World of Warcraft

Ya man sounds like fun. Just let me know when your on. I need to get my lvl's up.

 

I will be on for most of the day to day if any one want to play.
Are the exspantion packs worth getting? Which one do you get there is like 3 or 4 different ones.

 

I'm in Davenport for the day, but I might be around to play later tonight.

-JB

 

Well I got the expansion pack tonight. Now there is even more stuff to do. This game is very addicting.

 

You guys did pretty good for your first time in an instance, but had CrimsonSteel not been there, you guys would have got smacked down hard for a couple of reasons.
1) You really need a full group of lower 20's that is well balanced to run that dungeon.  By full group, I mean 5 members and by well balanced, I mean you have all of the required elements for a good group: Tank, DPS, Crowd Control, Healing, etc.
2) Dungeons (or Instances as they are commonly refered to) are all about strategy.   That means moving through things in the right order, and at the right pace.   The biggest part of this is the "Pull" which means bringing a mob back to the group for a fight.  If a pull is good, it will only bring back the minimum number of mobs possible so the group can defeat them safely.   We had a lot of "bad pulls" last night were we were fighting way more stuff at once then we could realisticly defeat.   Had my hunter not been there, those would caused the whole group to wipe resulting in a long delay as everyone regrouped and ran back into the instance.
3) You guys are so new to the game that you don't quite understand the strengths and weaknesses of your class or how to use them in concert.   For example:  Your character is a warrior and generally a warrior plays the role of tank (or meat shield) and trys to hold agro (aka the mob's anger and attention).  You have a lot of hit points, so you can take a lot of damage while the other players play their parts in killing the stuff.   Acan on the other hand is a hunter who's main role is DPS (damange per second) and minor crowd control (keeping a mob in a pull busy while the rest of the group beats down the main target).   At later levels, hunters also make excellent "Pullers" because they have the ability to fein death and prevent a bad pull from taking out the whole group.
In my opinion, WoW is made up of several distinct parts:
1) "The Leveling Experience" - This is the basic part of the game that you've been experiencing where you run around, get money, get basic (green and occasional blue) loot and slowly go from being a 90lb weakling (Level 1) to a stone cold bad *** (Level 70).   This part is pretty easy and you can do it without much strategy or knowledge.
2) "The Instance Dungeon Experience" - This is where you go into the harder areas of the game and fight the "Elite" creatures that drop better gear.   As you learned last night, the stuff that drops in the instances, makes the normal stuff look like trash.   However, the thing about instances is they can really expose you if you don't know how to play your class.   In order for a normal instance run to be sucessful, everyone in the group needs to understand how to play their role well and in a pickup group (5 random players getting together to do the instance) chances are that the other group members aren't going to have a high tolerance for someone that causes the group to wipe several times because they don't know how to play their class well.   Another really important thing to know when you're dealing with non-friend type people in a group is looting etiquite, meaning making sure not to take more than your fair share of the loot.   Ultimately, you want to make sure that everyone gets at least 1 item from a dungeon run.
3) "The Player Vs Player Experience" - This really starts at about level 20 when you get get into the battlegrounds to right the other faction (in your case the alliance.   There are several different battlegrounds and they all have different goals and strategies.   For example, Warsong Gulch (my personal favorite) is a 10 on 10 Capture the Flag scenario where 10 horde players face 10 alliance players on a field with 2 opposing castles.   Each castle has a flag and the first team to capture the other teams flag wins.   If you play a lot of PVP, you can get some really nice gear through improving your faction.   However, you will REALLY get exposed quickly if you don't know how to play your class in the battlegrounds.   Most of the people who play PVP a lot know all of the strengths and weaknesses of the different classes, so they will quickly neutralize you if you don't do the same to them first.   In my opinion, PVP can be the most fun part of the game.
4) "The Economy Experience" - This is where you make money using your profession.   Another really fun thing to do in the economy side of the game is play the auction house which is really like a giant stock market.   A player that knows how to "buy low and sell high" can make a lot of gold really quickly and can thus purchase the higher end items (like epic gear and epic mounts).   If you like in Korea, you might even farm items all day to make money in the real world /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif.
5) "The Raiding Experience" - This is the ultimate experience in WoW.   Taking a group of 10 to 40 players into a raid instance and fighting ultra tough enemies that drop epic (purple) gear.   Doing this usually requires that you be in a large "raiding" guild and it's usually a major time commitment and most guilds have little or no time for peopel who aren't very good at playing their class.   When I was in a raiding guild (with my mage) it was nothing for me to spend 3 or 4 hours a night 4 or 5 nights raiding.    Some people love raiding and some people hate it.   When it's fun, it's fun, but it's usually just a lot of work and it's definitely not for someone who has a lot of "real life" commitments!
What you guys need to do now you've gotten a taste of WoW life beyond the "Leveling Experience" is read up on the finer details of playing your classes.   Right now I'm sort of in the same boat as you guys with playing my rogue,  I'm not used to how all of his abilities work yet, so I'm going to read up on it.
Naturally, there is a ton of information on the web about this kind of stuff, but I'd recommend that you go out and pick up a copy of this:
http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Official-Strategy-Guide/dp/0744004055
It has all of the basic information about playing your class as well as detailed information about items, zones and instance dungeons.
I wouldn't bother with Ragefire.   You'd be better of running through WC again or the other instances that are in the barrens (RFK or RFD).
-JB

