so distant. 2. The 40s are rated the worst levels in the game, which is where the nickname '40s blues' comes into play. These levels are long, boring, and really quite the drag.
9. Instancing vs Questing vs Grinding. Which one? There are 3 ways to get to max level, I did grinding/instancing on my first character, and i mostly quest on my second. Neither are the fastest. The fastest way to level is to quest while finding a group for an instance, and grinding on your way to the quest. Confusing, right? The fastest way to level does indeed combine all 3 into one super leveling method.
10. So you're max level. Now what? (The big question) PvE or PvP, The two tracks you can follow. PvP is just that, fighting other players in Arenas and Battlegrounds to save up towards your PvP armor sets and weapons. PvE is the side Ive chosen, and I think is more fun. Both are repetitive yes, and both have their pros and cons. But it takes a lot more work to get PvE oriented than it does PvP. PvE guilds are the most recognized in the game because they do what you are meant to do in RPGs. Progress. It is said all over the WoW forums that the grind to max level is only half the game. Its true. When you reach max level, its time to deck yourself out with some really nice gear. Both get you the gear, but in completely separate ways.
PvE: TEAMWORK TEAMWORK TEAMWORK! While both depend on teams, PvE, or endgame is one where everybody matters. You need to let everyone know of your talents, your weaknesses, etc etc. Make sure you are in a Raiding guild, or one that is goign to become a raiding guild. Most guilds do not accept foreign players unless they are guild friends. Thats of the GUILD, not just a player. Thats the other thing. Endgame is there so you help the GUILD, its not all about you here, which is exactly what PvP is. You work for the benifit of the guild in endgame, so yes you can go to a raid every day for a week and get nothing for it. Sad, i know, but thats the way it goes. For endgame, you need to be endgame geared. That means running 5 man instances until the raid leader says your gear is good enough to raid. Even when you're ready to raid, you need to keep your gear at the best it can be. In between raids, people either farm materials to get an armor piece crafted, or they keep running certain 5 mans that get them new, improved gear. You need to be in the best gear possible to ensure that you're gear can help EVERYONE and you can do your job efficiently, and help your guild progress.
PvP: Easy explanation. Do arenas, get points for your arena set. Do battlegrounds, get the amount of honor and marks for your Warlord/ Marshal set. All about you geared. Accually, more like gearing yourself to be better than the rest.
My final point: 12. When you start playing, the game is cool, but make sure you're in a guild that you like. Play for the community, not the game, as I say. If i wasn't in the guild I'm in, theres no way i would have still been playing. I love my community, almost as much as I love the MC community.
And finally, HAVE FUN. At the end of the day ITS STILL A GAME. Make sure not to stress yourself out over it. and enjoy the World of Warcraft! (I'll Probably be updating this at times)
I read all of that, and I agree with all of that. I'm one of those people who had to pay several different months because I kept quitting in the 40's.
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WoW sounds like a game I'd really love, but I refuse to pay a subscription fee to play a game.
That and I know I'd get sucked into it and spend way too much time playing.