I’m hosting Blizzcon next month, so a big part of my preparation — my job, which is still kind of hard to believe — is to play as much Blizzard games as I can. There’s no way I’m going to be as knowledgeable as the people who live and breathe these games, but I need to know my way around them, because it would be irresponsible not to.
For some games, this is really easy. I’ve been playing Diablo since day one, and I used to play StarCraft back in its first release, so playing those games is like visiting with an old friend, if that old friend hasn’t gotten all saggy and old and weak and unable to hold his liquor after midnight like, um, someone who is most certainly not me. That’s for damn sure. Not me. I’m doing great thanks.
If you follow me on Twitter, which I’ve explicitly told you not to do, you know that I’ve recently restarted Diablo III, and I’m going all the way through the story again. I’m playing a wizard (a class I’ve never played before. I sort of fell in love with the monk and never played any others) and I’ve been saying up way too late every night, while I try different spell combos and figure out what gear I like the best. Can I just mention how happy I am that I can transmogrify items now? Because I am the kind of player who would really fall in love with the way a hat looks, and never want to put on something better because it didn’t fit my style.
I can feel some of you rolling your eyes at how I’m a filthy “casual”, but you’ll get over it. The idea of loot runs and rushing bosses to level a character as fast as possible has never appealed to me, but playing through the story, experiencing areas and NPCs that I’d forgotten about or never came across before, and remembering the countless all-nighters I pulled in my twenties has been really fun and rewarding.
Anyway, I’ve put something like 50 hours into D3 in the recent past, and it would be very easy to hook myself up to some sort of iron lung-style device that keeps me alive, fed, and moderately hygienic for the next couple of weeks. It really is that much fun for me, and I’m only level 36 right now. I got a ring last night that spawns these little chubby troll things that blow up for no reason, and don’t seem to be useful in combat at all, but hold crap are they hilarious.
I’m doing my best to have a good work/life balance, though. I’m making time to walk my dogs every day, writing a little bit every day, eating right, and even seeing my wife once or even twice a day. Today, I even went outside while the sun was still up, so there’s that.
I’m also learning games that are new to me, like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. I love Heroes of the Storm, and I made it through the training missions pretty easily, but when I try to play with actual humans, I am hilariously bad at it. I mean, I’m better at rolling d20s than I am at not dying in Heroes of the Storm. Ted Cruz is better at not being an asshole than I am at being useful to my team in Heroes of the Storm. True Detective Season 2 was more satisfying than — okay, you get the point.
But here’s the thing: every time I’ve played, I’ve told my team that I’m learning, and I stink, and I’m sorry but I’ll do my best. And every time I’ve played, my team has been friendly and patient and encouraging. Even when I’m stinking it up like the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs, the people I’ve played with haven’t been shitty to me. I asked my son, Ryan, who knows his way around these games much better than I do if that was normal, and he told me that, in his experience, people who play Blizzard games tend to be pretty decent to each other.
“They’ve built in all these controls to weed out the assholes,” he told me. “So the people who are playing are people who want to be playing, and it isn’t like League of Legends, where someone feeds the other team specifically to be a dick and ruin it for everyone.”
So if you’ve recently played Heroes of the Storm with a player who was so incompetent you thought that maybe a kitten had hopped onto a keyboard and was rolling around on it, and you were kind and patient with that person, there was a good chance it was me. And even if it wasn’t, give yourself a gold star for being awesome to someone who is struggling in a game. The only way we get more people to play games, and the only way we keep nice people in games, is when we help new players get comfortable.
Today, I’ve been playing a whole lot of Hearthstone, which is sort of like if you put Magic: The Gathering and Ascension into a blender, poured in five gallons of World of Warcraft, and put it on high speed for an hour. It’s silly as hell (in a good way) and easy to figure out, but difficult to master. My experience with deck builders and dueling games gives me an advantage to not sucking that isn’t present in Heroes of the Storm, and I’m probably going to be ready to attempt an actual, human opponent by the end of the weekend.
I have installed WoW, but I’m intimidated by and terrified of it. That’ll probably get played next week, sometime.
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In my opinion, MOBA Communities are the most toxic gaming communities you will ever come across, honestly I wish you luck in that regard, I refuse to touch them no matter what skin they have.
