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Resurrect: 7 Tips For Returning to WoW

Posted: July 22nd, 2007 | Author: raddevon | Filed under: Fun |

I recently decided to give World of Warcraft another shot after a two-year hiatus. I liked it before, but a number of circumstances prevented me from playing. It took a little while to get acclimated again. In fact, I’m still nowhere near where I was when I left although this is only my third day back. Here’s what I’ve learned about coming back to the game:

  1. Take advantage of the 10-day trial of The Burning Crusade currently being offered by Blizzard. You should do this even if you’re already sure you want to play the game. It’s there so why not take advantage! There’s also a trial for new players in case you would like to bring some n00bs along for the ride.
  2. Read the Newbie Guide on WoWWiki. I went looking for a good new player guide when I decided to jump back on, and this is the most comprehensive and best organized guide I came across. If you’ve been gone for a couple of years lots of things have changed not to mention you may have forgotten a lot of the things that haven’t changed.
  3. Consider starting a new character even though you are itching to get back to your old characters. The hand-holding new characters get is very beneficial to returning players for the same reasons you should read a newbie guide. It also gives you a chance to try some of the new character classes introduced with The Burning Crusade.
  4. I’m not sure that this is the case for every single class in the game, but both of my characters, a priest and a rogue, had all of their talents reset. Once you’ve learned how to play again, it might be a good idea to check out the talents which are available and read up on some builds for your class. WoWWiki has builds for each of the available classes. Once you’ve decided how you’d like to proceed, spend the talent points you have already earned for your level. Talents will make it easier to complete quests and level your character. There’s no need to let the talent points sit around unspent for long.
  5. Figure out how to get to key cities and consider printing directions. This will be helpful if you have friends who are playing and need to meet them wherever they are.
  6. If you’re bringing newbies into the game along with you (I was.) have them create their characters in the realm on which your existing characters reside. Character transfer fees are expensive ($25 per character!), and it’s just as well for the new players to start on your server. If you have existing characters, the realm suggestion which comes up after your first login seems to always suggest the realm on which your characters reside even though it does act as though it’s going to have you choose a realm from scratch.
  7. Download the totally awesome MazzleUI by MazzleFizz. The UI mods I played with back in the day were certainly cool and helpful, but nothing could have prepared me for this. This UI will make your WoW Interface much more useful and functional. It also takes out a lot of the frustration and guesswork that has the game trying your patience more often than not. It’s very easy to setup even if you’ve never tried a UI mod with World of Warcraft before. There’s a bit of a learning curve once it’s up and running, but it does have some good documentation. Plus, you might as well make the adjustment now since you are having to relearn a lot of what you knew anyway.

I hope this post will be relevant to someone other than me. If you have other tips, post in the comments. Have fun and don’t forget your pesky real-life responsibilities.

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