Some easy noob questionsFollow

Hey, I'm about to start playing WoW, and I have a few simple questions about the game.

I'm going to be playing with my gf, and a few other friends (we're all new). We've decided to go Horde, but my gf wants to be a Mage Blood Elf, and our party needs a tank, so I'm going to fulfill that role. If I was to be an Orc Warrior, how long would it take (what level basically) would we be able to easily party and play together?

How much would I be able to help her if I am a different race than her on quests etc?

If it's best to be the same race, are Paladin Blood Elves a solid tank?

Does WoW have much gear swapping (if any) during battle? I used to play FFXI, and I wasn't a fan of both needing 40~ pieces of gear, and having 20+ macro's to swap everything out.

Could a tank and a mage duo to endgame? What is the optimal party size/setup for leveling?

Are there "notorious monsters" like FFXI? Do you have to camp certain mobs, with the chance of missing the "claim" and wasting that time?

Last question, I've played a small bit on a trial account, and noticed the starting area for a couple different races I chose was quite sparse, are there large cities or gathering areas where people hang out? The server I was on has "medium population".

Thanks

You can play together being different races but if one of you is going to take the time to travel all the way to the other person's starting point, you may want to level up quite a bit to at least have some chance of surviving the run with all the mobs out there.

For the most part, everyone (faction wise) has the exact same quests. So all horde has the same quests and all alliance has the same quests. Now, you will run into quests that she may only get that you can't because she's a blood elf (just an example, or visa versa). Also, each class has class quests but can easily be done by both people (for example the other person just hanging around to help out).

Being the same race helps since you both will be starting out in the same area. As I stated above, if you do decide to become an orc and her a blood elf, you may have to level a bit to make it to one another's area.

In my experience there isn't much gear swapping at all. Usually the people that do swap gear are the ones that respec for specific instances. For example, a druid that is specced feral will most likely have some tanking gear, but if a healer is needed, they'll respec and have to (at least should) get healing gear.


Anyone can duo with another toon. As Jordster said above, usually people duo as tank/healer, dps/healer, dps/dps, etc. Pretty much though, it's whatever you guys want to do.

If by notorious mobs you're talking about the "big guys", I guess you could say that. I've never played FFXI, but in WoW there's a lot of end-game guilds out there that do specific raids which require to down bosses. WoW tends to have a pretty good respawn rate with mobs, especially if there's a lot of people in the area killing them. You don't really camp in WoW, at least I never did. You are pretty much always doing something it seems.



Usually the beginner areas are quite sparse when it comes to toons. Once you get into bigger areas (for example on horde side), like Undercity, Orgrimmar, etc. you'll see a lot more people. Especially once you get to Outlands and in Shattrath. But you don't have to worry about that area until you reach your end levels.

Thanks for the detailed answers!

What does respec mean exactly? How often can/do you do it? What are the downsides (if any)?

Basically once you reach level 10, you have the ability to start putting talent points into specific "trees". You gain 1 talent point per level. More information about specs here, and an example of what the talent trees would look like.

You can respec as much as you want, but it does cost money. Starts off at 1g, and goes all the way to 50g (I believe that's the highest it is). It does not go beyond 50g, but after a period of time of not respeccing, the price starts going down again.

Paying to respec is probably the only downside that I see. But doing so, you could also get a feel of different ways a character plays.

Usually though, people tend to respec (more) in their later levels for raids, etc.

Edited, Apr 3rd 2008 3:03pm by xNocturnalSunx

Yes there are mobs akin to NMs.
Basically the rare spawns of WoW have nice gear drops, but there is alternative gear that will be decent at almost every lv.

You could play most if not all of the way to 70 (My highest is 64 atm) with quest gear and some cheap rares off of the AH

But most of the best gear you can get comes from running instances (A zone that the server creates for your group). When you run an instance, it will only be you and your group there.