Now, if you’re going to get into playing WoW, I suggest going to an RP server. Wyrmrest Accord isn’t as strange as Moonguard. People there are more casual friendly and welcoming. I gave up on WoW because of the loot grind thing got old and it couldn’t replace City of Heroes for me. Nope never could. sighs At least with RP servers, you’ll be able to get in on Transmogrification and Lore runs pretty freeking easily because people want the gear for the looks. IMO: Your best class to start out is probably a hunter or a shaman. Of course I’m partial to those two. At least as a shaman you’ll be able to do enough Damage to the mobs and keep yourself alive, and be eagerly picked up by raid runners. 😀
Happy to help!
Seconding Wyrmrest Accord! You will find more jerks in WoW if you run the random groups, but the RP servers are a much more chill group of people. Also, playing Hunter is by far the easiest class. Good luck!! Hope you enjoy it, WoW has a ton to offer the curious who love nooks and crannies to discover.
Oh man, same here. I have a job, I didn’t need to come home and grind mats. However, I also have a 13-year-old with friends that want to play, so I’ve gotten back in as a sort of Den Mother.
Hey, I loved Moon Guard!
(Not offended. Amused. We could be weird.)
I’ve been to Goldshire on Moonguard. NEVER AGAIN…I’m still traumatized.
I know that feeling with WoW, I want to start it since a few years but yeah it is so big and I have lost my love for MMO a few years back. 🙁
Awesome! If you want someone friendly to play with, email me. 🙂
I’ve played World of Warcraft since the beginning. SOME realms are good to new players, others are not so much. I recommend wowhead.com for any questions you may have in game, in case you get nasty responses asking in chat. That site can answer Everything.
Also- If you want to remain a Blizzard fan, KEEP AWAY from the WoW forums. Trust me on that.
Diablo III- I can’t stay away from Diablo! I was very disappointed in it when it first released, but they did fix everything I ever took issue with (Mainly the RMAH but many other little issues too). Try a Witch Doctor. MOST fun ever- especially at high levels! 🙂
Awesome That your hosting blizzcon Will. Don’t be afraid of wow its a fun game just gets super grindy at times. Also be weary of the wow trolls/asshats
But here’s the thing: every time I’ve played, I’ve told my team that I’m learning, and I stink, and I’m sorry but I’ll do my best. And every time I’ve played, my team has been friendly and patient and encouraging. Even when I’m stinking it up like the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs, the people I’ve played with haven’t been shitty to me. I asked my son, Ryan, who knows his way around these games much better than I do if that was normal, and he told me that, in his experience, people who play Blizzard games tend to be pretty decent to each other.
that’s good. from what i hear that can be rare in gamer places.
Oh man! When we saw Felicia Day in Santa Fe, my son asked if you and Chris Hardwick played WoW, and she said, “Well, that would be the dream team, wouldn’t it?” If you play on Lothar, look us up, we’ll run you through 😉 ‘Cause you’re going to post your toon name and server here, right?
re.WoW – create a toon today and come over to the Brewfest event [October Fest for the win!] (Alliance is at the base of mountain that Ironforge is built on). Lots of amusing quests involved – plus BEER! 😀 [Horde’s version is outside Orgrimmar – same quests but the “ride for beer kegs” seems a bit harder with lots of obstacles]. This event ends next wednesday
Brewfest is awesome. My second favorite WoW holiday after Hallows Eve. It’s almost cruel to mention it when it’s only got one day left though.
Longtime lurker, first-time poster, etc., but I’ve been in that spot re: the WoW intimidation factor. It’s still a big, big game with a gigantic community, even with the recent sub losses.
What I’d recommend is rolling on a either a New Player or Roleplay server. I can’t speak for PvE or PvP servers, but RP servers tend to be pretty easygoing, even the big ones, and New Player servers are… well, exactly what they sound like. There’s no shame in joining them – I’ve considered rolling an alt on one so I can walk people through the paces.
