World of Warcraft Beginners Guide

So you've found the amazing World of Warcraft and you're trying to wing your way through on a hoof and a prayer. Well, I created this post to help walk you through the first steps of exploring an amazing and fantastic online world.

First, you'll need to choose a realm (server to play on). All the realms are identical copies of the game world. But if your playing with friends you will need to be in the same realm to interact with each other.

There are four types of realms. Choose carefully as it will effect the other players in the opposing fraction and them attacking you.

• Normal (Player Versus Enemies) The standard. Role-play is optional, and all player-versus-player fights have to be consensual.
• PvP (Player Versus Player) For players who seek out a challenge. Role-play is still optional, but opposite faction players can attack you almost anywhere, and at all times. Be on your guard.
• Normal-RP (Player Versus Enemies – Role Playing) On this type of realm, role-play is practically mandatory, but player-versus-player combat still has to be agreed upon by both parties.
• PvP-RP (Player Versus Player – Role Playing) As with regular PvP realms, cross-faction combat is an ever-present threat, and role-play is the norm.

Next, you'll need to create your character. Your character is your avatar in the World of Warcraft. And you may create as many as you want. Most players have several characters so that they may experiment with the different race and class combinations.

Choose Your Race - The original World of Warcraft has eight races to choose from, but with the expansions, there are twelve. But first you'll need to decide which fraction to join. But be careful, if you join the Alliance fraction and your friend joins the Horde, you will not be able to chat with each other.

Fraction and races are basically social choices and determine what your character will look like, who you can interact with and how you interact with them. Before you make a choice in either of these areas, be sure to check out the classes. While the game doesn't let you choose your class first, this decision will have a bigger effect in game play decisions.

Alliance Fraction Races

Horde Fraction Races



Choose Your Class - Your class determines what your character can and can't do and all of the races do not have the availability of all the classes. Additionally, some of the classes have only one role. While other classes can perform several different roles.

Tweaking Your Avatar - Next you can make some minor adjustments to your characters appearance. You may choose to be male or female. Don't worry the sexes are treated equally in World of Warcraft. They don't care if your a tiny female Dwarf, they'll still drop kick you. You can choose hairstyles, clothing, accessories and even tattoos. Or, if you have places to go and people to do in, you can hit the randomize button, cross your fingers and pray the system thinks you're a gorgeous god or goddess.

This is also where you will name your character. Offensive names will not be allowed. Remember, there are a lot of children who play this game. As you can probably guess, when you start entering names, you will find that a lot of them have already been taken. But, search the web, there are sites out there that if you enter some traits or keywords, they will randomize a name for you.

Congratulations, you have completed your first character. Be sure to review all your choices and if you're happy with them, you are ready to enter the World of Warcraft and begin your journey.

Live long, fight well and prosper!