1. Buy gold online: Not only is this against Blizzards Terms Of Service, but it’s lame! Not to mention the risk of getting your account hacked.

2. Farming: If you have any experience with MMORPG’s at all then you know this term. Its when you go into an area with the intent to kill enemies for Drops (Weapons, Armor, Cloth etc) and Cash (Copper, Silver, Gold ).

3. If you make it they will come: This is the professions aspect of things, choose a profession in high demand and MAKE things then sell them on the local auction house. You’ll be surprised how effective this is especially with something like leatherworking which the majority of classes, from levels 1-40, wear in Warcraft.

4. Find slackers just like you: This is, of course, finding other WoW fans like yourself (in-game) and joining their guild. Most guilds will assist you with items, armor, money, food, etc. Don’t always count on this, however in my experience there are lots of decent souls left in WoW who are willing to be kind.

5. Gather that: Lastly and my personal FAVORITE way to make money is to gather it. Well not gather money specifically, but to take gathering professions such as Miner, Herbalist or Skinner. My choice is fairly simple, seeing as I don’t care to pick flowers I generally take Mining and Skinning. Ore generally sells for a fair amount at lower levels (1 gold+ per stack of copper on my server) and it continues going up as your levels increase. Skinning is less lucrative at lower levels and more impressive at higher levels. The same can be said for herbalist where you don’t start making your real money until late in the game around level 55.

So that’s it, that’s how I can go to a new server without any aid of friends or high level alternate characters, and in no time I can be rolling in bags, gold, and armor.

Something I might include just in case, IF by chance you are completely new and on your very first character most experienced players will be happy to answer question if you are polite and some will even give you a small bag or two to get started if you’re really nice. Keep these things in mind but don’t COUNT on them.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at
 WoWitics at yahoo.com or come visit my bog at
 www.lockergnome.com

After several days of running instances on JBFury, my level 62 Paladin on Eonar, I have decided that it is necessary to write out some rules of etiquette for instance/dungeon crawling in MMORPGs. These rules are specific for World of Warcraft, however they are generic enough to be used in any MMORPG and I strongly recommend reading them. I have found that failure to comply with some of the below rules will find your gaming experience very lonely.

So here they are Brian’s Rules For Instance or Dungeon Crawling Etiquette:

1. When in a group or raid know your job and/or class. If you are a Hunter be prepared to be DPS, off-tank (pet) or crowd control (cc). Likewise if you are a Priest be prepared to heal and rez. Those are your jobs. If you don’t like standing in the back of the group and keeping people alive, don’t be a Priest. Every class and specialization has its place. Please know your abilities and your weakness to better aid the group.
2. Do not unilaterally decide to pull a mob (enemy) or group of mobs without the groups consent and readiness confirmed, especially if you are not the main tank. Keep in mind you are in a dungeon with up to 39 other people and the wrong move by you could potentially kill everyone else. Don’t rush ahead no matter how tempting it might be.
3. Treat everyone else the way you would want to be treated. If you don’t want someone to “ninja” loot from you then don’t do it to others. Always, always ask before “needing” something of value on a loot drop, it’s just polite. Think about what you are doing. If you are considering doing something that would upset you if someone did it to you maybe it’s not such a good idea after all?
4. When in doubt, ask. If you are unsure of what to do, or you are in an unfamiliar dungeon / instance feel free to ask questions. The more prepared you are for each pull or boss the better. If you are unsure what something means or where you would be most useful or helpful then ask. There are plenty of people happy to give you information and hints about how these things work, especially if it better assists the group or raid.
5. Above all else be friendly. Spending two or more hours crawling through the mire of a dungeon can be great fun and bring new online friends very quickly if you have the right attitude. If you are polite, friendly and always consider the rest of the people in your group you will see your friends list grow rapidly. You’ll also never lack people looking to take you into another dungeon with them as long as they know you’ll watch their back as well as you would watch your own.

Pwn ya later!

So, I’m chilling the other day leveling my Blood Elf Rogue when one of the other members of my guild starts running his mouth about how “rogues are cheap”. Mind you this person, who we will call Sue for our purposes, has been playing WoW a little over a week. Now I’m not saying that in-game time grants you god like knowledge of the game, but if you’ve been playing a week I’d think you’d be absorbing what knowledge you could from the “pros” and not running your mouth, but I digress.

So after 15 minutes of arguing and discussion between me, Sue and 2 other guild members we finally narrow down his problem to this… He doesn’t mind rogues being able to stealth or stun, he doesn’t even mind that we can poison weapons, his problem and the reason rogues are “cheap” are because when he is in the battlegrounds he gets owned by rogues stealthing up behind him and ambushing him or what he calls a “cheap shot”. Mind you I tried to explain to him that “cheap shot” was actually a skill we receive at higher levels. Thus turmoil ensued. Myself and 2 other experienced players tried to explain to Sue for over half an hour that game mechanics dictate Rogues get certain uncommon abilities to balance them against the other classes. Asking me not to use stealth and then ambushing you is like asking a hunter not to use wingclip and then run away and proceed to pwn (kick your arse) you with ranged attacks. It’s just not happening. So Sue promptly guild quit and then 24 hours later pleaded to be let back in. This was 2 days ago on Wednesday. So tonight, Friday, he logs in and starts taking pot shots at the Rogues again and he needs to kiss the ground of whatever god he worships that I wasn’t on to guild kick him. I’m tired of schmucks who can’t understand class mechanics.

That being said here are my 5 rules for playing nice with others:

1. Respect the fact that someone else has a different opinion than you. Right or wrong they are entitled.
2. Calling another Person, Place, Thing, or Substance “cheap” because they use their given abilities to the best advantage is not intelligent. It makes you look like a fool. Don’t do it.
3. If don’t like my class, race, creed, religion, or opinion that’s fine… that’s your opinion, you are entitled to it. Now keep it to yourself!
4. When in doubt STFU!
5. See rule 4 ^

1. Load up a web browser behind your Warcraft program so that you can occasionally alt+tab out to check the status of your realm. Don’t be afraid to check the status of realms for others either, but don’t do it so often that you aren’t having any in-game fun.

2. Remember you are a guest on someone else’s server. Be polite, courteous and above all be happy that not all the realms are down.

3. You may be on your temporary server waiting for your home to come back online for 5 minutes or like me 6 hours. That being said if you don’t want to start an alt on a new server and wait you might want to take this opportunity to call your family and let them know you’re still alive and perhaps do some house cleaning or feed your cat.

4. I find that the best thing you can do in a server crash is to roll with it. If it had not been for the “maintenance” yesterday I would never have rolled a Tauren let alone a Druid and I’ve come to find that while this combination isn’t an Undead Rogue it is quite enjoyable.

5. Above all else remember…. Server crashes suck for everyone involved… The realms that are still up are suffering a huge influx of new / temporary players, and those that are dealing with their realms being down are feeling slighted by Blizzard and just looking to kill time.

We’re all addicted, but lets be kind when we backstab each other for that next fix!