For some quality-of-life stuff, I’d strongly recommend typing “/leave 2” in the chat field as soon as you roll a character. 2 is the Trade channel, and it tends to be full of trolls and people who think “funny” is synonymous with “disgusting”. Also, if you roll an Alliance character, and especially on an RP server, don’t go into Goldshire in Elwynn Forest unprepared. It’s another big troll hangout. I’m not sure what the Horde equivalent is, if any.
All in all, though, your son is right about Blizz making an effort weed out the big jerks. Players have some pretty nice blocking tools at their disposal now, which keeps the dillweeds of the world from dragging things down. And if you have friends or family who play, you should definitely try running content as a group! It’s a lot of fun to quest and run dungeons with people you know.
Unrelated to the above, but I was going to pass on Blizzcon this year, but if you’re going to host, I think I’ll re-consider getting that virtual ticket. I love watching TableTop, so it’ll be cool to see you host!
My husband has been very adamant about not playing WoW after we lost our friend for over 2 years to the game. He is a super massive old-school gamer. Sadly, he fell away from games around the time WoW came out. I, on the other hand, embraced it without fear of addiction and have been playing it off and on ever since. Just beware. . . lost time will occur. A quick 10 minutes becomes an hour REAL quick. Happy questing!
I love that you play like I do – I really love playing the content rather than rushing through. Unfortunately, from my last playing of WoW, they have redesigned the game to accommodate the players who want to rush through – the leveling happens really fast and before you’ve played all the way through an area, you’ve out-leveled it. Still, have fun with it regardless. It may be kind of scary at first (it really was for me) but someone with your savvy will grok this no problem!
yeah, I noticed that, too. I started a new character just to reacquaint myself with the mechanics and was shocked how quick it was going. I highly recommend doing all the quests in each area, just to get the flavor. If you roll Alliance, get yourself to Duskwood before Halloween. It’s relatively low level, but tons of fun for a Halloween theme, even if they did tone it down from Vanilla days. I really miss Stitches coming down the path at random times and killing your ass if you don’t hide fast enough.
I love Blizzard and I love Wil. What a combo! I’ve played WoW since vanilla (really Warcraft II was a fave) and I, too, have become a “casual,” but who cares? I enjoy the game, ignore dumb chat and try to help when I can.
You’ll be great at Blizzcon.
Having played on both WRA and MG (and currently happy with the latter), I’d say they’re both equally weird. The weird just gets concentrated in different places.
The Secret World has more intelligent gameplay and a smaller community, if you’re feeling brave and less mainstream. 🙂
Unfortunately not a Blizzard game. It is a quite enjoyable MMO RPG though!
Good luck and Have fun Wil! :”) Thank you for speaking out as well for everyone that’s helping out new players as well! we’re so quick to anger when it comes to these type of games since you either win or die as a team, but people forget that you’re rarely going to go up against a premade expert team.
Some matches honestly come down to which team can help their new and weaker players the best. It might of been the expert on the enemy team that gets the kill, but it’s the newbie you where chasing that got you to over-extend and get caught out of place. 😛
I’ve never played WoW but I play it’s predecessor Warcraft 3 with friends and love it’s mini games. I haven’t played much story line though.
Don’t be intimidated by WoW. You can solo level if you want, dungeon if you want (the leveling dungeons are easy) and you should have at least one boost to level 90 if you want to skip ahead to the high levels once you get a feel for the world. If you like caster archetypes play a Warlock. You get a pet who can take much of the agro as you level (cloth armored characters are fragile), they do good DPS and if you play DPS as you level you can run 5 man dungeons and not be in the tank or healer roles where you sometimes have to actually concentrate. If Ryan can hook you up with a guild invite (if he still plays and he can do it without people knowing you’re you which will freak people out) run dungeons that way. Random leveling dungeons can be populated with people who aren’t patient since they’re almost always alt toons of people who’ve played awhile.
Ha! Coincidentally, I’ve been re-playing Diablo 2 for the past two weeks or so and here I am, at 3 am and I just finished playing 😛
The story inside WoW itself is REALLY disjointed, given the shuffling of expansions over the years. But the individual questlines are still great. Websites that are your friend: Blizzard Watch and its various articles (including lore knowledge and where to find more), wowpedia, and WoWHead. Agree with staying away from the Blizzard forums.
