World of Warcraft is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) where you create a hero and dive into an immense world of infinite possibilities.
Getting Started
As soon as you've attached your World of Warcraft license to your Battle.net account and you've downloaded the game, you can login using your Battle.net account and start playing. Once you enter the game, you will be proposed a realm (a server) to play on. Note that realms are different as gameplay, language and balancing. Before selecting a realm, make sure you do some research about its population, balancing, etc. After you've selected a realm, you must create a character.
Characters
The first actual thing you must do is creating a character. You will play using this character during the whole game so make sure you know what kind of hero you are creating. There are 2 factions, each having 7 races, and each race has specific class choices. After you've customized the appearance and chosen a name, you can join the world.
Regions
Once you've joined the World of Warcraft, you will find your character in one of the many locations in Azeroth. The first place you find yourself in is called a Starting Area and contains a few quests that will help you get on your feet and learn how to play.
Quests
Quests are tasks that you must complete to receive rewards like XP (Experience Points), items and basically - progress through the game. Completing a quest (as well as killing creatures) will award you Experience Points. After gathering enough of them, you will level up and your stats will increase, better equipment will be unlocked, new abilities will become available and so on. You can level until a maximum level of 90 (as of the latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria).
The captivating story and gameplay elements will make your questing journey a great experience to play.
Character
As mentioned before, your character can equip items, learn and use abilities, evolve, etc. Each class is different as a matter of abilities, roles and items.
Abilities
Abilities are special skills that allow you to kill enemies easier, help allies or yourself. Click here to learn more about Classes in World of Warcraft.
Roles
You can fulfill 3 roles in a WoW team (when playing with other players): Healer, Tank and DPS.
- Healer: You must keep your allies alive by healing then when injured;
- Tank: You are very resistant and must take most of the damage dealt by enemies in order to keep your allies alive;
- DPS (Damage per Second): As your tank is defending the team, you must damage and kill the enemy.
Items
Each class can wear one type of equipment and the ones below it as a level of resistance (1 is highest):
- Plate: Warrior (after level 40), Paladin (after level 40), Death Knight;
- Mail: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter (after level 40), Shaman (after level 40);
- Leather: Rogue, Druid, Hunter, Shaman;
- Cloth: Priest, Mage, Warlock.
The same rule applies for weapon types (they are class-spefic).
Professions
You can sign up for a profession and start crafting or gathering to earn gold. Click here to learn more about Professions.
Dungeons and Raids
Dungeons
You can team up with 4 other players, forming a team of 5 and play through the dozens of dungeons available during the game. You can access the first Dungeon at level 15, more getting unlocked as you level up. Dungeons contain Bosses - special units with increased power which reward important items, experience and serve as quest objectives.
Raids
Raids are unlocked at the higher levels (60+) and are formed of 10 or 25 players. These usually take longer time than Dungeons but their both their difficulty and rewards are superior.
Click here to learn more about the PvE (Player vs. Environment) features of the game.
