I downloaded the free trial to level 20 which was a surprisingly big file, nearly 90 gigs.
I have started playing on the Terokkar server and have bumped into a few players whilst trying out different characters, is this a good server? Should I be on another?
So far I’ve tried a hunter, monk and Demon hunter, I liked the monk the most so far but whilst on the monk another player told me I could buy dragon flight and get two months free playtime for £20 so I did that and now my favourite class is an evoker.
I still have lots of classes to try out yet though, there is so much I still don’t understand about the game.
Anyway, I’m waffling.
I’m an older guy and wanted to know how I go about finding a guild or some sort of social group who play, whilst I’m learning the game, as I realise being so new to such a long-standing game will test the patience of a lot of experienced players but so far I’m enjoying it and imagine I will play for a long time.
Additionally, if anyone has any tips or advice for a new player, things I should know etc. it’s appreciated, thanks.
Any advice? I am not exaggerating when I say that you could make a whole undregraduate degree out of what you need to/want to know about playing WoW.
Honestly, my best advice to a new player is to bounce around going places and trying things as long as you’re enjoying it, but be aware that there is a library’s worth of information out there when you come up against something you need to know about.
You get only one chance to wander around and be amazed at this huge world. It will take you months, but once you have seen it all, eventually you will meet the rat race / conveyor belt combination to chase more power at max level, and then a lot more work enters the mix. So just enjoy it while you can!
You may not be as old as you think, in relation to the playerbase. While there are no official numbers available, we generally think that the average age of a WoW player is mid-thirties, and there are plenty older than that.
Finding friends and a guild may be the hardest achievement in WoW for someone who doesn’t already have a friend in the game. It is very unlikely that you will team up with any other player(s) until you are at max level (70 - to be raised to 80 at the end of August when Dragonflight ends and the next expansion, The War Within, begins).
Playing the game is very easy until you get to max level, and you level very quickly, and you can level entirely on your own, so there is little or no incentive for people to team up with others in a guild or party to get anything done.
At max level, harder challenges start - Mythic-Plus Dungeons, and Raids, in increasing difficulties, for more powerful armour and weapons (aka gear). This is the point where joining a guild of other people to tackle these becomes compelling, and that’s the point where you will feel the need to join one.
Many don’t. Even at max level, the game can be played without joining a guild, but if you find a guild of people who are nice, and are playing at your level, the game is a lot more fun.
But if you do join a guild, join one where there are active people who do what you want to do. Guilds are never destroyed, so there is a vast number of guilds that have died off and are now just shells of their former selves with very few members who rarely speak and never do anoything together.
A lot of WoW social activity is on Discords now. I would start by joining a few Discords and just lurking, taking in the conversation. After a while, what people are saying will begin to make sense. Wownoob is a good one to start with, a very general Discord for new players https://discord.com/invite/wownoob
Realm is an interesting question. The rules for guilds will change in TWW, with people allowed to join guilds cross-realm and cross-faction, and nobody knows yet how that will shake out, but the recommendations up to now have been that you should aim to be on a well-populated realm where your faction (Horde or Alliance) is in a dominating majority. The reasoning for this is long, but should seem obvious at a first glance. The very highest-populated realms can experience downtime and lag at the start of a new expansion, when everybody is playing like crazy, so if this is a problem for you, you might want to choose maybe the 3rd-6th biggest realm for your faction. Here are two tables of relative realm population and faction
I’m conscious that all ofthis is a bit vague, but there is so much information I can’t possibly explain it all.
This HUGE video explains vast amounts about WoW, in 1- or 2-minute chapters you can access from the description below it. It was ,ade before Chromie Time or Dragonriding, so it doesn’t have those, but it is still wonderful for beginners.
And in general, YouTube is a great way to find out about anything in WoW. There are millions of videos about it there.
Thank you so much for such a comprehensive and helpful reply.
I shall indeed just wonder about the world then doing quests and trying to find a class that I enjoy the most.
Ill check out discord thanks, if thats where the social is, I always find it more fun when youre in voice sharing gaming experiences with like minds but I wont get my expectations up as you suggest.
Once I reach the higher levels Ill try some dungeons as its group challenges that interest me the most and by then Im sure it will be time to level to 80
So just enjoy it while you can!