Your First Toon - Make a Human Hunter

Make a human hunter.  Don't agonize over it.  This is the one you will play to a) see if you like the game at all and b) to learn the basic mechanics so you can be more in control of your style of play.

Human hunters start in Northshire with wolf pet. 

I tell new players to make a hunter first because hunters get a combat pet that helps you fight. You may not know the mechanics of the game, but your pet does, at least when it comes to combat.  And combat for a new player - AKA a "noob" - is where you can get totally confused when you are mobbed. But your pet keeps going because your pet knows how the game works.  I've had people who started WoW once and hated it try again with a hunter at my suggestion and they really get into the game that way, even if they never make another hunter toon.  I suggest you play a human because you get a reputation bonus, and the pet you get to start with, the wolf, gives you a hit bonus as well.  The only down side of the human hunter as a start toon is that the starting zone will be crowded because humans are the most popular race in WoW.

Once you hit level 20, you'll have some idea of the game.  If you like the hunter, keep it (hunters are one of the most popular classes for a reason).  If you like your human avatar great. If not, start a new toon.  Leveling to 20 will be so much easier the second time.  You can decide if you like playing a hunter or want a different class that has a different style of playing.  If you prefer mixing it up fighting in close range, you want a melee character. If you like the distance fighting of the hunter, but want more raw damage power, there are other ranged classes. If you want to be able to heal yourself as you fight and don't care about hit power, then a priest is another ranged fighting choice.  Then there are hybrid classes that do a little bit of everything but are harder to learn for that reason. They are all fun in different ways, though most people tend to have favorite classes.  Changing races also changes the game feel, just not as much as class.  (My thoughts about the races here.)

Hunters are loved by some and called "huntards" by others. People who don't like them say that a hunter doesn't have to know how to play the game but just lets the pet do the work of fighting. I say for a "noob" that is fine.  You're still trying to figure out how to read the map, find your trainer, learn your professions, buy and sell items, all the while not dying too often (for you will die...it is not failure to die, just part of the play). Some of the hunter abilities you get include tracking so that you can see where  "mobs" (the game creatures who "mob" you) are in relation to your location even if they are hiding.  Also, as you get a little better at using your pet to take damage while you shoot from a distance, you learn the basic etiquette of dungeons.  (More on that later. You cannot go into dungeons before level 15.)

Hunter: Rename Your Pet

The pet's default name is simply the kind of animal it is: wolf, bear, cat, moth...etc.  Impersonal and no different from any other one in the game.  Giving it a name gives it an identity ... literally.  It becomes unique to you. Others come to know your pet, can interact with it, and adds to the social atmosphere of WoW.

Renaming is simple.  Select your pet either by clicking on it in the frame or on the secondary name plate under your name.  Once it is selected, its name plate floats to the right of yours.  Right click on it and a dropdown menu appears.  Select "rename."  Simple.

Objective Difficulty Color Coding

WOW has a system of color coding that can help you know your skill level relative to a quest or task: red, orange, yellow, green, and gray.  (There is another, slightly different color system for items you loot or craft.)

The color of a quest in your log represents its difficulty relative to your level.

RED means no.  You can't get any red quests.  You can"t gather items that show up red when you run your tooltip over them, even if it is your chosen profession.   If you select a mob and its level number is in red, you have to be skilled to take it out. 

ORANGE means good but dangerous.  You get high experience points (XP) relative to your level for completing orange quests and for orange-level tasks in your chosen profession.

YELLOW means just right.  You should be able to do any yellow quest, even if you are mobbed a bit.  Yellow gives you decent XP and when you craft a yellow item, you usually (but not always) gain a point in your profession.

GREEN means easy and low XP.  In every region you quest, if you enter at orange, the quests will be green or gray if you do every quest there.  You will level slowly and gain very little in your profession.  Move on.

GRAY means zero.  No XP.  No value gained for making an item. No point except that the quests may also give you reputation.  There are various ways of gaining reputation. Don't worry about that now.

Your quest log shows the quests in one of four colors.  When you select that quest, the bar highlighting it will also be in that color.  Similarly, when you open your crafting profession window, the items you can craft are listed in the same four colors.  (There are only 4 colors because you cannot get a quest or learn a skill in your profession at the red level.)

The wolf's level number is gray meaning the level is too to give XP.

These colors show up in all kinds of places and relate to experience and skill.  On the red end of the spectrum, the experience you get for any completed action like killing mobs is highest.  That diminishes until you hit gray where you get zip, zero, no levels at all. The only reason to do gray quests is for the reputation they give with a city or faction.  That can get you valuable rewards, but you shouldn't worry about that now.  Know that as you level, quests you have accepted change color, and you should abandon them once they are green or certainly gray.  You will not even see any gold exclamation marks offering you new low quests unless you turn on low level quests in the objectives
menu.

Knowing what the five colors mean can make your game play easier and more fun. It can save you from getting repeatedly mobbed and killed, from going out of your way to farm a mineral or herb only to realize your level is not high enough, or for grinding and grinding quests as you wonder why you are not leveling.

Action Bars

You can activate action buttons by clicking on an icon or by pressing the key that is bound to it.  The game default shows one row of action bars at the bottom of the screen.  The left half of this action bar is bound to number keys 1-0 and then - and =.  You can add more rows of action bars now or wait until later. You will definitely need a place to lay out your tasks as you get more and more options.  I do it first thing when I make a new toon.  If you go to your game menu by hitting escape or by clicking on the little computer icon in the bottom right action bar, you will see an option for interface.  Click it and you get a screen with a menu on the left.  Click the ActionBars menu and then select all of them.  Do not check to make them visible, so that you won't even know they are there until you want to put an icon into them.