So you will not have to worry about being out claimed, or another group attempting to mpk you (Don't know if the fix they made in FFXI stopped it completely)

One last thing though, a lot of gear from instances / rare spawns has a low drop chance...
you might have to run an instance or kill a rare spawn 20+ times to get a certain piece.

Edited, Apr 3rd 2008 3:18pm by DeathOsiris

How many people do you instance with normally? Is there a min/max amount, or does it depend on the instance? There are 5 of us in total all starting out together... Hunter, Warlock, Priest, Mage and me (tank either Paladin or Warrior), will we need additional people to do instances?

I'm totally jealous. That is an awesome group to start with from lvl 1. If you can all coordinate the time to all level together, that will be rediculously fun. Very cool.

Thanks again for the responses everyone, it's been a big help. The people I'm playing with are the people I played FFXI with, so our times mostly line up (for a few hours a night anyways). We're all pretty excited to play a MMO together again.

That's like my static group.

We're 5 RL friends, we rolled an all undead party of Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Priest, and Warrior. We chose undead because it gave us all those classes to play while starting in the same area.

We went up every single level together, doing quests together, running instances, and mostly having a hell of a great time. We could only play 1 day a week, for about 2 to 3 hours, since our online times aren't all the same.

We kicked *** on every instance along the way, and we were underleveled for most if not all of them. Only 3 failures stick in my craw, Uldaman (the old tougher version) was attempted at 41, but we failed on the last boss, yet finished successfully at 42. BRD was a cakewalk until the last area (the fast respawn place where we needed to light 2 torches) where we wiped 3 times until we leveled up a bit, and 2 weeks ago, Shadow Lab at 69, where Blackheart the Inciter blocked us (about 5 wipes). We've since leveled to 70, and got a few nicer pieces of equipment, and now SL is on farm.

It's looking to me like you're digging for info mostly on converting from FFXI to WoW.
You've touched on a few questions which lead to very different experiences between the two.
I know that in FFXI it was necessary to group to level. This is not so in WoW.
If you get bored and your friends aren't online, you can do a couple of quests by yourself. VERY few require a group.
As for NMs and camps, there is a VERY streamlined process in WoW comparatively.
In FF, you would sit and camp Kirin or whatever other NM for hours on end and wait for the pop to tag it first.
In WoW, all of the NM's are 'instanced' (Think Dynamis). Your group, and ONLY your group, is in that zone, and all the mobs are fresh for you.
There are around 8 world bosses you can attempt. These are non instanced, and more like the NM's. These are now mostly for money, as their drops are Bind on Equip epics.

As for gear swapping in combat, not only is it not necessary, it's not POSSIBLE. You can switch your weapon, your shield, your offhand in combat, but that's it.

Out of combat, it's not totally necessary to swap gear. Some classes, such as Druids, Paladin, and Shaman, can switch their gear to fit a role.
For example, a Druid can 'spec' (More on that in a moment) Feral, which means they are either a tank or a DPS.
If you're fighting a mob who requires you to burn him down quick, the Druid can switch to his 'DPS' gear before the fight to add more damage

About Specs and talent trees.
This can be best explained to you as a sort of Sub Job system.
In Final Fantasy, you could get your Ninja, and sub White mage to give yourself some heals.

This is sort of existant in WoW, but not quite as flexible.
Each class is NOT pidgeonholed into roles. For example, a RDM was a buffer. That was the RDM's thing.
You don't see that here.
Let's use the Paladin as an example, since you're considering rolling one.
The paladin can spec between three trees.
One tree is Protection. This is the tree for tanking. A protection specced paladin gets all the goodies to give him more health, more defense, and more blocking, for example.
One tree is Holy. This is the tree for healing. A holy paladin gets bigger heal bonuses, a couple of extra heals, and mana conservation talents.
The final tree is Retribution. This tree makes you a melee heavy DPS class. It makes you hit harder, use less mana to hit, and hit more often and quicker.

Through these examples, I HOPE I helped you understand things a little bit better. I do have a limited experience with FFXI, so I can explain things a little more clearly to your understanding.

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask, the people here are great help.