Filed under: WoW Rookie

WoW Rookie: Add-ons for rookies

by Lisa Poisso Nov 4th 2009 at 3:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

Want to add high-powered functionality and high-octane style to your interface and controls? Add-ons, dear readers. You need add-ons. Also known as mods, add-ons can be such powerful upgrades to your gaming experience that some players consider them mandatory beyond a certain level of play. You can get add-ons that show you how much threat you've built as a tank, add-ons that show how much DPS you're doing relative to other members of the raid, and add-ons that show you who needs Dispel Magic now. There are add-ons that let you reconfigure and move your hotbars anyplace on your screen, add-ons that show you how much gold you have on each of your other characters, and add-ons that point the way to the area where your quest objective awaits ... Sweet stuff, indeed.

WoW Rookie: Primary stats for beginners

by Lisa Poisso Oct 28th 2009 at 2:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

Theorycrafters and experienced players, go away – no really, /shoo! Today's WoW Rookie is for brand new players or players who are embarking on a new alt with absolutely no idea which end is up. The topic: what stats should you look for on gear as you level up? With XP and levels moving so quickly these days, it's not a topic that bears deep reflection or rooting through gear lists online in search of exceptional pieces. Any time you devote to researching and going after specific gear will be rendered moot by equal time spent questing – ding, better gear at your disposal! Still, concentrating on the right set of primary stats gives you a solid foundation for steady, predictable game play and supports experimentation with different spells, specs and tactics.

The early levels (and by that, we mean "vanilla" WoW up through level 60) are all about basic stats (also known as "attributes"): agility, intelligence, spirit, stamina and strength. As you level, you may run across the occasional piece of gear that boasts a fancy attribute like spellpower or attack power. Consider it extra flavoring; you'll meet veteran players who swear by the stuff, but it's not mandatory. Equip the piece if the basic stats are also solid, and carry on. Most early pieces that boast more interesting stats were added later in the game's evolution. The basics remain the fuel for your pre-60 leveling fire.

WoW Rookie: What's my DPS?

by Lisa Poisso Oct 22nd 2009 at 2:00PM

WoW Rookie: Do you have time to raid?

by Lisa Poisso Oct 14th 2009 at 11:00AM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

They're the names on everyone's lips: Lord Jaraxxus. Onyxia. Yogg-Saron. You're dying (literally!) to see these larger-than-life figures – but now that it's almost time to look for a solid guild and get about the business of raiding, you find doubt bubbling to the surface. Work, school, family, other hobbies ... Raiding is supposedly an intense pursuit. Do you have the time it takes to be a successful raider?

The short answer: Yes, you do have time. If you want to raid, somewhere out there is a guild that will work for you. The player population of WoW is so immense that finding a raid that fits your goals and schedule is certainly within the realm of possibility (if not within the actual realm you currently play on -- pardon the pun). We obviously can't tell each and every one of you exactly where to look for a custom fit, but we can give you some starting points to help you identify what to look for in the first place.

WoW Rookie: PUGging without the bad apples

by Lisa Poisso Oct 7th 2009 at 9:00AM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

PUGs (PickUp Groups), which are groups of players that come together on the fly to run instance groups or raids, are a fact of life for most WoW players. Especially in today's WoW, when instances fly by more quickly than ever before (a quick TotC before dinnertime, anyone?), PUGs help you accomplish your quest, gear and achievement goals when you can't run them with a regular group or guild. And now that most players are concentrated in endgame content, PUGs are likely to be the only way you'll get a shot at running earlier instances as intended, with a group of the appropriate level.

Sounds like a winner ... So why do PUGs get such a bad rap? Mostly, it's the bad apple theory – but as Donny Osmond warbled so winningly above, "one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, girl." In a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG like WoW, you shouldn't be afraid to get involved with other players. Let's see how you can dig into PUGs without biting into (or being) the worm.

WoW Rookie: A computer to love WoW with

by Lisa Poisso Sep 29th 2009 at 6:00PM

WoW Rookie: Bag it

by Lisa Poisso Sep 23rd 2009 at 11:00AM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

With the excitement his week focused on the all-new, 22-slot Onyxia Hide Backpack, it seems anticlimactic to think that many players are struggling simply to maintain enough space in their bags for quest items and a decent amount of loot. It's easy to throw down big money for big bags when you're max level and rolling in gold from dailies – but new players must walk the line between overspending for convenience's sake and having enough bag space to get the job done.

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: bigger bags are a savvy investment. There's definitely a point of diminishing returns, though, which will be obvious to even the most naive of WoW rookies searching through the Containers section in the Auction House. (Really. You'll know when it's time to stop upgrading. We promise.) Getting wise to what's available and where to find it will help you squeeze out those last few precious bag slots without going broke in the process.

WoW Rookie: Heirlooms ease the way for alts

by Lisa Poisso Sep 16th 2009 at 4:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

While most of us want to bite into the big leagues as soon as we ding 80, some players are more interested in trying out another class or the other faction. As soon as they reach the top, they dip back down to the bottom again. Making the road to 80 quicker and easier the second (and each subsequent) time around are heirloom items.

First introduced in Patch 3.0.2, heirloom items are "big brother" helper items designed to be purchased by level 80 characters and passed along to younger characters on the same account, realm and faction. Heirlooms were specifically created to help your alts level up. Their stats get better and better as your character levels, and the shoulders and chest armor even provide an XP bonus. Such a deal!

