New and Full of Questions

Guides New Player Help and Guides
1

So far I am enjoying the game, I figured out some of the basics but there is a lot. I just have a couple of questions. I’ve only played like 15 hours. I even tried the pvp thing, but didn’t enjoy that much. I died really fast all the time.

I made a Warlock, the game said it was a pet class. I leveled it a little to 20 and decided to try something else. I didn’t like the pet names and couldn’t figure out how to change them. I am now playing a priest. I was a little scared I’d have to heal, but I am glad I am do damage with it.

In the game menu there is an ‘edit mode’, but it is greyed out. What is this for?

Some Dialog in the game is really loud and some is really soft. I have audio options like dialog turned way down, but as I said… there are some extremely loud exchanges. Is there another option I need to fix?

I put an authenticator on my account and it says I got a Core Hound Pup. What is this? I found a merchant with two owls and bought them. Are they just for fun?

I can’t see health bars above enemies until I am in combat with them, so it is difficult for me to see what things are bad or not. Is there an option to show nameplates all the time?

There is a white envelope above my mini map, when I hover over it, it says something about a postmaster. What is that? And how do I click the envelope to open it? It won’t open.

Sorry for the questions, I tried to browse the forums but there is information everywhere and it is a bit confusing. Also, how does one go about finding people to talk to in this game? Is everyone so far ahead that no one is doing anything low? I have to do something called Shadowfang keep but I’ve no idea where that is.

Is there some where I can look for my questions instead of bugging people here? Like I said, these forums are a little confusing to me and a lot of replies I’ve seen have seemed not too friendly, at least in the general one.

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Lets see what I can answer:

For PvP, dying a lot is perfectly normal. Class balance can also be pretty weird at low levels and you’ll be up against players with better gear due to having mains that can supply things like heirlooms. You can completely ignore PvP if it’s not something you enjoy, or try it out later.

I don’t think you can change Warlock pet names. Demons aren’t like a kitty you name, they already had their own. (Hunters are the only class that can name their combat pets.)

Edit mode lets you move around interface options like your action bars and the minimap. It should unlock once a character has completed the Exile’s reach quests.

For the dialog volume, it could be a couple of things. First, the volume for some stuff is affected by your proximity to the speaker. (But not all stuff.) Second, this game is 19 years old and so different stuff done added to the game at different times may behave a bit differently from each other. But, you’ve found the relevant settings.

Compainion pets (like the corehound pup and the owls you bought) have two main uses. The first is that you can have them out and following you around just for fun. If you go into your collections (the horseshoe icon in the micromenu) one of the tabs at the bottom will have these pets. The second thing is a pokemon like battle pet system. It’s a side game, and it won’t affect your progression if you ignore it completely. (But, it can be fun, and you do get experience for winning battles. You can also capture wild pets that are roaming around the world.) Here’s a guild for them.

If you go into the nameplate settings (Options>Gameplay>Interface>Nameplates) there is an option you can check “Always show nameplates.” That will show them even outside of combat. (You also have to have the nameplates you want to see turned on using those checkboxes as well.) Another useful setting is in Options>Accessiblity>General. Minimum character name size will let you set a minimum font for the non-nameplate name of stuff in the world, which can make stuff easier to see.

The envelope icon is telling you you have mail, but you have to go to a mailbox in game to actually pick it up. You can turn on tracking (the little binocular icon nest to the zone name on the minimap) to see them on your map, but there’s pretty much always one outside of Inns, so that’s a safe place to head to. You right click the mailbox to interact with it, and you’ll see a list of your mail.

People just aren’t that chatty in this game. Most people are leveling solo and just zooming to max level. You can run dungeons using the dungeon finder. Unfortunately, as a new character, you won’t have access to Chromie Time, which you need to change which expansion’s dungeons are in the list. (Shadowfang Keep is the Cataclysm expansion, new players will be in the BfA expansion.) I wrote up some of the key points of Chromie Time for someone else yesterday, if you want to know a bit more.

You can just ignore the quest, or when you get to level 35, you should be able to solo the dungeon. (Although the rewards probably won’t be super useful at that point.) Shadowfang Keep is in Silverpine Forest, which is in a Horde zone in northern Eastern Kingdoms, so for an Alliance character, it’s going to be a fair bit from any Alliance towns. (At 35, you’ll have flying, though, to make it easier to get to.)

This is a great place to ask questions —especially specific ones like what you’ve asked. It’s low troll, but the tradeoff is that it’s slow moving. So, it’s not odd for it to take a day or two for a response.

For resources, Wowhead.com is a useful resource with guides and a huge database. You can use it to look up quests and items. The secret is to head to the bottom and look at the comments tab (sort them either by newest or highest rated for best results). You’ll then get to see useful player added info on the quest/thing in question. In many cases, if you’re stuck on something (or wondering what some item in your bag is for) you aren’t the only one, and there might be comments that are useful to you.

