People in Wildstar forum were talking about (the more hardcore MMMOers complaining really) that World of Warcraft was too easy. So I though I finally give that game try. Turns out they have a free version which lets you play up to level 20. After WS, WOW does seem very easy at least in staring areas.

I was trying out a goblin warlock when a GM came in chat to welcome me and asked if I had any questions. I did. My quest cliched. I think you cant go from being in car to control robot. GM said to abandon the quest and retake it. That worked.

Coool, Guybrush, WoW is a lot of fun. They have made it a lot easier...

My first WOW character: Qazari: Alliance: male Draenei Shaman - yes name recycled from one of my SWTOR characters.

My second WOW character: Yulyadya: Horde female Goblin Warlock - also recycled name from SWTOR character.

Jaivyn: Alliance: male Human Paladin - Afican for "light spirit"

Cereneril: Horde: female Blood Elf Mage - WOW name generator web site supposed to refer to fire.

Merilinor: Aliance: male Night Elf Druid

My ugliest character: Kumori: Horde: male Undead (Forsaken) Rogue - one of several Japanese words meaning "shadow"

Lykaoun: Alliance: male Worgen Hunter - misspelling of Lykaon meaning "little wolf" since Lykaon was already taken

Lykaoun when he's not transformed

Tanox: Horde: male Tauren Warrior - built in random name generator

My cutest character: Raiini: Alliance: female Gnome Priest

So I have one of each class except Monk (requires Mists of Pandaria) and Death Knight (which start at level 55. Missing races: Alliance: Dwarf and Horde: Orc, Troll and Neutral: Panderen

I love the gnomes and the goblins and the pandas (which you need Pandaria for)

I'm not necessarily going to keep all those characters. I just made them to try the classes. The Worgen starter area seemed harder than the others or maybe I'm just bad at Hunter, because I actually died several times. I think I'm deleting that character.

Oddly enough the Starter Edition will let me make a pandaren, just not a monk, says monk needs the Mists. It also shows death knight as a class I can make which is odd because it starts at level 55 and the SE only lets you play to level 20.

Every time I log in I get a screen offering me a deal on the full game, I believe Mists is extra though, but I won't to try out the game some more. Its a good deal to upgrade, reguarlly $19.99 on sale for $10.00. Mists I think is still full price though.

Yehtzu: female Pandaren Hunter, replaces the other hunter I deleted - Chinese for "coconut" (no good reason, just hard to find Chinese names not already taken). I love that she has a vicious turtle pet.

The pandas are fun, and usually, hunters are a great beginner pet as you can send your pet in to tank while you range.

This character replaces Tanox Chuugra: Horde: male Orc Warrior

Qazari has learned Skinning, Leatherworking, Fishing and First Aid. Haven't found anyone to teach cooking yet. And cant find any linen cloth so cant make first bandage. He has made himself some chest armor, bracers and a cloak. Next quest will reward him with equally good boots. So if he make boots would sell them.

I guess I should give Yehtzu the same professions plus cooking as soon as I find someone to train in that. Or I could try Alchemy.

Guybrush, when your are choosing professions, each one has a kind of bonus so you might want to consider those. For instance, Alchemists potions last twice as long on themselves, and enchanters can enchant some of their own equipment which can't be enchanted for anyone else. I just chose what I wanted to do, but more serious players who want to maximize their characters take those bonuses into account.

I also found I could just have one character cook for all my guys.

I went with alchemist just to be different. You mail stuff to other characters? Right now I cant use the mail. One of the restrictions on the Starter Edition.

Free to level 20 after that no experience gained.
Cap of 10 gold (yeah right, I'm terrible at money management)
Can't start a chat except in /say, can only respond to whispers, if someone talks to me first I can reply but can't start a conversation.
People higher than level 20 won't hear the say or any emotes I do.
Cant use mail
Can't form a group
Can't join a guild
Can't create a guild
Can't post on most battle net WOW forums (new player one is an exception)

There's a cap on crafting too but I forget what it is.