 

Well thanks JB you and your dad are awesome for taking us on a dungen run like that. Your right the stuff I got last night is way better then the stuff you would usually get.
I really started to get the whole thing with the pet and how to use him. A pet is a VERY good weapon if use right. I noticed last night my biggest problem was I would shoot and then send my lion. Thats a no no. So after everyone got off last night I went out and just practiced on that and I tell you what it does make a huge differnce if you send your pet to attack first and then shoot.
So I think if we play tonight I will do a little better I hope./site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/confused.gif
I went out to day and got a head set so I will be ready to rock tonight. What was that I need to download so I can talk to you guys?

 

Yep, if you are playing your hunter right, you should seldom if ever get touched by a mob. You let your pet go in first and get enough agro, they you start with your bow (or gun). If you break agro from your pet and the mob comes after you, then stop attacking until your pet gets agro again. Use your talent points to make your pet tougher and agro more, there are different types of "talent builds" you can do, but the one that is best for leveling involves making your pet into a tank. Read up on talents and spend your talent points wisely. If you do screw them up, you can unlearn your talents for a fee and start over.

For the headset, my dad and I use Ventrilo (you can find the server information at the top of the GIRS chat room when you join). There is a WoW channel on the same server. WoW had built in voice chat now, but we still use ventrilo because it's a little better quality.

I'll probably be on tonight, but it will be a bit later. I need to make another run through WC to get a few more pieces of gear for my rogue and I'll probably run my Dad through RFK or RFD so he can do the same for his paladin.

-JB

 

Ok so I downloaded that Ventrilo but I have no idea on how to use it.  I click on the shortcut and it brings up that screen that you have to fill in all that stuff and I just don't get it.

 

Cool man sounds like fun. I will be on most of the day tomarrow.

 

ok you guys

i started downloading the free trial for wow but im not sure im doing it right.

i went and registered and downloaded the 15 meg file and it gave me some message saying i was missing some stupid file.

anyways while looking around in help and all that i came across another download for the pc, it had for mac or pc, and ive been downloading this file for a couple hours now and its a pretty big file , like 3.3 gigs and its about done but is this the file i want?
has anyone done this free trial before and had to get this enormous file?.

 

OK, I started a new character on Area 52. I started a Paladin named Phitz since I figured he could fit into a couple of different group roles if need be. I cannot say that I will be playing much, but he is there /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif I think he is lvl 12 at the moment.

Feel free to send me a tell if you need someone for a group.