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.

Buffs: Food

The slice of cheese next to the minimap indicates a food buff
and shows the time remaining.  If you scroll your cursor over it,
it will tell you what exactly is being buffed.

Some food just heals you once you are out of combat. Other foods not only give you health (and sometimes mana), they also give you a buff to your stats for a period of time.  Most give 2 buffs:  stamina since everyone can use stamina plus one other.  Low level food buffs are for stamina and spirit. The spirit only helps toons that use mana as a resource since spirit speeds up the regeneration of mana. If you don't use mana, it provides no benefit. 

Foods that contain buffs are almost all made using the cooking profession.  At higher levels, foods start to add other buffs that increase useful stats for different toons.  At that point it becomes important to know which ones will give you an advantage and learn to make those foods with your cooking skill.  Or you can buy them in the Auction House, since food is not soulbound.  Food without buffs can be bought at most inns, many vendors, and is dropped by mobs. 

Level 5: Leaving the Start Zone

Sometime at level 5, you will finish all the quests in your start zone.  You will be given a request to report to a small town outside a major city.  This is where you will quest from for a while...maybe 10 levels.  At 15 you unlock the Dungeon finder, and your game play starts to include choices of where you want to quest.   The village may be a hike, but stay on the roads instead of heading straight across the map in the arrow direction unless you are not worried about being mobbed and killed.  Advice on travel by foot here.

You can change zones here if you like... I have favorite areas for leveling as do most players.  But if this is your first, you home zone will be fine, and save you from some possible headaches. For example, races that can not be shamans don't have any shaman trainers in the town at this level.

Questing: Caves–Finding them

Very early in the game you will have to go into a cave of some kind.  Caves can be hard to find if you don't know how to look on your map, and they are extremely easy to get lost in, making you go round and round in circles looking for an exit. (Time to hearth perhaps?)

Low level quests will put the quest objective number right over the entrance, but later quests may put the number locator over the objective inside the cave.  If you don't know how to find the entrances on the game map, you will search, get stuck, backtrack, curse, turn around, cry, want to throw your computer out the window like I did.  Once I learned that cave entrances show on the map, and once I got an addon that let me see the whole map even for areas I have not yet explored, it got a lot easier.

Head toward your objective marker.  If you see a cave entrance, great.  If not, open your game map. Your zone map will have miniature line drawings with the same configuration as game cave entrances.  Find the nearest entrance  and you're gtg.

Vendor Trash

Items in your backpack are color-coded into 5 categories: grey, white, green, blue, and purple. Grey items are considered "vendor trash." Most of them have no use in the game. Some can be equipped as weapons and armor, but their stats will be so low, the only time you will use them is if you have no item yet in that slot and cannot afford to buy one. There are addons that will automatically sell all grey items whenever you open a vendor window, and others that will suggest grey items to throw away if you are looting a corpse and have no room left in your bags.  Get rid of the stuff.

Sometimes there are white items that used to be useful but no longer are, yet Blizzard hasn't gotten around to changing their status.  And many white items are not really valuable to anyone else so you won't be able to sell them at the Auction House.   White armor and weapons, food and drink that does not have any buff stats, things that can be bought at almost any vendor and are now below your level.  All that should be considered vendor trash and sold for whatever you can get.

Keybindings: #1-Remove Basic Attack from Action Bar

Right off the bat, I remove the basic Attack or Auto Attack button from my action bar.  Hold shift as you click the spell icon and drag it off.  Dump it anywhere on your screen.  If you dump a spell, it is not gone from the game.  You can open your spellbook (type P or click the book icon on your toolbar), find it, and drag it down to the action bar again.

I remove Attack because I prefer to always right-click on my target when I want to do a basic attack.  The auto-attack kicks in and keeps hitting your enemy even if you don't do another thing.  (You can toggle auto-attack off...later.) What I do is right-click on a target while I am still way out of range.  Nothing will happen until I am in range, whereupon auto-attack starts doing damage.  This helps you get a feel for the range you should be in to engage your enemy.

While all classes have Attack, casters work from range and so shouldn't ever be hitting with a melee weapon.  (Melee weapons for these classes will disappear when Pandaria is released and we'll see if it works to cast a basic spell at that point.)

More spells will appear in your action bar as you train your first few levels.  I almost always more them around so that they form a 1-2-3-4 series in the rotation that I use most.  Out of rotation spells like heals I will put on the 5 if I use them a lot, or on another action bar if not.

At some point, the new spells stop appearing on the bar automatically, and you must place them manually where you want them. It helps if you already know how.