The smaller RP realms can be quiet and fun, though difficult to find public roleplay sometimes, but I get the feeling that won’t be a huge concern with Wil’s schedule. My own realm (Shadow Council) used to be large and popular, and now has a ‘small town, everyone knows each other” feel that works well for us and sometimes folks looking to get away from the “big city” feeling of Moon Guard or Wyrmrest Accord. The atmosphere of RP realms is generally a little more laid back and open in PvE as well, and a little less focused than big realms full of raiders trying to make progression ranking.
I really can’t recommend a PvP realm; that kind of play doesn’t seem to mesh with Wil’s overall style, or the goal of simply learning the game. There are PvP battlegrounds and other short term methods to experience that aspect, if desired.
Glad that the other games are being so much fun! The single-players, Heroes, and Hearthstone really are a bit less intimidating and newbie-friendly than the 11+ year old juggernaut that is WoW! 😉
Blizzard communities nice to everyone? Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but you should maybe ask a woman how “nice” Blizzard communities can be. I’m certainly not tarring EVERYONE with that brush, but there are some serious troglodytes around. It’s why I like Hearthstone; nobody has to talk to me.
Awesome that you’re hosting Blizzcon!
I’ll echo a lot of the commenters here and tell you to not be afraid of WoW. I’ve been playing since Burning Crusade and have been both a hardcore raider and a “filthy casual”. I’ll happily tell you that being a filthy casual has actually been more fun for me. The whole rushing-through-content-to-get-to-the-raiding thing was exhausting. 🙂
People are generally decent to each other, though there are always a few trolls. It happens. Good advice was given by commenters Anna Turner and Kavi above. Just roll a character and enjoy!
I’m so excited for you to host and genuinely appreciate you learning the games or at least refamiliarizing yourself. I quit WoW a few years ago due to a game-life balance issue (you know, suddenly being allergic to work or leaving your office…) but have picked Hearthstone up as a nice casual reminder of my first love. I also love that the Blizz community has been good to you, and glad it hasn’t changed. All my IRL friends came from WoW so I appreciate Blizzard for what they brought me.
If you would like help with WoW I’d be game to help ya. Played all the RTS games, love the story and have played Wow since it release with a small hiatus mid way through Cataclysm. And I have been both Horde and Alliance, “carebear” server (Hyjal) and “RP” (Kirin Tor). Propbably most importantly I amd a follower of the way of “Don’t be a DIck” and can give balanced and fair WoW history lessons.
That said, I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyPzTywUBsQ .
Flip me a email if you would like a Battletag friend
-Wolf-
Blizzard games… stay a while… stay forever! Obviously when considering a WoW realm you’d choose one from Asia Pacific, because the experience is so much better*
*cannot back up with actual facts
Haven’t played any Blizzard games since Warcraft 3. But I have been revisiting old games (The most recent being KotOR 2, with the new TSL Restoration patch. Got it working on Win 10, no less.) and it’s fun to go back and do things differently. No comments on MMOs, I never played those. So have fun playing the old games until you find it’s 6 AM and you have to get up at 6:30.
“I can feel some of you rolling your eyes at how I’m a filthy “casual”, but you’ll get over it. The idea of loot runs and rushing bosses to level a character as fast as possible has never appealed to me, but playing through the story, experiencing areas and NPCs that I’d forgotten about or never came across before, and remembering the countless all-nighters I pulled in my twenties has been really fun and rewarding.”
I think I just fell that much more in love with you as a person. (…Stop that.)
I enjoy video games, I truly do; I feel like they engage players in their stories in a way no other medium can. And for the most part, I am very solidly mediocre at them. Not bad, but not an expert, and by no means any kind of good at competitive play. Which is fine for me— campaigns and storylines will always be my favorites. It’s just irritating to constantly get hit with that ‘casual’ attitude, like I’m not enjoying the game ‘right’. So to see someone like yourself espouse an opinion like this— well, you’ve certainly brightened up my evening. Thanks for that!
Oh dear lord….be careful with wow. It’s an addiction…. It sucks the life put of your soul! And I love it so much I actually have withdrawals from not playing it. But sadly it takes too much time and dedication to be a true wower and play the end game content. If you want to be a casual wower you really only have time for questing and leveling… But don’t bother with end game content because it takes dedication…. Like your whole fucking life!
