Category: World of Warcraft

So you’re just starting World of Warcraft, you’ve picked your race and class (gnome rogues ftw!), and you’re at the point where you get to pick two professions. You might say to yourself oooh I’m a rogue so Ill get leatherworking so I can make my own armor! or I’m a warrior so Ill get blacksmithing so I can make my own weapons! OK just stop right there n00b! Lemme tell you a little secret about all those cool crafting professions

So instead, pick two gathering professions. The cool thing about gathering professions is that you start making money right away walk up to a mineral vein or a plant or a dead animal and grab those mats! Its 100% profit! And since you are going to be spending a LOT of time running around doing quests and killing animals it only makes sense to take advantage of gathering professions. Mining and Herbalism are the biggest moneymakers, but since they share the minimap, I usually will pick mining or herbalism and then pick up Skinning.

Also, items with grey text are vendor trash, meaning you sell them to a vendor. ALWAYS pick up the vendor trash at your level every little bit counts. If its WHITE text, that means its used in a profession somehow. Hold onto it and see what its worth on the Auction House. If you can sell it to the vendor for 25s but sell it on the AH for 50syouve just doubled your profit! Don’t laugh at 50s profit either do that 1000 times (which you will do this 1000s of times in this game) that’s 500g!

You should be making more than enough money to pay for new skills, updated armor and weapons, gryphon flights, stupid noncombat pets (hey I love em too!) etc. But keep in mind you are working towards two things when you hit lvl 40:

1. Buying your mount, which is going to cost you 90g
2. Preparing for your first crafting profession, which will take money to level and buy schematics/patterns/recipes/etc.

You cannot enter Phase Two until you have purchased your mount and have like 100g in savings. Trust me on this one 😀

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHASE ONE:

Q: Gen, you are a god among gnomes, and handsome to boot. But if you tell everyone to take up gathering, who will buy the materials were gathering?! If there’s no money in crafting, nobody will buy our materials!

A: It actually makes a perfect circle lowbies gather the mats, while highbies buy the mats and make crafted items (well discuss highbie strategy in a bit). These highbies in turn sell their items (for a profit) to other highbies and lowbies who NOW have money to spend (because they’re not wasting all their money trying to level up crafting professions!) It works really well like this.
Q: Gen, you are kind, intelligent, and have abs you could wash clothes on. My character is lvl XX, and I’m a lvl YY Crafting Profession and a lvl ZZ Gathering Profession. And I’m BROKE! Should I drop my crafting profession and take up a second gathering profession?

A: It depends on several things. If you are already close to lvl 40, you might as well keep the crafting profession UNLESS its really low level (like <125 or something) then ya drop it like a bad habit. If you are relatively low level but have a mid-level crafting professions, I would still drop it and take up a second gathering profession. You’ll end up making much more money by the time you’re 40, which is the real goal of this guide.
Q: My materials aren’t selling! The market is flooded with them and I keep getting them returned in the mailbox!

A: Ya that’s going to happen from time to time. Some days you can sell a stack of something for 1g, the next day the entire AH is flooded with stacks selling for 20s. Its what I call the Retard Factor. The best thing you is get a general idea of how much stuff is selling for at that time, price your materials a little bit less that that, and hope for the best. Don’t throw your hands up in despair when someone undercuts you its gonna happen. Just take your unsold mats and put them back on the AH someone will buy them, trust me! 

Main Principle In Power Leveling
DOWN-TIME is your enemy! Down time is defined as either sitting around waiting for manna, waiting for health, or running to and from the graves. How do you minimize down time? By killing that which is WEAKER than you and thus the numerous smaller XP gains will rack up faster than the slower, bulky XP gains. Read on for more.

POINT ONE: QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN NOT!
This has been a big debate in this game. Some people just want to kill and grind without bothering to do quests. But I disagree. I believe that quests are an important component of powerlevelling as they give additional EXP, money, and items. BigDwarf starts the game in Dun Morogh, near an icy field full of lvl 1-3 wolves and such. He immediately runs to the field and starts hammering wolves. He gets to level 3 fast enough, in about 40 minutes, after killing dozens of wolves. He then starts talking to the NPC’s nearby that have Yellow “!” (exclamation marks) on top of their heads (a yellow ! means the NPC has a quest for you)

So BigDwarf talks to an NPC who gives him a quest to kill 15 wolves, and when he does he gets extra exp and extra copper. The problem is, of course, that now BigDwarf has to go back to the fields and kill wolves again. Had BigDwarf taken the quest at the start, he would have greatly increased the efficiency of his character gains and would have the quest completed! Grinding is always good, but the benefits of questing is that you get additional exp for finishing a quest, and cash or valued items.

POINT TWO: MULTIPLE QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN ONE AT A TIME
Learn this lesson now, or waste numerous hours to learn it the hard way. In fact, this is certainly what I would call a key to the game. This principle becomes more profound the more you advance in levels. Numerous times I found myself accepting a quest to kill “10 of X monster” that I had already killed 20 of! Its so tempting to do this:

talk to NPC –> Get Quest –> Do Quest –> Return

Trust me! Once you get out of the first newbie stage and are past level 5, this approach will slow you down. You want to gain maximum levels, at maximum speed! The right approach, therefore looks like this:

Talk to all NPC’s in the greater vacinity –> Get All The Quests you can muster. Collect quests like candy. Accept them from NPC’s, accept them from other players (when you are in a group, players can ‘share’ quests).

