Under the Microscope: The Alliance Races

Hello again faithful followers of the WoW after the install blog. Today we are going to begin part one of our under the microscope series. These volumes are designed to cover in full the basics of character creation and the pros and cons of the multitude of options therein. As you probably already know the world of Azeroth pits the Alliance against the Horde in a struggle for dominion of that planets fate. After selecting a realm, the process of character creation begins. A few simple choices to start are you a male or female character? After milling over the gender issue then we come to race. Today I’m going to cover the aspects and starting locations of the alliance races. The alliance currently consists of five races, seeking to bring justice and order to the war torn world of Azeroth: The noble humans, the adventurous dwarves, the enigmatic night elves, the ingenious gnomes and the honorable dranei.

The humans are the youngest of Azerothian, race ambitious and well skilled in the arts of combat and sorcery. Their optimism and ambition have led them to build some of the greatest kingdom’s the world has ever known. Human characters gain the advantage of increased stealth detection, increased spirit, bonus reputation gains, increased expertise with swords and maces, and can break out of movement impairing effects (via the skill “every man for himself”). Human characters begin their questing near the capital city of Stormwind, in Elwynn Forest at a small monastery known as Northshire Abbey.
Once only desiring the sound of stone and the discovery of earthen treasures, the dwarves are unchallenged with their mastery of the earth. Grand carpenters of stone and gem alike once rumors abound of a god-like race that had given the dwarves life and a mysterious birthright, the dwarves poured from their caves in search of ancient knowledge and artifacts. Dwarven characters gain stoneform (a skill that removes all poison, disease, and bleed effects plus increased armor for a period of time), increased critical chance with guns, resistance to frost damage, treasure finding (a track-like skill) and expertise with maces. Dwarven characters begin their questing near the capital city of Ironforge, in Dun Morogh at a small campsite known as The Vale.

The night elves are an ancient race thousands of years old founding a vast empire in their past, however their insidious use of primal magic brought about their ruin. For years the elves lived in seclusion grieving their loss until the return of their greatest enemy the Burning Legion. Having no choice the elves purged from seclusion take up the fight for the fate of Azeroth. Elven characters are granted shadowmeld (this works just like stealth except you cannot move), they are more difficult to hit, and they enter a wisp form when dead, and are resistant to nature damage. Elven characters begin play in Shadowglen part of the great tree of Teldrarassil.

The gnomes are a curious bunch indeed, tinkerers and fast talkers. Once hailing from the great steam driven kingdom of Gnomeregan, the gnomes were forced to flee and abandon the city after a massive trogg invasion. Now they provided the dwarven lands with their ingenuity and cunning for machine. Gnomish characters gain the ability to removing speed altering effects, increased intelligence, resistance to arcane magic, and increased engineering skill. As with the dwarves the gnomes also begin questing in Dun Morogh in the Vale.

Driven from their home world of Argus the Dranei for eons evaded the siege of the Burning Legion. Settling on a world with shamanistic orcs called Draneor. Eventually the legion corrupted the orcs and war between them and the Dranei broke out some eventually escaped to Azeroth where the fight was brought to their people once more. Dranei characters received an increased jewelcrafting skill, they also receive Gift of the Naaru (a heal over time skill useable on yourself or others), Heroic presence (which allows an increased chance for you and part members to hit with spells and weapons), and finally are resistant to shadow damage. Dranei characters begin their questing on Azuremist Isle in the Ammen Vale which is close to the capital city of The Exodar.

Well that wraps it up for the alliance races, stay tuned to after the install for further coverage in our under the microscope series. Next time we will be covering the races of the Horde, and moving further into the character creation process with an in depth look into the various classes, builds and character development. Until then keep your eyes to the sky and purse full of coins.

We have started the first in our series of videos for the auction house. This is a multiple-part series that will include the basic topics of how I make money on a starting character. The character in the video was started on a new server with no friend resources. It was a part of a bet with a friend that my tactics could produce gold from silver in a short amount of time. I had about 30 minutes game time and 72 hours real time to reach the 20 gold at the start of the video.

Why was the video so short?

Most auction house guides start with a character that has a mountain of gold. I wanted to bring you a video which starts from where you are with a small amount of gold.

Without unlimited resources I could not do all of the things I wanted to do in the video, but that is real life. You cannot always buy everything you want.

Breaking the video into its part by steps was the most realistic to what you will be doing. The auction house is a game of hurry-up-and-wait.

What should I be doing while I wait?

Scan the auction house daily. The more scan data you have, the better idea you will have on prices over the fluctuations of the market. Plus, you will get a more median server price on each item.

Make some bids. The auction house takes time, and the best time to start is today. We will be back shortly with our guide showing what to post, what to store for later, and what price to set for each item.

What is coming in the video series?

Posting on the auction house

How can I make money if I am storing items?

Setting up a guild for extra storage.

Niche markets and professions

Advanced auction house techniques

And many more…


I have included the video for those that have not seen it yet. I hope you stick around and enjoy as we make this the most complete World of Warcraft information source for everything “After The Install”.

Where the Journey Begins: Realm Selection

The world of Azeroth boasts an amazing figure of over 11 million players. Because of this gigantic population, there is no way to put all those players and personalities in the same place. Hence, the first step after the install is figuring out what type of game I am going to play and under what conditions. It’s a relatively simple process called realm selection. However, there are quite a few simple truths a player may want to consider before choosing a realm to call his new home. Game variations include player vs. environment (PvE) and player vs. player (PvP) both of which are presented in a role-playing (RPPvE, RPPvP) format. Also population can be a deciding factor when choosing where to stake claim.