I have played WoW since the beginning – even met my husband on Azeroth in 2005 (in Undercity to be exact). However, the latest expansion has ruined what was once a fun and stimulating world to be a part of. Blizzard made WoW into a series of minigames, completely obliterating the multiplayer community feel. Also, as a pvper I find the gear grind annoying because if you fall behind even one week, you are no longer competitive. Forget even having a life outside WoW. Hopefully Legion will help alleviate those problems…
Heroes of the Storm is a phenomenal game! It really has weeded out much of the negative aspects of other well-known MOBAs and is extremely accessible and fun. Takes some practice to learn the maps, moves, and characters – but all in all SO fun.
Hearthstone is great! it’s my pick-up-and-drop game for when I only have 10 minutes at my computer. I am a MTG player (Green/Black) and I appreciate that Hearthstone is not as rich and much more random than MTG, but that being said, Hearthstone is super fun and crazy.
Great to hear you’re going to be hosting Blizzcon this year, Wil. Looking forward to it 🙂
Enjoy your Blizzard grind – there are definitely worse ways to spend your time! 🙂
DFTBA!
Several people beat me to suggesting Wyrmrest Accord, but if I may hop on the bandwagon: I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rolling on a roleplaying server is almost like playing another game. There’s some trolls here and there, but overall the community tends to be much more friendly and mature. I recently hopped on an alt who I keep on a PvP realm, glanced around at how many gross jerks had guild/character names with racist or homophobic overtones, then promptly logged out and went back to Wyrmrest, where the awful people are few enough in number that a simple /ignore takes care of them.
Wyrmies may be lore nerds but they’re by and large very friendly lore nerds. And it’s also definitely one of the more female and LGBTQ friendly realms. It would be dense and untrue to pretend that there’s no bigots, but they’re at least forced to keep their bigotry out of the public eye for the most part.
And don’t let anyone–even well-meaning IRL friends–rush you to level cap if you’re new to WoW. A large segment of the population thinks that end-game content is the only part anybody should bother with, but that’s largely because they’ve quested and leveled toons over the course of a decade and have grown bored. There’s a whole world out their brimming with lore, and the end-game stuff will be there when you get around to it.
I’m going to Blizzcon for the first time this year and it made my day to hear that you’ll be hosting. Good luck!
WoW is probably the least intimidating of Blizzard’s games. Very easy to get in to. It’s not until you hit the higher levels that it gets crazy.
World of Warcraft is interesting from the point of view of someone used to Diablo III, because in terms of designed content, most of it is going to be similar, if a little bit more directed. Rather than just going through a zone map and killing everything you find, you’ll be hunting targets for quests, but it’s still fundamentally about killing things, taking their stuff, and levelling up your character and their gear.
Where it gets weird is that the playerbase is so concentrated at the high end of the levelling curve that it’s like a whole bunch of people who only log on to do Adventure Mode at max level because they enjoy the process of actually playing the game and they might get some upgrades slowly (people like me, who play multiple alts and enjoy questing), plus a smaller but more vocal and organised community of people who only run Greater Rifts and mostly care about getting the perfect rolls on their gear (raiders, even non-hardcore raiders, who mostly focus on their main and maybe a primary alt).
It’s also weird because, from a design perspective, it’s a little bit like Diablo I-III are all in the same game engine. Questing up from level 1-100 isn’t just about new scenery, it’s about new quest design and in-game features (complicated by the fact that, now, the oldest content in the game is the 60-70 experience in Outlands, since the 1-60 experience was updated two expansions ago).
Just don’t make the mistake I made when I started and think that if you’re playing a human mage, you need to run away from the wolves or you’ll die in one hit!
Long shot here, but I’ve been playing for years in a family/friends/causual/fun raiding guild that would be happy to have you and help you if you were interested. We’re on Whisperwind, guild Mantecorians.