Quest A may say “Kill 10 of monster X”, and Quest B may say “Kill 10 of monster Y”. You will find that as you kill monster X, you have to plow your way through several monster Y’s. In essence, you are completing two quests simultaneously. Doing multiple quests at once is the only way to fly.

typing “/1” will broadcast to the regional channel. The other way I do it is simply go to the location of monsterX (providing the server is populated enough), and either invite people or send a /tell message to them (typing /tell *name* will instant message someone). There is always someone nice enough to let you join, or someone who will hook up with you.

The point is, GET IN A GROUP and you will see the EXP gains as well as the quests fly. Having said that, I must mention that if you group, make sure the group is coordinated and not just some fly-by-night group of inefficient morons. If the people in your group are not serious about getting the job done, leave. You will fare better solo any day than you would in a chaotic group. And if you can’t find a group, just ‘skip’ that quest and go to the next one, and return later when you can. Solo when you can, but don’t push it and waste 3 hours trying to solo a mission you could do in 20 minutes if you were in a group. 

Patch 5.2: The Thunder King brought with it not only new and exotic locations to visit (if you don’t mind a few storms) but a slew of new creatures. One of these creatures is the Zandalari Battlesaur whose roar can shake even the most stalwart hero. But, what exactly goes into crafting a voice for such a creature? The World of Warcraft Sound team was able to pop the hood and give us a look at the anatomy of the sound design within.

There are subtleties to sound design that aren’t always evident at first listen. In this case, the Zandalari Battlesaur’s roar consists of several layers of sound that are integrated into one unified voice. These layers include:

A voice actor : We pulled in some of the best voice talent in the industry who excel in making creature sounds. In this case, we were able to bring in Jon Olson who also did the non-Voice Over sounds for sha and hozen mobs. What you hear is an edit of two takes that form a base layer of performance and sound that other layers and effects are crafted around.
Bear : Early last year, senior Sound Designer Chris Kowalski took his recording gear and his courage to Big Bear to gather some scary up-close source material from several of the wild animals at Predators in Action. The bear recordings from that visit were used to add size and embellish some of what the actor did.
Tiger : While at Predators in Action, Chris was also given the opportunity to record the tiger that was used in the movie Gladiator. This resulted in a ton of great material, including a lot of big cat chest rumbles and roars you may hear mixed into several creatures across Pandaria.
Final Sound : The final mix is comprised of all the layers above along with additional processing and mastering that make it fit within the world. 

In the World of Warcraft, players group together within hopes to discover important items. These items typically drop from the ending boss. When these items drop from the boss, players roll dice to see who gets the item. Many times players do not have the time and/or patience to make multiple runs though an instance for this item. To counter this problem, they simply steal the item in an event which is called Ninja Looting.
In the World of Warcraft, players group together within hopes to discover important items. These items typically drop from the ending boss. When these items drop from the boss, players roll dice to see who gets the item. Many times players do not have the time and/or patience to make multiple runs though an instance for this item. To counter this problem, they simply steal the item in an event which is called Ninja Looting.
Note that depending on the instance, you may encounter several Mini-Bosses. These bosses are not to be Ninja Looted because their drops are not worth getting blacklisted over. If you are thinking about Ninja Looting them, simply DON’T.
Remember when it comes time for the instance boss, your group will form a huddle. In this huddle a guild will call out strategies and tactics for taking down the boss.
Remember when it comes time for the instance boss, your group will form a huddle. In this huddle a guild will call out strategies and tactics for taking down the boss.
Keep this step in mind, because it is important! Spark controversy right before the Ninja Loot. This will serve as your distraction. Ninja Looters most often blame others for Need rolling on Materials right before they go in for the Ninja Loot.
Know the Ninja Loot: As the group begins to argue and/or discuss your claim, disband from your group, and hold shift as your right click on the downed boss’s corpse. This will ensure that all contents of the corpse are delivered to you in one click. It is important to IMMEDIATELY use Hearthstone and log afterwards. 

The definition of “addiction” is the state of being enslaved by something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming(such as narcotics or gambling), to such an extent that to discontinue the habit or practice can lead to severe trauma. In other words, you love something so much that you have developed a habit of using it or playing it to such an extent that not doing so leaves you feeling cranky or nervous, and you are becoming disinterested in other areas of life.

Some experts believe World of Warcraft can be “addictive”. Here’s a way to break your WoW “addiction.”
The definition of “addiction” is the state of being enslaved by something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming(such as narcotics or gambling), to such an extent that to discontinue the habit or practice can lead to severe trauma. In other words, you love something so much that you have developed a habit of using it or playing it to such an extent that not doing so leaves you feeling cranky or nervous, and you are becoming disinterested in other areas of life.

Some experts believe World of Warcraft can be “addictive”. Here’s a way to break your WoW “addiction.”
Burn yourself out by finding the ways to cheat at World of Warcraft. Find a private server to play on, with ultra fast leveling/gold. Cheating through the entire game in an hour will get you burnt out very, very quickly.
See the Matrix. Set up your own private server just for you, give yourself administrator rights and use them to explore the game. This will remove the fascination of the virtual world by showing you how it is all just a simulation with artificial rules. Returning to official WoW after having played around with admin rights might make you feel like running in a hamster wheel. You might feel like a fool spending hours of time for something that can also be done by simply typing “levelup 1”. (Maybe having read and understood these lines already made the whole private server thing obsolete for you.)
Schedule other activities with your free time, so you won’t have time to play WoW. One of the most effective way is to get a part time job and book every free time you have to work. Hang out with your friends, play basketball, engage in extra curricular activities at school (such as clubs or sport teams) or volunteer. The important thing is that they keep you outside of your home, away from your computer. You can find that there are many things that are just as exciting as playing WoW. Remember, your “guild” online is no substitute for the company of real friends.