Personally I think the first decision to get out of the way during realm selection is the choice of a normal realm, also known as PvE, or a player vs. player realm, also known as PvP. Normal realms are established more for questing or harvesting goods with little or no worry of having to face the opposing faction unless you initiate combat on your own terms. In PvP the zones are broken up in various colors. Red zones belong to the enemy faction, green zones belong to your friendly faction, blue zones are null and void of PvP and yellow zones, which are combat free-for-alls 24/7. These yellow zones populate most of the game world on a PvP server.

Of course this means sometimes your poor level 34 mage gets pounced by a bored level 80. This can become quite frustrating to new players, because with a lack of friends or a lack of firepower, higher level combatants can make your digital life a virtual hell. Nonetheless, what goes around comes around, and there are generally low level enemies hiding out in their starting leveling areas as well, so you can to go pay a visit there when you reach your power levels.

A small percentage of the time you get some fair combat in which two close levels go at each other in a PvP wilderness contest. I like PvP realms because I feel you get a true feel for how to play your character in all situations. Normal realms are good for starting players just to get a feel for game concepts without having to look over their shoulder every five minutes, hoping a rogue isn’t hiding in the shadows waiting to strike. But still, the challenge of a PvP realm does reward the patient and proud.

Once you have decided which of the main concepts you want to play under (Normal or PvP), next to decide is if you want to add a role-playing element to the world. Role-playing realms are available for both styles of traditional play. These realms are much stricter on the type of in-game chat and naming restrictions for characters. The non role-playing realms are for those who want to play the World of Warcraft, whereas the RP realms are for those who want to live it.

To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, all the dialogue in the RP realms is much more closely monitored. For instance in general chat you will not see “Hey, my sister got a brand new car,” or “Can you believe he likes Call of Duty 4?” Players will quickly get warnings for this type of behavior because the realm is set up for a natural role-playing feel. Also names that are non-medieval or fantasy names will not be allowed. Examples of this would be TechnoBunny, or Hotdog511. The role-playing realms are for the “thys” and “thous” who want to step into Torgorin the Brave’s shoes and storm off into the dusky hue, seeking glory and fortune.

The final decision to make when selecting a realm is the population of that realm. This is a very important factor, so take care when choosing your final selection. On low population servers for example, fewer people means there are going to be fewer items available on the auction house. This also usually means prices are much higher on low population servers. Finding players to group up with for older content or new raid content can be a bit of a challenge as well on these servers. Medium population is like a low population, except with more players to interact with, not to mention item availability might be a bit more pleasing, with prices possibly getting closer to even.

High population servers are where things begin to change dramatically. First there are an abundance of players to group up with for quests, or raids, etc. Second the auction house should be flooded with all sorts of items and a great deal of competition to boot, which generally favors the buy. However getting into instances and raids can prove a bit challenging. Sometimes based on server population, these raids become locked out due to high volume of play. That places you and your companions in queue just to play these dungeons.

Full servers are a real mess. Generally you can’t even get on a full server without having to go into queue before accessing the server. The same advantages as high population servers come with full servers, but players without great internet connections or great computers are going to hate the lag fest. Not to mention raids and instances are virtually impossible to get into unless of course you are willing to play at five in the morning.

Finally there are servers with populations labeled as “new players”. These can be equally fun and frustrating because the world leaves us with many questions, which new players usually just don’t have the answer to. However if you enjoy the thrill of learning together, there’s no better place to bed down than on one of these unique servers.

Well that pretty much wraps it up for selecting a realm. I hope I provided you with a wealth of information from which to choose your starting stage. I’d like to take this opportunity to provide you with my congratulations. You have completed step one of a thousand in the fun and exciting addiction known simply as the World of Warcraft.

Refer a Friend

Refer-a-Friend

Refer a friend is almost a cheat. It is like the holy grail of fast leveling. If you came to WoW through an invite, or if you have a friend who has not yet joined, use the “Refer a Friend” feature. It will make your game time that much more enjoyable, and you will gain the advantage of triple experience while grouped together.

The main features of ‘Refer a Friend”:

• Triple XP while grouped. That includes kills and quest XP
• A free month of service to the person who refers the new member
• A free mount for both you and your friend

I can already hear you saying this is great. It truly is remarkable. The only downside is that after 90 days the bonus ends, but that is plenty of time to blast through the levels with triple experience. Oh, did I forget to mention there is more?

• Summon between referred accounts from anywhere in Azeroth
• Level gifting – up to 30 levels to a veteran account at level 60

That’s right. Until you reach level 60, you can summon the referred character to you. So let’s say you want to play a night elf and your friend wants to roll a human. Normally you start off in different areas, but with “Refer a Friend” you can bring either character to you without having to travel to them. I can tell you firsthand, taking a level one character to another starting area is not easy and takes time.

So exactly what is level gifting? For the referring character, it means for every other level you gain from 2-60, you get a level you can give to a veteran player that is under level 60. So if the referring friend has a level 30 character, when you get to level 60, you can boost that character to 60 by gifting all 30 levels from the referred character. There are restrictions, however. A level 2 character cannot gift a level 39 character a level, but a level 60 can gift any character not already at 60. Wow!

Further details can be found at:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20588

Now, get out there and play. Triple XP is waiting, after all.