Whisperwind is great. Please note that I’m totally biased. waves
Yay fellow Whisperwinder! My original server was Khaz’goroth and I was so sad to leave it, but when they actually moved the servers to Aus it sucked. We like our new home though 🙂
As a long-time WoW player and casual fan of Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, I am delighted to hear you are enjoying your foray into Blizz territory. As far as Azerothian adventures are concerned, you need not be intimidated by WoW. If you plan to level via questing and enjoy immersing yourself in lore, I definitely agree with the RP realm recommendations. Wyrmrest Accord has plenty of knowledgeable, helpful folks (though Goldshire can get a bit dodgy on any realm). These days every tank or dps class can comfortably solo questing content. If you’d prefer to level via dungeons, roll up a tank or healer for instant queues. Brewmaster Monks might be of particular interest to you. Most of all, have fun, enjoy your game-filled prep work, and have a blast at Blizzcon!
“Even when I’m stinking it up like the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs…” if my partner wasn’t sleeping peacefully beside me I would have laughed out loud. Even more so since my beloved Oilers just hired on Todd McLellan to helm our beleaguered ship. Love it Wil! Keep on playing and keep on posting. (And the Kings are my second favorite West Coast team, behind my Oil of course. Love me that Doughty!)
Yeah… I’d like to reiterate other people’s comments on not being intimidated by World of Warcraft. Blizzard has gone way out of their way to make it appealing (and basically catering) to “filthy casuals”, as you put it. I’d also agree that you’d probably be best off (especially now) in starting out on one of the older RP servers. I’d suggest Cenarion Circle, as it’s a moderately populated server linked with another moderately populated RP server (Sisters of Elune). But I’m biased in that, like everyone else. I will grant though, over the years I’ve found that some people’s RP stories in game were just as entertaining as some of the quest lines. Sometimes. Not something I do any more, but that’s because I came back in May to try out Warlords of Draenor due to the WoW Tokens (after a 1+ year hiatus). Played it for a month or two, then my interest faded, as always. Now I only log in to do my Garrison(s) twice a day to keep the money flow stable for when I might actually want to buy more of the tokens. The sub is good till May of next year already, as it is.
WoW may be daunting at first, because you may get inundated by the amount of crap there is to do, but you whittle down what you like pretty quickly. I still can’t bring myself to like the pet battles. Pokemon was never my thing. For Blizzard games, my favorite is Diablo 3: RoS now. The initial release for that game wasn’t quite as stellar as I’d hoped. Reaper of Souls really improved upon it, and I enjoy it far more NOW than I did ever before. I’m surprised you are playing through the campaign again – I can’t stomach it anymore. Now, whenever I make a new character (usually seasonal), I just go right to Adventure Mode. I played through the campaign with every class once already, and can’t stand doing it again. I would have suggested getting Kanai’s cube in that mode first, just to have it and play with it before Blizzcon, since that’s been the big addition in the last couple months. It really has made character building… interesting. I think my monk is my favorite right now, as well. Wizards are fun too – the “Del Rasha” combo is especially potent and kinda crazy.
Good luck with your hosting gig! I won’t get to see it, but a friend of mine has the virtual ticket – he can tell me how you do.
Haven’t Played Diablo in years but probably should. However WoW well it was the definitive game for me growing up I mean it came out and everyone I knew had it, granted the concepts of ‘Filthy Cas’ and ‘Gatekeepers’ weren’t as prevalent then as they are now, however it was growing and eventually drove off a lot of people.
However after a quick revisit with friends I would have to agree with your son, Blizzard have gone out of their way to cultivate a community of gamers that are at the very least respectful and at their best helpful and friendly, it is a massive thing to see on the internet in my opinion and I hope more companies take note.
Good gaming Wil
is that… a Mac?
This is the first year I’ve ever bought a ticket for blizzcon (virtual), even got the goody bag, and now I find out you’re hosting? Ok, totally awesome! I recently got back into WoW, haven’t played since vanilla and was kinda sad they nerfed so much of it. But I’m still playing so something has to be said about that. Hope you’re having fun! And if you find yourself in Scarlet Crusade server, say hi! =)
I love Diablo III. I have always been a little disappointed that Blizzard does not support Mac better. May they do on their newest but I stopped following there games because they were to hard to get to run on Mac.
oops bad spelling day….
Hah, yes, just in time for Brewfest. Still my fav WoW holiday. You already know to come up for air once in a while, so I hope you have lots of fun and meet cool people. I know I did.