Questing: Where Your Arrow Points

Your minimap will have a golden arrow pointing to where IT THINKS you should go.  It may not be the same direction you want to go next.  The quest it is directing you to either perform or turn in is marked with a golden circle in the list of objectives.  I can't tell you how many times I have followed it in one direction to do something that is in a faraway zone, while the quest that want ten feet away is left in my dust.

The cactus I am facing is sparkling to show that it is something I need for my current quest, but minimap arrow points me in a different direction because the cactus apple quest is not the one that is in gold on my Objectives list.

If you the quest you want is not the one lit in gold, click on it in the list of objectives.  That will bring up the quest with all the instructions.  (You can do this to check on what you need to do as well.)  That window will have a "show map" icon. If you click that, another window pops up and shows where you should go for the quest.  This changes the priority of your objectives list to show that one on your minimap as well.

Level 1: Quest 2–Fighting Basics

Your second quest teaches you how to use your class abilities to fight.  You will see one or two buttons on your toolbar have icons.  Usually one is simply an attack or auto-attack button.  The other is a special class skill.  On the right, if your race has a spell it can activate, it will be in the 0 slot. Run your mouse over each one and see what it is.

Warrior Level 1 action bar has an attack button, a dark second button for Strike because it cannot be used yet, and on the right the Orc special ability called Blood Fury that increases attack power.  Not all classes benefit from attack power, but warriors sure do.  Many racial perks, like skill with certain weapons, only benefit some classes.

You will also see some mobs with flickering yellow nameplates.  You may have to move in the direction of a golden arrow on your minimap to see them.  The yellow name means the mob is neutral and won't attack you unless you attack it.  More about the colors on nameplates elsewhere.

The numbers on the attack bar correspond to your computer number keys.  Tapping the number 1 will activate whatever spell or ability is labeled with that icon.  Go up to a mob that has got the yellow name above it and hit your 1 button.  Just stand there and watch what happens.

If you have a second button, it may or may not be lit.  Warriors, for example, have to build up rage before they can use most of their skills.  Once it is lit, you can tap that one again.  It will go dark for a period of time called its "cooldown." Once it is lit again, you can use it.

You can activate a skill by right-clicking on the button with your mouse (control-click works too if you have a one-click Mac mouse. ) Or you can use the number buttons. You will use the number keys most of the time at upper levels, so start now.  Your most common spells/abilities should be on your 1-4 keys. (More on how to set up keybindings elsewhere.)

Once you start hitting the mob, its name will turn red.  Even if you are out of range, if you right-click to activate your auto-attack,  the mob's name turns red.

Level 1: Quest 1–Accepting and Turning in Quests

The minimap orients you (arrow) to
quests (! and ?) and trainers (book).

You arrive in front of someone with a gold ! over his or her head.  Right click on that person and you are told to report to someone else.  You will see a gold ? appear on your mini-map in the upper right hand corner.  (Sometimes you will also see the gold ? on your main screen.) Doing this very basic quest teaches you how to figure out how to use your mouse to move (explained here) and how to read the mini-map to find the marker. 

Right-click on the person to
turn in a quest and receive your reward.

The quest you get will ask you to go kill a certain number of (usually) beasts of some kind.  That's next.

Races: Overview of Play Style

Every race in WoW involves more than a change of "skin" or look. The character traits of each race are so different that it changes the flavor of the game.  Here are my thoughts on the various races and things to consider in playing them.

The Human start zone is often confusing with
many blue name plates marking other players.

HUMAN  Most popular by far.  So the starting zone is often crowded, especially on weekends.  It will be harder to find "mobs" to kill, you will get bombarded with guild invites (info on how to turn that off here), and you might get confused about who is who if you don't know the way the game assigns colors to names.  All that aside, humans remain the top race for many reasons in this avatar world.  Humans also get a big perk in reputation.  Reputation gives you access to in-game faction benefits such as exclusive items.

Blood Elf culture is all about decadence.

BLOOD ELF  Most popular Horde race and second overall.  Very, very pretty, though the animations are a bit too cutesy for some.  And the storyline of decadence is ho-hum imo (in my opinion). The starter quests are very spread out so there's more running back and forth than in other areas.  Plus the home city, Silvermoon City, is hands down the worst place to get around.  I like the bright colors but cannot put up with the downside myself. Still, if you want to run around behind a sexy, feminine redhead, male or female, this is one to try.

Night Elves start zone is very purple.

