World of Warcraft/Getting Started

The first step in playing World of Warcraft is creating an account. With a new game, players are given a free trial period to evaluate the game, after that they are required to have an active credit card account or pre-paid game cards in order to continue playing. Account creation is varied and may change if Blizzard Entertainment chooses so. At the time of this writing, you are required to have a valid, purchased copy of the game for account creation. Blizzards' Official website will be linked for accurate and up-to-date account creation guide.


 * World of Warcraft Account Creation

After you've setup your account, you will likely have to update the game. There are two ways to do this. First, and easiest is to let the client built into the game (blizzard downloader) update it for you. The second is to manually download the updates and apply them yourself. The second method is useful if you are behind a firewall that is tricky and not letting the blizzard downloader work, if you have a slow internet connection you can download the patches off of a faster computer burning it to CD and installing as such, or if you have multiple computers that you want to update it may be faster to manually apply the patch instead of downloading it each time.

Characters
The eight playable races in World of Warcraft are split into two factions, Horde and Alliance. These two factions are at war and the majority of PvP game experience centers around conflict between the two factions. As well, factions cannot communicate with each other so if you want to play with friends, it is wise to choose the same faction. The Alliance consists of Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, and Night Elves; while the Horde is made up of Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, and the Undead.

Each race has specialized talents and a limited number of classes available for them to use. For example, a Gnome can only choose between the classes of warrior, mage, warlock, and rogue; and has racial abilities such as increased engineering skills, and intelligence whereas a Night Elf can be a warrior, druid, hunter, rogue or priest and has the ability to hide in shadows, and increased nature damage resistance. To further complicate the issue, each faction also has one unique class. The alliance have Paladins and the Horde have Shamans.

Each class has special talents and spells which are purchased through in-game trainers after the character has reach a certain level in the game. Each character has three distinct talent trees which strengthen skill classes and give new skills. This aspect of the game allows for great customization between characters of the same class and race.

Below is a link to a detailed guide for creation your characters, and further below that are links to detailed explations and histories of each race and class in Azeroth.

Basics
The basics section contains just enough information so you can get started playing the game.


 * Equipment, Items, and Statistics
 * Combat
 * Grouping
 * Etiquette
 * Addiction, Inactivity, and MMORPGs

Advanced topics
There are more advanced topics that a person doesn't need to know to play the game, although they help out tremedeously.


 * Effective Leveling
 * Raid groups
 * Professions
 * Making Gold and the Auction House
 * Settings, Keybindings and Addons
 * Role playing and Emotes
 * Guilds

Special events
Periodically certain events happen in the game, most are calendar based but recently a one-off "world event" has been created.

Regular events

 * Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Competition
 * Darkmoon Faire

Calendar events

 * Lunar Festival