Isn’t Diablo3 super fun?? So. Many. Smashable. Things. It’s kind of soothing.
Happy to see so many people saying not to be afraid of WoW. You’ll be fine. I had never played an online game in my life when I started. Some friends invited me and then went off and left me to figures it out and “catch up” to them. I struggled like crazy as I had no tools or context to work with. But it was such a wonderful world I couldn’t give up. And they really do walk you through if you know what an exclamation point means and how to use a map. Some idea about toolbars is helpful too. You are going to love it.
Perenolde. Disciples of Beer. ’nuff said.
A long time ago when WoW was new, my husband brought it home and told me he thought I might enjoy it. I hadn’t played video games since, well, Frogger & Pitfall, but it was very accessible and really enjoyable.
I ended up leveling a holy priest to 38 playing solo in the original vanilla version, (which is proof I should not be allowed out in public without an escort). Everyone was lovely to me, and even when I caused havoc in groups because I didn’t know how to play my class, people were still kind and helpful.
I rolled some other characters after that, and learned how to play the classes, but I’m pretty mediocre. I only wish you could experience how it was before Cataclysm. I guess that’s one difference between a video game and other artworks. I can go back and watch a favorite movie again, but when a game changes, it’s changed forever. I still miss The Barrens that was.
I was on a really great RP server (Silver Hand!) so I’ll totally back up other commentators who say RPs are the way to go.
Playing WoW for the first time? How cool! Would love to tag along.
Please let us know how your WoW experience goes!
Don’t forget to play lost vikings!
Im super excited that you are doing BlizzCon Wil. While there are the bad apples in the Blizzard fan bunch Ive found most people that Ive encounted to be pretty chill. Just relax and have a good time. You’ll do great!
About the terrified at wow part: I use to be too! I didn’t want to fight players or thought I was bad at role playing..
What I learned is that wow has several types of servers, PVP (against players), PVE (against environment), and RP-PVP/PVE (Role Playing with PVP or PVE)
PVE (non-rp) is the easiest to play. Players can’t ambush you and kill you randomly unless you’re marked for PVP. (you have to manually go into the settings and make yourself available for PVP)
You will get bombarded with guild invites, as a new player. There’s settings in the options (Esc key > interface) to disable guild invites. I suggest you turn that on.
Try not to do any randomly-matched dungeons, especially at higher levels. The understanding and comradery you find in Heroes doesn’t really exist in the randomly-matched groups in wow. People are quick to kick you if you do newbie stuff.
If you can find an active casual guild, I highly suggest you join. They’re friendly and helpful and don’t care if you’re new to the game.
Been there, Wil. Happy to help on Zul’jin or Dalaran servers for World of Warcraft. I started out in the Lich King with my friend expanding to me how to loot a body. It’s fun!
You are the MAN! I too am a fan of Diablo III and WoW (primarily WoW) so if you want to just run quests or just want some company, create a toon on the Khadgar server and look me up. Private message me if you want my Battle.net ID to tag me.
I’ve been playing since vanilla (for those not in the know vanilla is the term for the orignal game, now that there have been 5 expansions) and have gone through both styles, once hardcore raiding, which progressed into part-time raiding which has now progressed into casual play-when-I-can. Life/career/family will do that.
Anyway, couldn’t be more excited for you to host Blizzcon. I’ve never gone, but I always get the “virtual ticket” so I can watch all the events, game play, announcements live as they happen. Should be a blast. “See” you there.
Roll a protection paladin. Versatile and fun to play. And you don’t get steamrolled by creatures. I’d also suggest alliance. Their zones have more of a fantasy style. Nicer color pallet.
If I might humbly suggest my guild on Earthen Ring, alea iacta est. It’s mine insofar as I am a member, but it’s a huge guild comprising several sister guilds. There is literally ALWAYS an officer online (by design) to help with questions, and the members are the friendliest I’ve ever come across in WoW.
Also, I rolled a hunter when I first began playing years ago, and I must agree that it’s a good beginner class. With your experience as a gamer, though, I imagine you could pick up one of the more challenging classes fairly quickly. Monks are loads of fun (my primary alt is a Pandaren monk), and I’m partial to mages as my main.
Any help I might offer is available for the asking.