wowguidelist.com

September 2, 2010

WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players

Filed under: featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, raiding, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 8:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

We've told you how to get ready for your first raid -- and now, we're going to help you actually get your hands dirty, in a new series for beginning raiders in Ready Check. We fired things up last week with Raiding 101; look for additional installments in future weeks (including today!).

Beta access being what it is (up and down -- and when it counts most for deadlines, the latter), we were unable to complete the Horde companion piece to last week's Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm. We're still working on that for you ... In the meantime, since we've got you revved up for Cataclysm news, we'll round up more rookie-centric details found scattered across the site over the past month.

Spoiler No. 1: Cataclysm spoilers ahead; proceed at your own risk.

Spoiler No. 2: This week's content has been posted previously, elsewhere at WoW.com. If you're an assiduous reader, this week's content will not be new news for you.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

August 26, 2010

WoW Rookie: Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm

Filed under: aldrassil, banethil-barrow-den, call-to-arms, darnassus, elwynn-forest, featured, gnomes, goldshire, guide, hogger, how-to-play-wow, howling-tree, kharanos, new-to-world-of-warcraft, newbie-zones, noob-guide, northshire-abbey, rookie-guide, rut-theran-village, ruttheran-village, shadowglen, teldrassil, the-train-depot, train-depot, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 8:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

Spoiler alert: Today's WoW Rookie is nothing but one big spoiler of the changes Cataclysm will bring to existing Alliance newbie zones. If you're aiming to hit the expansion spoiler-free with fresh, unsullied eyes, you'll want to re-join us two weeks from now (since next week's WoW Rookie will look at Cataclysm newbie zones Horde-side).

But for those of you who are itching for a glimpse into what's in store for newly created Alliance characters in the expansion, we've got brief highlights and screenshot gallery samplers of the gnome, dwarf, night elf and human starting experiences. There's not much new to report for draenei in the Exodar, save that their flight point has been moved inside the city. And as for the new Alliance race, the worgen, we've given them their own detailed gallery and write-up, and you can head over to our YouTube channel to watch video of several worgen gameplay segments. Come back next week for a similar look ahead at the newbie zone revamps for Horde races.

And now, screenshot galleries (one last spoiler alert for the road -- Cataclysm spoilers abound!) of each starting area plus written highlights, after the break.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

August 19, 2010

WoW Rookie: Coming back to WoW after a break

Filed under: coming-back, extended-absence, extended-leave, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, resubscribe, resubscribing, retirement, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 10:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

You're not really a rookie -- but man, it's been ages since you last played! Azeroth feels like a whole new world. A "dungeon finder" -- huh? And why are all these people pelting you with friend invitations that have real-life names attached?

As more and more former players start peeking their heads back into the game in anticipation of the launch of Cataclysm, we'll be seeing more and more uncertain vets fumbling through mechanics and features even those rookies among us now take for granted. What's the best way to get back up to speed after an extended time away from WoW? Reader Anthony writes:

I used to be an avid WoW player but quit about a year ago (just before patch 3.1). I have been entertaining the idea of getting back in the game but am kind of intimidated, because I think there probably have been so many addons to the game since I left, I'll be totally lost. I used to use your website as a resource and visited it daily when I did play, but I stopped after I quit playing. So I'm not really sure what has changed.

And I am also not really sure if it's a good time to pick up playing again because of the expansion that's supposedly coming out. So I was wondering if there could be any way that someone on your team could give me a quick little up-to-speed brief on some of the changes that have happened, mostly with the gameplay aspects; I'm not overall concerned about new raids and stuff. I used to raid all day, every day when I played before but would rather just ease into that later. So if there's maybe a link or something, I would greatly appreciate it.

A "link or something"? WoW Rookie can certainly oblige. Join us after the break for a healthy dose of tips on getting your bearings if you've been away from WoW for quite some time.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Coming back to WoW after a break

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: Coming back to WoW after a break originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

August 12, 2010

WoW Rookie: Collective wisdom

Filed under: best-class, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, priest-addon, projected-textures, rookie-guide, tanking, tips, tricks, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 11:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

Let's face it: Crowdsourcing is king. Every company that beta tests its products (hello, Cataclysm!) knows the benefits of having hundreds, thousands or even millions of creative (and not-so-creative) minds plinking away at its features. If we put our heads together ...

