WoW Beginners | How To Win World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massive multiplayer online game with 6 gazilion bajillion subscribers, more subscribers than have ever actually existed on earth, that's how popular it is. It has a bad reputation for being more addictive than opiates, and if you are one to be dragged into a wondrous wheel of carrot and stick, then chances are you'll lose several years of your life to this game. That's the good news. The bad news is that you'll spend the first three or so years of that time getting things wrong.

For starters it will take you around 15 days of constant playing to level to 80. Give or take. During this time (if you chose to play on a PvP server,) you will have your game interrupted and sometimes bought to a grinding halt by higher level toons killing you repeatedly. You will dream of the day that you too, hit 80 and can fight back.

After several weeks or months of being a victim, you will gain the exalted rank of level 80, whereupon you will quickly realize that not all level 80's are equal. Silly little WoW noob, you didn't think they keep people playing for years on end by having any real achievement come at the end of the leveling process, did you? No. Upon hitting level 80 you will discover that you have gone from being a chunky 79 fish to being a tiny little lvl 80 amoeba. You don't even qualify as a minnow.

If you prefer to play video games on your own, WoW will probably become intolerable for you at this point. Why? All end game content, and much of the content you will come across during the leveling process requires groups to finish. Heroics usually require a group of 5, Raids come in groups of 10 to 25, and the bulk of these groups will require that you don't suck. (Battlegrounds are a joyful exception to this rule and if you find yourself getting too frustrated, well, you'll probably end up being that jerk one hit ganking level 60's in the lowbie zones.)

Sucking is dealt with harshly by WoW players, because in order for them to get to where they are, they've had to turn what was an innocent past time into a life consuming obsession. Don't be surprised if you get turfed out of groups for not having good enough gear, or being unable to play your character to the required skill level. Your problem is, if you have simply bought the game, paid your subscription and played your happy little self through to level 80 without any professional WoW advice, you probably do suck.

Why? Because WoW takes the proverb 'there's more than one way to skin a cat' and turns it into a philosophy. The game is almost infinitely customizable. There are talent trees, where you can assign points which grant you various skills and abilities, there are professions, such as herbing, skinning, mining et al, and there are a whole plethora of associated activities, items and potions which, to be honest, are more numerous than Chinese characters. You'll spend most of your early years getting these things wrong. You'll put spell damage gear on your melee character. You'll accidentally go for stamina instead of agility stats, you'll choose the wrong talents and hobble your toon entirely.

Simply to play the game effectively at the higher levels you'll need to (depending on your class) master a massive grid of attacks, defenses, healing, traps, stings, spells and so much more. Your gear will need enchants and gems, and you'll need to get those right too.

In short, if you want to be good at WoW, it requires a passion bordering on the fanaticism. You can play for four years straight, be in a good guild, have 100% raid attendance, have some of the best gear in game and still get your face smashed in.

Nobody wins World of Warcraft.