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By Cyanna
I’d thought I would write about some of the basics to playing Wow.
Here are some of the things that had me stumped when I first started playing…
Repairing armor. When your armor needs repair, a little “paper doll” figure
appears on your screen under the mini map. What needs repair is in yellow. If
your weapon needs repair, you’ll see an outline of a sword instead. To repair
items, go to a vendor. The vendor *must be* a leather crafter, weapon crafter or
bowyer. A food vendor can’t repair items.
Conning mobs. This works quite a bit differently here than in EQ. First of all,
you can see the mobs level, so it’s easy to determine. If you can’t see a level,
but a skull and crossbones plus a ???, don’t attack. It’s so much higher in
level than you that you can’t figure out exactly what level it is! These guys
are insta-death. Now, some mobs are KOS, some aren’t. Simply click the mob and
look at the bar describing it. You’ll see the name of it on a colored
background. A green background means friendly, yellow means it won’t attack you
unless you attack it, and red means KOS.
Next is the font color of the mob. For the most part, the level will tell you
what you need to know, but if the font is gray, you won’t get any experience
from it.
Lastly is the level. I’ve found I can take anything up to three levels higher
than I am. You might have different results. But, at 20 taking on a 23, it’s
iffy. If all goes well, I’ll win. But, if I can’t shake aggro, or get an add, or
anything less than a perfect fight, I’m gonna lose.
A dragon curled around the icon of a mob means it’s an elite mob. Expect it to
be a *lot* tougher than other mobs the same level. Lots more HP, and hits a lot
harder. Leave these alone if they’re as little as one level higher than you. You
can solo one the same level as you, but it’s gonna be a tough fight.
Which brings me to death. Wow has taken the death penalty out of the game, but
it’s still not fun to die. Your armor takes a beating (and repairing gets
expensive later). When you die, you appear at a graveyard – every zone has at
least one. The world is in black and white, and the only things you can see are
other dead players. On your mini-map, you’ll see a marker showing which
direction you corpse is in. Once you get close enough, the marker turns into a
gravestone. You can also view it on the main map. Once you get close, you’ll see
a resurrect button appear on your screen. At this point, you can see other NPCs,
etc, so you can pick a safe spot to rez in.
Now, if you died in a spot you can’t get to (I know this one from firsthand
experience, lol!), there’s am angel in the graveyard that will rez you there.
All armor takes a 25% hit to durability, and you suffer from rez effects for 10
minutes. Not fun. This is a last resort.
Keep in mind, even though one would think an incorporeal body would not be
restrained by physical objects, in WoW you are. Tree, mountains, etc, *will* all
get in your way.
Getting items. These are easy – if it’s got a red background, you can’t use it.
Shift-click on something, and you can type in a quantity.
Fatigue. This is just something I found out about the other day. Warlocks get a
water-breathing spell, so I was checking things out underwater. I was going
rather far out to sea, and went deeper and deeper, when all of a sudden I saw a
fatigue meter pop on my screen and start counting down. Fatigue is Wow’s way of
making sure you don’t swim across the ocean. If the fatigue meter gets to zero,
you die. Period. No, I didn’t die. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I
did figure “bad things” would happen if I let it run out.
Items. Different items have different quality. Now, I haven’t figured out what
quality will do for you, but I assume it has something to do with durability.
Anyway, when the item’s font is grey, it’s poor quality. White is normal, green
is good, blue is very good. Not sure if there’s anything beyond blue. Probably,
but I just haven’t come across it yet.
Soulbound. When an item is soulbound, it means only you can wear it. Items
become soulbound several ways… one is usually by a quest, when it “comes” that
way. Most common is by equipping it. You’ll get a pop-up warning when that
happens. You equip it, you own it. Last is by looting it. These are from drops,
and as soon as you loot something, it becomes soulbound. I haven’t seen a lot of
these, but they become more common as you level. Soulbound items can only be
sold to NPC vendors.
Loot rules. Wow can be set to automatically set loot rules. There’s free for
all, round robin, master loot, need before greed.
Free for all. Everyone can loot.
Round robin. Everyone takes a turn. When it’s your turn to loot, you’ll see
sparklies above the mob. My favorite.
Master loot. One person only can loot.
Need before greed. Not well implemented, in my opinion. Based on what you can
use. So, casters can only be eligible for cloth. Warriors, for example, are
eligible for everything because they can wear cloth, leather, chain and mail.
Threshold. This is a special setting, which is used in conjunction with all the
other ones. It basically forces people to roll on items according to the
threshold. So, if it’s set to uncommon (for example), everyone will get a pop-up
box with the options to pass or roll on any blue item (uncommon quality). The
winner automatically gets the item added to their inventory.
Pesonally, I like round robin with uncommon threshold.
Maps. There are two maps in Wow. The main map (hit “M”) and the mini map. The
main map shows the entire zone you’re in. Right-clicking on it will zoom you out
to view the whole continent. While in the zone mode, you can see areas you’ve
explored. As you wander around in new areas, every so often you’ll see a message
saying you’ve “discovered” such-and-such a place and you’ll get some experience.
This area will now be revealed in your main map.
The mini map is the small circle in the upper right. It shows much more detail,
but only for a small area surrounding you. Party members will show up here, if
you have a pet you’ll see it here, and as I mentioned before, if you die the
direction to your corpse will be marked here. When you get somewhat close to
major cities, you’ll get a pointer to them on here also. Trackers get a lot more
options on the mini-map, but for everyone else, that’s about it.