Today's WoW Rookie rounds up recent posts at WoW.com that spawned info-rich comments ready to mined by us newbies. Before we dive in, though, I'd like to remind everyone (even you old hands out there who happen to be reading along) to keep sending in your favorite pointers for new players -- things it took you months to realize when you first started playing, things you wish you'd known back in the day. Send 'em in to lisa@wow.com, and we'll run one every week in WoW Rookie.

One more piece of business: Got a question or wondering about something in WoW that has you stumped? WoW Rookie is opening a mailbag section especially for new and leveling players. Send in your questions to lisa@wow.com.

Now, with thanks and much love to our prolific Breakfast Topic commenters, let us unleash the wisdom of the masses!

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Collective wisdom

Filed under:

WoW Rookie: Collective wisdom originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

August 5, 2010

WoW Rookie: Loremaster, a completist’s dream

Filed under: everyquest, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, lore, loremaster, loremaster-achievement, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, questing, quests, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-loremaster, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 7:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

For those of us who are leveling up or even digging into a fresh 80, there's never been a better time to fold in The Loremaster to the ol' to-do list. Flying your Loremaster title proves you've been around the block; it's not like The Explorer, which you can hoof your way through even at level 1. Earning your Loremaster title means grinding out literally hundreds and hundreds of quests over every step of your journey through Azeroth, Outland and Northrend, from level 1 through level 80. It's the completist player's dream, a title that shows you've paid your dues in every zone at every level of the game.

We're not bringing this up now as just one more item to chuck into your pre-Cataclysm bucket list; indeed, The Loremaster won't be going anywhere in Cataclysm. While none of the numbers of quests required for completion have been adjusted yet to accommodate Cataclysm material, Blizzard has assured players not to worry about it. The Loremaster quest count has been updated before, so we should be confident that it will be adjusted again.

Still, if you're playing through the old content anyway, it simply makes sense to run through quests that will be disappearing when the expansion cracks Azeroth apart at the seams. Sure, there'll be plenty of new quests to do -- but you'll never get the chance to run all of these particular quests again.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Loremaster, a completist's dream

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: Loremaster, a completist's dream originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

July 29, 2010

WoW Rookie: Cataclysm changes to early and middle levels

Filed under: cataclysm-leveling, choose-my-adventure, dont-stand-in-fire, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, it-came-from-the-blog, leveling, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 11:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

If you're not a leveling player -- and sorry, but that does not include you wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am types zipping up your latest alts -- then as I tell my family when they're hovering around me when I'm trying to write, "I love you; now go away." Today's WoW Rookie is all about stuff that matters to players who focus on WoW's leveling game. If you've got the whole leveling thing down pat ... if leveling is just a chore to get to the end game, where "the game begins at 80" ... if your pre-80 character is just one among your entire stable of toons ... then move along, big guy. Your secret handshake didn't pass muster at this clubhouse.

For those of us gleefully picking our way through the levels, we're going to take another look this week at what's ahead for us in the expansion. First, I've got a lead to share on a friendly place to tuck into for companionable leveling. Then we'll round up a whole collection of facts and developments on how Cataclysm will change the game for players in the 1-60ish range. If you're an assiduous reader of The Queue, none of this will be new news; we've cherry-picked some recent goodies that apply to players in the early to middle levels.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Cataclysm changes to early and middle levels

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: Cataclysm changes to early and middle levels originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

July 22, 2010

WoW Rookie: The basics of dual spec

Filed under: Dual-Spec, dual-specialization, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, leveling, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, respec, rookie-guide, specialization, talent-spec, talents, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 7:00 pm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

World of Warcraft is a game of specialists; even (and especially) the so-called hybrid classes end up playing in specific, focused roles in group and end-game content. The higher you level and the more talents you learn, the more specialized your character becomes. Your "spec" (specialization), determined by where you've distributed your points among the three talent trees available to your class, begins to define and inform your gameplay as you group with others more and more often.