NIGHT ELF At number 3, night elves (nelfs as opposed to belfs) are very popular.  They have an ability called Shadowmeld, which means if you are getting mobbed and about to die, you can hit this button and disappear from combat.  The mobs will wander off and you can try again after your health comes back up.  The ears on both elf races took me some getting used to.  The color palette of their home zone and city is all purples and lavenders, which I find depressing.  Still I like playing nelfs a lot, and mining in the first major questing area is fantastic.

Draenei fems account for the race's popularity.

DRAENEI  You almost never see Draenei male players.  The females account for pretty much the whole census, I suspect.  As one male friend tells me, they are the best backside animation to look at as you follow your toon around hour after hour.  Plus, they are only one of two Alliance races that can make shamans. (The other race, the Dwarves, is one of the least popular to play - see below) Downside is that their start area is also spread out...lotsa running here and there.  I'm not crazy about their home city either.  I find it ugly.  The zone is pretty much dead.  Folks I know start Draenei toons and then move them quickly to another zone to quest and level. 

Worgen can shapeshift into human
form, though this is the default

WORGEN  These wolfmen are qual to Draenei in number even though you must have the Cataclysm expansion to play this race.  Worgen cannot travel until their starting chain of quests finishes around level 15, which means you are locked into the same quests and must watch the same cinematics every time you play one.  The Cockney speech was fun for a while, but the snuffle sound the Worgens make in animal form drives some people crazy. Not a toon for a beginner but you should try one some time to see how you like it.  When the worgen finally move to the jointly playable zones, their home city is Darnassus. 

Tauren make even Orcs look small.

TAUREN  Tauren are BIG.  To keep their run speed equal they seem to be moving incredibly slowly, but in fact, they cover the same ground at the same speed as all others. Tauren also get a stomp that will daze players nearby, giving you a chance to run away if you get mobbed.  (Running away is a very successful way to survive at low levels. )  Tauren are visually impressive, especially when all geared at high levels,  and their start zone is beautiful. 

The Undead are a little like characters
in Nightmare Before Christmas.

UNDEAD In a three-way tie with Orcs and Trolls, the Undead are nevertheless my personal favorite Horde toons to play.  The race is very Nightmare Before Christmas in its ghoulishness. The start zone is one of the fastest to play through, with very little running around.  The Undead almost never have to come up for air while swimming. Their city is complex like all the cities, but there is a logic to the layout that makes it easier to learn than any other Horde capital. 

Troll hunters get double bonuses:
for bows and for killing beasts

TROLLS Trolls talk with a Jamaican accent and have an island culture that qualifies as one of the humorous races.   While lots of things are funny once, it should be noted that all the "humorous" races are at the bottom of the playing list.  They make a nice break from the game, but are not as enjoyable for multiple replays.   Unless you like playing a Druid class.  Trolls and Tauren are the only two Horde races that can make Druids, and Druids account for most of the Troll toons. Trolls have tusks, as do Orcs, and it makes them look brainless, which may also account for their low play numbers.  The people who want to play a toon that looks like it is stupid are a special minority.

Warrior is the most popular Orc class.

ORCS  The leaders of the Horde, you'd think they'd be the leading Horde race, but they are not so popular.  I groan if I have to go to their home city, Ogrimmar.  I cannot figure it out and can't stand that you must find an elevator to get to the flight master and zeppelins for travel.  At the upper levels, the city is probably not so bad.  But you can't fly until 60, and 60 takes a long time on your first toons. Once you have heirlooms, it gets easier.

Dwarf hunters get a gun bonus,
making them the strongest Alliance hunter
...if you can stand the gun sound effect.

DWARVES The Dwarves speak with a thick brogue and run around cheerfully obsessing about drinking.  It is funny for a while, but grows old.  Dwarves get a gun bonus that provides a hunter bonus, but I have not been able to stick with both the brogue and the noise of the guns.  Bows have a such a satisfying sound, that I prefer them, nullifying the Dwarf bonus.  If Blizzard ever gives the profession of engineering the plans for making a silencer, I'd be all over it.  But for now, I find I get tired of my Dwarf toons and let them sit for months before leveling them a bit more.

Even at level 85, Gnomes are just not
that intimidating.

GNOMES  The little people are last: Gnomes and Goblins.  Gnomes are uber-cute yet have absolutely no conscience, which makes for a nice ironic combination.  The are also small, which makes it hard to see sometimes when you are fighting, say, a couple of ogres.  Everyone towers above you.  Folks who like Gnomes, though, tend to play them exclusively, and a tiny rogue can be hard to see even when not stealthed.

Goblin shamans use mechanical totems.

GOBLINS The Goblins, like the Worgen, start in a separate zone and cannot access the rest of the zones or move about freely for a while. Nor can they be played unless you have the full Cataclysm upgrade.  Their culture is a combination of Steam Punk and Jersey Mob, which can be fun as a change.  If you like pretty, however, this race is not for you.