I use a combination of the mini map and the main map to get places. Both have
north always at the top, so it’s easy to figure out where you need to go and
what direction you are currently headed.
Travel. The first time you go anywhere, it’s by foot. The only exceptions are
the trams from Stormwind to Ironforge, and boats. But, once you get to a new
place, look for a griffonmaster. Griffons are fast rides to different areas, but
you first need to learn the route. So, Ironforge to Menethil Bay. The first time
you do it you need to make a run through the Wetlands, a 20 - 30 zone. But,
after that it’s a quick griffon ride away.
Not all griffon rides connect to each other. Menethil Bay won’t get you to
Westfall. But, you can go to Ironforge, and then to Westfall. You’ll learn the
routes eventually.
Every zone has a griffon connection. Finding the town that HAS the griffons can
be a little challenging however. And obviously, horde-controlled zones will not
have flights available to alliance. I think (not sure) contested zones have
flights paths for both horde and alliance. Also, I don’t know if higher level
zones have flight paths. But, so far everything does.
Boats are needed to go across the sea. The Eastern Kingdoms to Kalimdor can only
be done by boat. And yes, I’ve heard the boats are a little buggy. But, they are
frequent, so there’s not a lot of waiting. You can go from Kalimdor to
Teldrassel without using a boat, but the first time you have to.
Everyone starts off with a hearthstone. These can be used once every 30 minutes.
They teleport you to your home inn. Think gate from EQ.
NPCs. Every town has a bunch of NPCs to interact with. Trainers, vendors,
quest-givers. Here’s a quick low-down:
Questgivers. These guys have an “!” above their heads. A white exclamation point
means they have a quest, but it’s too high for you. Yellow means it’s available.
Green means it’s a griffonmaster and they have a new route for you. If you see a
“?” above their heads, that means you have a quest involving them. A yellow
question mark means you completed the quest and need to talk to them to finish
it up. White means you have the quest, but it isn’t done yet.
Trainers. There are several kinds.
• First are class trainers. You go to the appropriate one to learn new
spells/abilities. Outside of the beginning levels, you get new spells/abilities
on even numbered levels.
• Second are profession trainers. These guys will teach you first aid,
tailoring, leatherworking, etc.
• Last are skill trainers, usually called (whatever) masters. For example, from
weapon masters you can learn how to use new weapons (depending on your class –
not all weapons can be used by all classes). For example, hunters start off with
daggers, but have to train to use 1h and 2h swords. Casters have to learn to use
wands.
Vendors. A food vendor sells food and can’t repair armor. A clothier sells cloth
armor, and can repair armor. A bower sells bows, guns, arrows and bullets, and
can repair armor. When the vendor window is up, right-click an item to sell it.
You’ll see it disappear from your inventory and show up on the vendor. This is
your last chance to get it back. You get money as soon as the vendor gets the
item.
Inn Keepers. Every town has an inn. Camping here gives you a bonus to rested
experience. You can make a town your home (think of binding in EQ) by talking to
an innkeeper. Once you make a town your home, your hearthstone will port you
back here when you use it.
Griffon masters. Already talked about these guys, but here it is again. Speak to
them to get a ride somewhere, or if it’s a new place, speak to them to get the
flight path.
Auction House. The auction house has auctioneers you can speak to. These guys
are used to buy and sell from other players. Expect HEAVY lag here. Last night I
experienced a 5 minute delay between searching for something and seeing the
results. Soulbound items cannot be sold here.
Bankers. Same as EQ. You can buy additional space if you run out.
Stablemasters. Only for hunters. These guys will hold your pet while you go get
a new one. You can stable two pets, but the second slot costs 5 gold. Ouch!
Folks standing around with cool-looking mounts. I don’t remember the names of
these, hehe! But, you can buy a mount from them. Different races get different
mounts. They are EXPENSIVE. Getting a mount is a two step process… first is
buying the mount, second is training in it. You can buy a mount at any time, but
you can only get the riding skill at level 40.
Visitor centers. You can create a guild here. Not positive, but I believe it
costs 10 gold to make a guild, and you need 10 people. You can also get a guild
tabard here too. The guildleader (I think, maybe officers too) can create a
tabard, and the members can buy it for 1 gold.
Tradeskills. Everyone can have two primary tradeskills and all the secondary
ones. I’m not going to go into all the trades here, it’s just too much to talk
about. Basically, first aid, fishing and cooking are secondary trades. You can
learn all of these. Everything else is primary, and you can only have two. Look
here for more info.
Misc. commands.
• /w is for whisper, works like /t in EQ.
• /t is attack. Could be fatal mixing it up with the EQ command.
• Right-clicking a mob will also attack it.
• Hit the “O” key to bring up your friends/who/guild list.
• /r will reply to a whisper.
• /who (spelled out) works similar to EQ.
• “X” is a toggle to sit/stand.
• “Z” will sheath your sword.
• F1 – F5 targets teammates.
• “Tab” targets the nearest mob.
• “M” brings up the main map (whole screen).
• /p is for party chat.
• /gu is for guild.
• /say is for say.
• /1 is general chat /2 is for auction, /3 is for defense, /4 is for lfg chat.
These are all for your current zone only.
• “escape” will bring up the game options window. You might want to remap a few
commands. For example, I bound the reverse-look to pressing the wheel on my
mouse. Handy for looking behind me as I run away from something.
So, that’s about it. If you read through what’s here you’ll have a basic
understanding how to get around Wow. I would also recommend browsing this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/
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