At some point, you'll want to experiment with another set of talents -- that's time for a respec. (Look for talent recommendations in our leveling guides and our Class 101 series.) Soon enough, you'll be wishing you could switch between one set of talents and another -- and you can, with dual specialization.

Before we dig into the basics, we should note one of the more exciting changes for leveling players coming up in Cataclysm. The expansion will lower both the required level and cost of dual spec, giving players more flexibility for group and individual play than ever before.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: The basics of dual spec

Filed under:

WoW Rookie: The basics of dual spec originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

July 16, 2010

WoW Rookie: Preparing for your first raid

Filed under: featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, how-to-raid, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, raiding-guide, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 12:00 am
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

When it comes to advice for new players who want to get into raiding, it sometimes seems there are two schools of thought. The first is exemplified by the members of the Council of Verah Srs Bsns, which is filled with terse guild officers grinding their teeth over loot distribution and old-schoolers who started raiding back when grinding for flask and pot mats took as long as the raid itself. Their pre-raiding checklists tend to be ... long. The other camp, the l33tspeak PugGerZ, sees WoW as a series of pickup raids in which the raid leaders and boss mods issue connect-a-dot instructions on where to go and what to do -- and if that's too confusing, there's always the strat video. On the other monitor. While you're starting the encounter for the first time.

As always, the truth about raid prep lies somewhere in between. Yes, more resources to help raiders raid exist than ever before -- and despite that, yes, you still need to come prepared. How to do that? Join us after the break for a whirlwind look at preparing for your first raid.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Preparing for your first raid

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: Preparing for your first raid originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

July 8, 2010

WoW Rookie: What’s new for leveling players in Cataclysm

Filed under: cataclysm-leveling, cataclysm-talents, featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, leveling, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 7:00 pm
New around here? We've got your back! See all our collected tips, tricks and how-to's for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

This week's WoW Rookie is all about leveling in Cataclysm. There's a completely overhauled talent point system that creates a more focused leveling experience. There's a new feature that blasts players with the full flavor of their chosen spec right at level 10. There are new zone and instance level ranges for all the old content you're already working your way through. Want still more? We've even got full walk-throughs of selected revamped zones. If you wish to remain completely spoiler-free, we'll see you next week; everyone else, gather 'round and let's buzz about what's coming out of the Cataclysm beta that will be affecting new and leveling players.

The biggest buzz, of course, is how different your character's development will feel now that players will be funneling down a single talent tree for all but the last 15 levels. Blizzard's complete overhaul of the talent system, which will debut to beta testers during the next round or two of beta builds, locks players into a single talent tree all the way until level 70. Join us after the break for everything we know at this point.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: What's new for leveling players in Cataclysm

Filed under: ,

WoW Rookie: What's new for leveling players in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

July 1, 2010

WoW Rookie: Keep your key targets in focus

Filed under: addons, featured, focus, focus-target, guide, how-to-play-wow, macro, macros, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, rookie-guide, target, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft — WoW.com @ 6:00 pm
New around here? We've got your back! See all our collected tips, tricks and how-to's for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

Better keep an eye on that guy: the furbolg you're escorting through the crowd, the off tank you're in charge of healing, the add you're supposed to keep locked down ... The problem is, you also need to click over here to -- argh, lost him in the crush! Now you'll have to tab ba -- whoops, passed him again! OK, start stabbing with the mouse ...

If this sounds anything like the chaotic chatter in your brain during a typical encounter, you need more than mere help; you need a focus target. A focus target is a secondary target that helps you keep track of an additional unit other than your current target. Essentially, it's a second target that you can set and unset at will. Focus targets are a great way of keeping track of an escort mob you need to locate in a crowd, an NPC you need to crowd control, a key healing assignment ...

Once you set a focus target, it's right there on your screen. You can freely change your main target and turn your attention elsewhere while still being able to monitor your focus target's health, mana and casting bars. You can also create macros that let you apply spells and abilities to your focus target with a single press of a button.

Continue reading WoW Rookie: Keep your key targets in focus

Filed under:

WoW Rookie: Keep your key targets in focus originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Older Posts »