Does anyone play this? Or has anyone played it more than a few level ups?

I downloaded the starter edition a few years ago and the laptop couldn't handle the graphics. I tried it last night and I'm struggling with the game. It's not easy to work out which buttons do what. So far I can hack'n'slash. I've got as far as killing the little spiders in the cave.

Is there an idiots guide or similar? I don't recall Morrowind or Skyrim as this complicated.

I used to play a LOT. I have a lvl 80 dwarf hunter and a lvl 70 human Mage. Lol!

Not played for years though.

What lvl are you and what race/class? I'll give you some tips.

I think I'm a night elf or something (I can hide/become invisible). Only on level 3 or something. Just doing the basic quests. I've no idea what the controls are, or the best way to do things. Since I'm so early on in the game, I'm happy to just start afresh with a new character if needed. I chose warrior (I always choose warrior) because I find it easier to just hash'n'slash!

Just doing the beginner quests and at the mo had to kill twelve green spiders in a cave.

At the start, there were different "realms" and I still don't think I understood them.

Ah,, I remember it well. You're still in the basic/tutorial area. At this point there'll be very little you can do other than hack & slash. You learn abilities from trainers as you gain levels, which you can drag & drop from your 'spellbook' onto the bar at the bottom of the screen. Those slots are mapped to the the number keys on the keyboard. Each skill has a refresh time after you use it, and the icon will be greyed out until that refresh time runs out. So for example ( think) you'll have a basic attack and a 'slash' attack that does more damage, but the slash attack can only be used every couple of seconds.

As a warrior, you powers are keyed to what stance you're in, which are kind of like modes. Each stance has different skills associated with it and you switch stances through combat to get the appropriate skill for the exact moment. You also will get shouts, which give you (or people with you) bonuses or cause your opponents to run away or etc. You learn new stances and shouts roughly every ten levels or so.

Right now, your job is pretty much just to complete the quests you're given, which mostly involve killing stuff. Thus earning your first few skills and a bit of cash to buy a half-decent weapon and some armour. That'll probably take you about 5 hours or so of gameplay. After that the game opens out a lot and you can start exploring and getting into things like trading and professions (which are skills that allow you to harvest or make stuff either to use or sell).


Realms are basically which server you're on. You can only interact with people on the same server as you.

In terms of controls. I found it easier to have them set up almost like an fps. I mapped wasd to forward, backward, strafe left and right. I think I also had two mouse buttons down would move the camera. That was personal preference though so you may not like it.

You'll get out of the beginner area at about lvl 6 ish. Then at lvl 10 you'll get a series of quests to unlock a special attack or something (at lvl 10 a hunter gets the quests that enable him to tame animals).

To begin with it will be very much hack and slash. To get to grips with the controls I found mapping the main bar buttons (the attacks) to numbers 1-5. Easy access when using wasd. Q and e can then be potions or something.

The best thing to do is try several different options. The good thing about wow is that the controls (and even the entire UI) is wntirely customisable. So you can fit the controls to your preferences.

It's an awesome game though and you can get lost in there for hours. Best thing to do is to listen to some of he npcs. They have so e tips and advice and to just carry on going. By lvl 15 ish you'll be a seasoned pro compared to how you are now. Lol!

The realms are just different instances of the entire world. Everyone that you are interacting with are in the same realm. They create new realms to keep the numbers and balance of players right. They'll stop players from starting in a realm with too many newbies or too many players.

Figured that.


Then I'd better look this up.


Yeah will do this.

I'm struggling even to understand how equip myself with armour and such that I've got from quests. Drag'n'dropping on to my character (in the window) seems to do nothing (unless it's already equipped and I didn't know).

I just remembered my mouse controls. I kept the standard mouse controls but two mouse button press was "walk to this point". If you hold them both down then you will keep walking towards the mouse.

With that and the fps controls I could move with both hands or just one and use my left hand for attacks, potions etc...

Lol, it's been a while. You're tempting me back in now though. Lol. Which realm are you in? Do you have all the expansions?

Will have to look up realm. No expansion packs yet - just on the starter edition. Depends on whether I really get into it or not.

What expansion packs did you go for? Did you get a headset? Were you in a group at all?

I started at the very beginning of be realm I was in and was one of the heads of he biggest guild in the game.

After a while we split apart and formed several small groups of friends. To begin with its worth joining a guild for having people to talk to.

Eventually we formed a tightly formed raid group for taking on the advanced dungeons. When you get to that stage you have to have a headset. I think we used teamspeak to host the conversations.

I've got all the expansions up to cataclysm. I think I missed the ice one and the pandaria one.

Let me know which realm you're on, I might join you.

Btw, a raid group is a group designed for taking on some of the huge bosses. You each have a specific role within the group.

Don't worry about that though. You won't need to worry about that until much higher levels.

Went from lvl 3 to 6 in about an hour or so. Started collecting quests rather than doing them one at a time which speeds things up. People have started challenging me to duels but I've not accepted so far.

I played it ever so briefly because some other friends from Eve Online gave it a go.

I got to Level 27 i think, but wasn't particularly impressed with it apart from maybe the scale of the game.

Didn't really have a hard time getting into it, but then I'd been broken in already having played Aion (a Korean MMO) with them before.

We soon lost interest pretty quickly as some of them lost interest (and i only really like MMOs for the social aspect).

These days I've been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic instead which is regarded as a WoW with a Star Wars skin. It pretty much does everything I want it to do and I do endgame Operations (i.e Raids) with a bunch of friends so i'm satisfied either way.

Yes, I was going to suggest this. Definitely a good move.

Collect as many as you can and often you'll find that as you are completing one quest you happen upon items/mobs that you need for another quest.

what's Eve like? I know someone who plays it instead of CoD these days. If you didn't have the social aspect of your own friends being in it, would you still play games like Eve/SWTOR/WoW?

I don't know anybody who plays MMORPG.

I didn't know anyone who played WoW before I started and I met people in the game.

I definitely played for the social aspect.

Tried going back but everyone had left or moved on and it wasn't the same.