The Starter Edition keep tempting me with $10 purchase offer (not including Mists which I think is $20) but that would start subsription, after a free 30 days.

Goblin starting area is crazy. Seems like goblins not yet officially members of the Horde or Draenei the Alliance and of course Pandaren start out neutral as well. My Dranei just met some Alliance member night elves and goblin just met some Horde member Orcs. So they're on the way to joining. I figure those two opposite opinion pandaren NPCS are meant to be hints at the alliance and horde philosophies.


Jaivyn has learned Blacksmithing and Mining.

Yes, you mail stuff from one character to the next and you have to be in town to pick up mail.

Yep, it is fun to be able to choose your faction.....that was something that was added later

I made a dwarf. Kind off odd to see all these NPCs with Scandinavian names but speaking with Irish accents. I named mine Anvindr, same name I gave a Norn in Guild Wars 2, which is supposed be from the Norse. Replaces human paladin

Only a dwarf could fit 3 cegs of beer in his backpack (lol),

My Draenei reminds me of Dracula so I think it would have been a good voice for the Forsaken.

Nice to see you're enjoying it so far
Have you tried The Secret World yet? If not, I have plenty of buddy keys for you to try it

The trolls are Jamaican I love it.

Merilinor the druid has reached level 10 and gone Feral, because I enjoyed cat form so much. Though I found a very effective chain is to start in normal form (night elf in his case), use Moonfire to start over time damage, than switch to cat, Rake to start bleeding than switch to bear to Maul because it does extra damage to bleeding foe. Enemey still alive, rinse and repeat.

I played it a lot early on. For some reason, the big changes in Cataclysm didn't sit well with me. Guybrush, you might not be aware that before Cataclysm (the third expansion) the world with all the lower levels was very different than it is now. I got so used to that world that I never really got to like the changed one.

It sounds like there are even a lot more changes now. I might come give it another try sometime soon. I'm happily playing Guild Wars 2 right now.

I don't mean any criticism of WoW. Even when I left it, I thought it was probably the best designed and supported game out there. I'm glad you are enjoying it Guybrush.

Must have been lots of changes. People in WOW official forums telling me that except for whether pve, pvp or rpg rea;ms are not important. Apparently you used to want to pick realms close to you and one for alliance and one for horde but now something about the way the servers work realms are not important anymore.

Mostly for me it was more like a "who moved my cheese" experience. Or maybe another way to look at it was that I was so familiar with the world that I knew that the Cataclysm changes were a bit like taking the world you live in and having it change overnight to a post-apocalyptic world. Everything I knew about safe areas and quests and towns all changed. I think most people welcomed it but it didn't work for me.

Bob, I'm not big on the changes either. I think that is why we stepped away, though we will be back

Guybrush, WoW "consolidated" some realms to keep populations up. I don't think that is the exact right wording, but folks from more than one realm are now playing in the same sandbox

I've started over. Redoing alliance characters on one server and horde on another one, just because I'm an altohlic and easier this way.

Alliance server: Darrowmere
Kewalaka: male Draenei Shaman, specialization: Elemental

Level 12 but still in 1-10 area. Still quests to do.

Horde server: Hyjal
Yulyadya: female Goblin Warlock, Destruction

Qiong: female Pandaren Hunter, Marksmanship
(Qiong chinese for "Red Jade"

Guybrush, you will want to leave the area before you run out of quests...

I will? And miss something?

My latest characters can be found here.

Hmmmm, answered but it's not here.

Guybrush, there are a ton of quests in each area. I do like to follow each chain to it's end, but most people move on to a new area when the quests turn grey or sooner to level faster.

L4L, I'll be back too. You know there are big changes planned in December with the new programming, right? I was using an authenticator, but it got lost when I moved. So I hadn't been online in about 3 months. Got that fixed, but now I am so far out of the loop, I feel lost.
Also I've gotten into ESO and am enjoying that. It's much better than when I did the beta.
WoW is still the best as far as I can see.
Andrea

Andrea, I didn't know that. We have not been playing much so I am out of the loop too, but am feeling the itch to get back. Too many games, too little time....