Simplify Your Settings

Before you start to play, change a few settings that will make your gameplay easier.  Hit the escape key.  This will bring up the game menu.  Go to interface and choose "controls."










Check the box for "auto loot."  That way you don't have to click on every single item to pick it up.  The game does it for you.

Then check the "block guild invites" box.  This will block all the automatic guild messages that fill up your chat and drive you crazy.  You will still get whispers from some people inviting you (if you are not a trial account...trial accounts can't whisper).  These are at least invites from real people and you can answer them.  A guild can give you perks and gives you a chat channel that is not so overloaded as the general one.  However, guilds can get intense, and you might want to wait before joining one.  Your call.  If you do decide to join one, turn guild invites back on or the game will block the invitation.

(Sometimes, if you are not in a guild (and not a trial member), someone will whisper you asking your help in forming a guild.  New guilds need "signatures" from 4 non-affiliated players to form.  Often people asking will tip and it can give you a good boost of cash since game gold is hard to come by in the beginning.  As soon as the guild forms, you can leave it or stay as you wish. Either way you get to keep your "tip.")

I like to add extra action bars right away even though I won't need them for a while.  On the side menu,  choose "action bars" and check them all.  If you don't also check the box to see the empty slots at all times, these boxes for spells and stuff will be invisible but available.  Save this and you're "r" (ready).

Travel - How to get from city to city

Around level 5, you will head to your second zone, a small town outside your faction's home city.  In this town you will get a quest to buy a ride to the city and make a delivery there.  The gold ? you see when accepting that quest will by the flight master.  You always want to know where the flight master is, so go to your minimap in the upper right hand corner and click on the magnifying glass.  You have an option to click the flight master so one will always show up if near.  (You should also click some other things if you haven't done so, things you will need to find as you level.  I talk about that elsewhere.)  Check the flight master so that even if you don't do that quest immediately, he will always be easy to find when you are ready. 

Alliance ride on giant eagle-like gryphons

Horde fly around on giant bats

You also have ways to travel from continent to continent.  There are boats, zeppelins, and portals.  That's for later.

Travel - How to get around on foot

You have buttons to move, true.  The game instructs you on using the A-S-D-W keys to move forward and back and turn left and right, plus you can strafe or sidle sideways using Q-E.  But don't.  Use a mouse instead.  If you hold both right- and left-click buttons at the same time*, you run forward.  You turn by moving the mouse and it is so much easier.

You can also run (or ride after level 20) by hitting the "number lock" key and sitting back.  If you need to steer, hold only the right-click button and you are gtg (good to go).   You will sometimes use the keys when your mouse has other things to do.  In later dungeons, for example, there are times you must strafe (Q-E) to escape boss damage while still using your mouse to click on other actions like spells, attacks, and heals.  But for the most part, the mouse is your travel tool. 

(*Mac users take note: if you have a single-button mouse, spring for a double-button one. These are cheap and you will use it a lot, not just in game. Meanwhile, it will transform your game experience. I know. I am a die-hard Mac user and suffered moving with only the buttons for my first 60 levels...suffered, I realize now in hindsight.  At the time, I didn't know any better....)

A Blog for Total Beginners

If you know how to play already, this blog probably won't help you. If you are new but already play a lot of multiplayer online games, it will help for some stuff and be old news for other stuff.  For everybody else, my goal is to give you all the information that people who have been playing for years forget to teach because it for them the basics are like breathing. Who notices their own breathing most of the time?

I came to the game brand new.  I tried it once, hated it, tried a second time a year later, and enjoyed myself enough to buy the game.  Still, when I got stuck, I couldn't find help, or if I did, the advice included abbreviations, acronyms, codes, and slang that left me even more confused.  It took me a long time to be able to interact with other players and dungeons...forget it.  I lost a lot of gold - in-game cash - because I didn't know basic facts about items and about the Auction House. Most importantly, I missed out on a lot of fun because I was a "noob" and didn't even know what I didn't know.  I tried finding help, and couldn't.

I ended up helping a number of other players who had tried the game and been frustrated by it to give it one more shot.  With some simple advice and ideas, along with explanations of basics, they ended up enjoying this amazing world and the almost infinite possibilities of play that it offers.  I have spent many, many hours playing, and I don't regret them.  I still have a life.  It's just a life that includes this virtual world and the avatars of online friends.

So welcome to the world of WOW.  Let me know if there's any way I can help you with stuff and I am happy to oblige.