WoW Rookie: Reading about Warcraft

by Lisa Poisso Sep 9th 2009 at 5:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

Even if you're not a roleplayer, it's almost impossible not to find yourself swept up by some aspect of the hundreds of compelling stories tucked into the World of Warcraft. The question is, how can you dig deeper? Where do you find more? The answer: Books ... Manga ... Comics ... RPGs .... Page after page after page of glorious lore. Blizzard approves the storylines and lore included in the Warcraft and World of Warcraft line of novels, although you won't find a straight and clear progression across the whole line. Not every story and character crosses over from books to game (and vice versa).

Besides the Warcraft novels, WoW-starved readers can chew through enough manga, roleplaying game books and gaming guides to sate any lore feeding frenzy. The best part? You enjoy +Lore bonuses to your online play experience. Even the RPG books add color to the overall picture. Follow us beyond the break for a basic reading outline to escort you down Warcraft's path of lore.

WoW Rookie: How not to be a noob

by Lisa Poisso Sep 2nd 2009 at 6:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

This week, WoW Rookie would like to share a little gem of an article we discovered that delivers a catch-all of collective wisdom on rookie mistakes. If you've ever agonized over how to act and what to do (and how not to act and what not to do) in your first group, or your first instance, or your first Battleground, or your first raid ... Be still, restless heart; the answers are here.

What's to learn from this oh-so-savvy article? Start off with a listing of common tactical mistakes categorized by role (tanks, healers and DPS); these are the Learn2Play basics that aren't necessarily things you'll learn leveling up on quests and the occasional instance. Next up, listings of things you should and shouldn't do between pulls in a group, when part of a raid group or duking it out in a Battleground. A final section discusses netiquette and common social conventions (something WoW Rookie has also covered extensively).

WoW Rookie: Handing over the goods

by Lisa Poisso Aug 27th 2009 at 9:00AM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

You've saved for weeks. You've farmed for mats; you've farmed for gold. You've scoured the Auction House and nabbed every last, hard-to-find component. You have everything you need for that Big Cool Crafted Item. The final question remains: How do you know the crafter to whom you've just handed your precious trove of materials won't simply turn around and log off?

The best insurance against hit-and-run crafting is an ounce or two of prevention. The safest methods, of course, are to make your item yourself or to use a crafter who's able to provide all the necessary materials. If those options aren't on the table, however, you'll need to track down a reputable maker. We'll show you how to cover your bases.

WoW Rookie: Sharding etiquette

by Lisa Poisso Aug 19th 2009 at 1:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

This week, we're going to help you understand a practice that varies wildly from group to group, server to server and even expansion to expansion. "In the past few months, I've run into a situation with people who are (or who I think are) new players who happen to be 80," reader Sarabande writes to WoW Rookie. "To them, the idea of DEing BoP items for shards is completely alien (and to at least one, he just rolled greed on everything 'just to see if he could get it')."

Should your group roll for unwanted or unneeded drops when an enchanter is on hand to disenchant them? What's accepted in one situation might be scorned in another. Because there's no single way to handle the situation, it's important for new players to be aware of the options. It's also important to understand the reasons why players feel so strongly one way or another about this issue. Because there's no single "correct" method, the savvy player respects the group consensus.

WoW Rookie: Save everything, sell everything

by Lisa Poisso Aug 12th 2009 at 1:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

It's clean-up time around here. Now that the WoW Rookie Guide is up and running to shuttle you to precisely the information you've been wondering about, we're poking through our older pieces to bring them up to date. (If there are any WoW Rookies whose datedness you find especially galling, shoot me a link at lisa [at] wow [dot] com and I'll prioritize it for updating.) Sometimes during the updating process, I uncover little gems, like this excerpt from Elizabeth Harper's 2007 piece Money-making 101. Be sure to visit the entire article, by the way; it's an outstanding resource to make sure you arrive at your character's more costly milestones with gold in your pockets.

In the meantime, let's talk about what's worth selling and what's not. First of all: keep everything. Make buying or making big bags a priority; after all, you can't make money if you can't bring home loot to sell. If your bags get full, sure, go ahead and destroy grey items (items with their names listed in grey letters). (To destroy an item, left-click it, drag it to an open spot on your screen, and left-click again to drop it; reply "Yes" to the dialog box that pops up.)

WoW Rookie: Get up to speed with a mount

by Lisa Poisso Aug 5th 2009 at 4:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Tired of hoofing it yet? Once you reach level 20, you can hoof it in an entirely new way: on your first mount. Mounts used to become available at level 40; then the level requirement was dropped to 30, and now Patch 3.2 (August 2009) has set the bar for obtaining your first mount to level 20. On the back of your trusty steed (or Kodo or lizard or birdie or ...), you'll be able to zip across increasingly larger zones and quest areas in style. You'll start off on a standard ground mount. Later, you can upgrade to faster versions of those creatures and eventually to mounts that can fly.

There are two parts to getting yourself into the saddle. The first step is training your riding skill. You'll upgrade your riding skill at level 40, 60 and 70, giving you access to faster mounts and mounts that fly.

WoW Rookie: Look it up in the WoW Rookie Guide

by Lisa Poisso Jul 31st 2009 at 4:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Feeling threatened by brutish, hulking questions about the game? Confusion breathing down your neck? Feeling a little quivery? ... A little uncertain? ... As if you suspected you should have brought a group -- if you knew how to get one, that is?

Don't be intimidated by what you don't know about the World of Warcraft. Get savvy with WoW Rookie! We've built a brand, spanking new listing of topics to make sure you don't get spanked by guys like that guy over there to the right.

Well, ok. Maybe we don't have a Hogger strat in the guide. And maybe Hogger will probably spank you anyway. But you know what we mean. At least, we think you would, if you weren't so busy running back from the Spirit Healer after coming face to face with that ugly gnoll ...

Read the Wow Rookie Guide >>

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