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3

I really appreciate your reply, Udiza!

I may step my toe into PvP once I get a better hang of the game. I found it so weird I was getting achievements for things like killing 10 orcs, when I hadn’t killed anyone.

That makes sense that Warlocks wouldn’t be able to name their pets. D’oh! I was finally able to access the edit mode and wow it makes things a lot better being able to resize some aspects of the interface.

A pokemon battle pet system sounds super fun. I’ve been a fan of them since they were introduced when I was a kid, I will have to look into this system more! This may have just started a fascination with collecting these cute little creatures though. Thank you for the guide!

You are a life saver with the nameplates! I had not seen that option before, but I may have just been a little overwhelmed. As for the mail icon, I finally found a mailbox but once I opened it there was nothing in it. Maybe it was just a bug, I was kind of excited to get mail in the game.

Thank you for the Chromie tips, I will also look into this! I will try to figure out the dungeon finder today, but if I can’t then I will figure out how to get to Shadowfang myself. Hehe, I want to do every quest I find- so having one sit in my inventory is going to drive me crazy!

I will save Wowhead to my bookmarks! :smiley: Thank you for being super kind and replying!

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4

Hehe, we’ll cure you of that real quick! :rofl:

5

I hope not! I am really enjoying the story so far and just finished the Darkshore area. It has me hook line and sinker at the moment. Hehe.

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6

Teldrassil and Darkshore are what hooked me to WoW, as well.

As a fellow Night Elf, you should take the Gryphon from Lor’danel North to Teldrassil - Rut’theran Village and through the portal to Darnassus, and explore Teldrassil and the native home of our race, and say Hi to our leaders upstairs in the Temple of the Moon.

The recent history of the race is covered in the starting quests in Shadowglen.

There are about 36,000 quests in the game, about half of which are reasonably do-able, so you’re not going to run out any time soon. :smiley:

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As Grainne said, there are an insane number of quests in the game. A while back, I took a character through all the doable quests (BfA was the current expansion at the time, so there’s been two whole expansions worth of quests added since that time.) It took me a year, and I’m very familiar with the quests and did it overlevled so I could one shot stuff. It’s certianly a great long term goal, but don’t get too bogged down on it with your first character.

That having been said, let me get you a bit started on your story questing addiction:

The Darkshore>Ashenvale>Stonetalon questing is some of my favorite Alliance side, so you’re getting a great introduction. As a night elf, when the options diverges in Stonetalon towards Southern Barrens or Desolace, I’d go with the Desolace path. (Northern Barrens and Dustwallow are very human centric.) Desolace isn’t Night Elf centric, but it has a bunch of druid stuff. (As well as more Naga, which you first met in Darkshore.) Feralas has some great Night Elf story as you get to hang out with one of the big Night Elf heroes, Shandris Feathermoon.

For the Shadowfang Keep quest, I’m assuming it’s the Class quest for a weapon? (I think that’s the only Alliance quest you can get outside of the dungeon itself.) It’s not particularly story driven and is self contained, so waiting on it won’t mess with the story flow. There are some more quests that you pick up inside Shadowfang, but your current character won’t have access to the quests that lead story-wise into the dungeon. (In fact, you’ll need 2 different characters to see the whole pre-story to it!)

The first part of the story comes from the Worgen side, which can only be done by creating a Worgen (non death knight) character and choosing Gilneas (not Exile’s Reach) as their starting zone. It’s a nice story (and also shows why the Night Elves and Worgen have a bond) and so it might be worth a peak when you get the chance. It takes a couple hours to get through the Worgen starting zone if you aren’t rushing things.

The second part of the story is Silverpine Forest and is from the Horde side. It can be done on any Horde character level 10 or higher. (Although Undead is the most convenient and relevant race for the story.) Any level 10 Horde character can go to Brill and get Warchief’s Command: Silverpine Forest from Executor Zygand to get started with it. I think that Silverpine and Hillsbrad have some of the strongest early Horde based storytelling.

Oh and if you do make that Horde character, take them to Stonetalon Mountains after you’ve done it on your Alliance character. Stonetalon is a zone where you really need to see the story from both sides to get the full perspective. (The Horde side of Stonetalon starts with We’re Here to Do One Thing, Maybe Two in Ashenvale.)

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Let me just say this, when I first got into healing it was a bit nerve-wracking. But over time, when you find your comfort healing class or just a class you enjoy, you find healing really enjoyable. I told myself many years ago, I’d never heal but when my friend asked me one day if I healed, I said no, but I tried restro druid out that same day. So overall, don’t let healing scare you. Healing is a learning process, you’ll screw up but you’ll always have people there to help you.

There’s a command if you type it in chat you have edit mode open, it’s grayed out so new players aren’t distracted with their UI or something or intimidated.