 You can drag icons from your spell book to the action bar. You can rearrange them once they are there by holding shift and left-click as you drag the action to a new spot.  You can play around with it, but most people move their main rotation of hits/spells to the 1-2-3-4 keys.

You can also bind actions not in your spell book.  Go back to the Game Menu and select Keybindings this time. You will see so many options for binding keys it will be intimidating.  Don't worry.  Read through for future reference.  You can put mount/dismount on a key once you can ride. You have target functions and chat functions.  Play a while and then check back to see if there is a pre-programmed key-bindable action written for you to make your game play easier.

If you are going to bind to a letter key, however, scroll through the list to make sure you are not un-binding something important if you assign a letter to an action.  One thing I like is to have a key to stop auto-attack.  I put it on the C key, which by default is simply an action to sheath/unsheath your weapons.  It doesn't do anything active in the game, and so I don't mind giving up the key for that.

Don't go crazy with this. You can keybind so many items you might have a hard time remembering them all, so you want your most common actions on the main action bar in the left hand number keys.  That way you can press buttons to fight while moving around using the mouse with your other hand.


If you really start to jam up and have a hard time finding the right key for everything you want to do, you will have to start making macros, which are custom icons that you can write instructions for that combine and automate some stuff for you.  More about that later.

Level 2-3: Targets and Tasks

By the time you finish your first 2 quests, you should reach Level 2.  Your next quests will expand your skills.  This is usually when you have to find and fight a stealthed target, a spy or lurker of some kind that semi-transparent and so is hard to see.  Hard to see if you don't have enemy name plates activated, that it.  Press the V key to toggle nameplates on.  Now even a stealthed enemy will have a giant yellow health bar over its head.

Use your TAB key to select one.  (If nothing selects, you are too far away.)  You will see a corresponding yellow circle at the feet of the selected mob and its name plate will appear in the upper left corner of your screen next to yours.  Make sure you have not targeted the wrong thing.  Tabbing when you are in a dungeon can get you in awful trouble, but now, as you play solo, it is a good idea.

Notice the sounds.  When your tab chooses a target, you get a short pfft sound.  When a stealthed character is near, you hear a fading tone.  The game brilliantly adds these to trigger your attention so your unconscious can do more and more of the work as you level up.

Click on the square badge next to the objective to activate it.

At some point here, you will get a quest that is a task to accomplish rather than one for mobs to kill.  Usually, you will be given an object that appears as a Quest Item in your bags.  And next to the quest description in the Objectives list on the right side of the screen, you will see a tiny badge.  If, say, you have to bandage an ally, you need to select an ally.  A dot appears in the badge.  If you are too far away from the target, the dot will be red.  When you get in range, the dot turns white.  Click the badge and the task is done. If for some reason you cannot see the quest item you must use on your objectives list, you can open your bags and right-click the item to use it.


Another bonus you may get here is that one of the mobs you loot will have a 6-slot bag.  When you loot it, it will automatically go into your backpack.  You have 4 bag slots in addition to the backpack.  More about bags later.

Quests: Are We Done Yet?

When you gain a quest item or "kill" the tally
briefly shows up on your screen.

Most quests have a number of tasks you must accomplish to finish them.  If you have multiple quests, or multiple targets in one quests, you can check on the status of all of them in many ways, and you can find the right targets for what remains without having to kill blindly until the quest completes.

Every time you fulfill a task, a big message will appear on the screen with your count status for that task.

Your quest log tells you the status of every quest.

The count status also usually shows up on the quest description in your quest log so you can check it there.  If you are not sure, open the quest in your quest log, and it will tell you your status. It also shows up on the right of your screen just below the minimap if you have your Objectives turned on (that's the default).  It tells you about your status there as well, and changes as you progress. Once it is complete, the quest changes from a numbered "to do" item to a "?" completion marker in your objective list.

Your quest objectives are listed on the right side.  You can
set the order and kind of quests that display..

Sometimes a quest asks you to do multiple tasks.  You may have completed some but not all.  You can just keep "farming" everything until the quest completes.  If you want to focus and get it done, you can click on a target to simply select it. That brings up a small description window in your bottom right corner.  It will not only tell you what that target it, but if it qualifies for any quest you have and what the tally currently is. Information EVERYWHERE if you know how to find it.

Sell Your Junk

You get new equipment when you turn in quests.  After you put it on, you should sell your old stuff.  Go to a vendor.  You will see a bag or an anvil when you move your cursor over the NPC (Non-Playing Character) if the vendor also can repair your damaged weapons and armor.  I have an addon that automatically opens my bags when I open a vendor window and that sells my grey items without me having to think about it.  However, your old gear will not sell itself.  You have to click on it and manually move it to the buyback tab. 

 Don't worry if you sell something by mistake. The most recent 12 items stay in there for a while, so even if you go away, do a quest and then realize you messed up, the item will most likely still be there.  However, if you fill the windows with more items, the top ones will disappear and cannot be retrieved.

If you are on a trial account, you have to sell all your stuff this way.  You cannot use the auction house or get mail until you are a paid subscriber.  Just so you know.