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When I first started playing WoW in vanilla with my dad I was a young newbie 14 that thought that the only thing to do in wow was quests and leveling. I never thought about raids or high level pvp. I would log on and do quests with my dad. Until I passed him up level wise. I was a warlock Nika'jind on the Fenris server. They were good days, but I didn't understand how big the world.... of Warcraft was.
Then I started paying attention to other characters and saw some of the coolest level 60 gear in the world. The Gladiator's Dreadgear
![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/wowwiki/images/4/41/Gladiator%27s_Dreadgear_Blood_Elf_Male.jpg)
Once I saw that sexy set of gear I had to have it!!! Too bad I was only level 47 and leveling was just boring to me, plus the only other people I knew that played WoW were my dad and brother. My brother and I shared an account though so we couldn't play together. This led me to just stop playing for a while.
Then Burning Crusade came out! I played more but still not enough to get a top level, but I was a 16 or so year old boy so I didn't care too much I just wanted to date and play Call of Duty. So I stopped playing again.
Wrath of the Lich King! Warcraft 3 is one of my favorite games as far as story line goes. So seeing Arthas as the Lich King in this WoW expansion got me pumped! Not only that but Death Knights start at level 55! Thats a lot of work already done for me. So I had to play! I did the starting DK area as my Tauren character because they're big and scary of course, and I fell in love. It was amazing every last battle so I knew DK's were the class for me.
I was determined this expansion to get to the top level so I quested and quested harder than ever before and on the way and made it to 80. Then stopped -.-
Now Cata is out and I have my 85, but i started with a lowg iLvL so I'm going to help some of you that don't know what to do go from the low ilvl to doing LFR groups.
!!! IMPORTANT!!!!!
Once you hit level 80 start doing random Cata's for the JP. Once you hit the 4000 cap you can stop or keep going for the items thats up to you. The dungeon quests will help you level fast too.
We'll start with some the of quests you can do to get you started. ASAP go to Twilight Highlands. So many good quest items there, I even got lucky and found a great Agi trink I was able to sell for 500g. The most notable (and fun) quests are the Crucible of Carnage quests!!! You do some epic battles (you'll need a group) and best of all you get a rocking weapon that will last you while from them! My DK had the sword from those for a loooong time and now I have a Warlock with the Very Manly Staff from the quest.
Now you're level 85 and have some decent gear from dungeons and twilight highlands and you have 4k JP.  Great!!! Now you can make your first purchase. You want to buy the tier 12 chest gear. It has an ilvl of 378! So that right there is a great start! Don't make the same mistake i did though and buy the gear from the Legay Justice vendor you want to talk to Gunra if you're horde or Magatha Silverton if your Alli.
Once you're 85 you want to go to the call board in your capital Org or Stormwind and pick up the quest Call of the World-Shaman, this quest line will get you a cloak that is going to last you a loooong time. It is a 365 ilvl cloak that you won't be replacing until you're doing Hour of Time or Raids.
Now you have a 333 weapon, a bitching cloak and a 378 from your chest plust 1800 left over JP. You can choose to save the JP or you can another piece such as the gloves. This will make you heroic ready. This is the longest part (in my opinion) you have to grind out heroics for a couple days and do some reputation grinding.
When you start rep grinding in the different areas pick up the tabard asap! Wear it like its going out of style. Once exalted these places have some 359 ilvl gear that will really help you out!
Secondly if you don't know where to go there is a great site to figure out what you're going to do for gear maxdps.com. It has lists by class and item slot of gear you want to pick up.
However they do have a lot of PvP gear listed on there, you can go to the AH and buy a full set of viscious pvp gear with an ilvl of 377. I wouldn't reccomend it however because a lot of people will give you crap about it. That being said a few pieces here and there are okay, besides our goal is to get to do the Looking for Raid asap. We need a 372 iLvl for that.
Once you've grinded rep and Cata heroics and have some great gear you can do the easiest part of the gear grind. Getting to 372!
To start things off you can grab a quest from Org or Stromwind if you're in Org talk to Ziradormi in the Valley of Strength if you're alli talk to Corodormi in The Mage Quarter.
These start the HoT quest line that will award you with 3/4 pieces of gear with an ilvl of 378! Once you have finished all the quests you can do randoms every week until you reach 1000 Valor Points that week. After this I suggest you do specific HoT dungeons with a piece of gear in mind.
We really need to get to 372 so we're going to use 700 VP right off the bat and buy a 397 relic. This will really help you out, plus you have 3 or 4 pieces with 378 from the quests you did and you're JP gear you bought! You're well on your way now just get your last couple of pieces.
When planning what gear to farm for I make a list of my lowest gear then figure out which will be the hardest to replace then the easiest. I start with the easiest to replace just because I want that iLvl fast! Then anything that can be bought with JP I pick up when I have enough.
At this point you should have 372, I did cheat a little and have a pvp piece and sometimes you have to pick up gear that isn't great for you. I picked up an agility trinket for my DK to replace an even worse tank trink with 346 ilvl.
So some of the major points before I end this:
1) Start Cata Heroics ASAP for the JP
2) Know where to quest (Twilight Highlands, Call of the World Shaman, Some dungeons ZA/ZG will have quests for you, etc.)
3) PvP gear is okay IN MODERATION!
4) Work your way from easiest gear to obtain to the hardest for fastest results
I hope this helps some people, I've never written anything like this because I'm not really a helpful kind of person tbh. I'm super impatient with people. If you want help with anything in game or need someone to run dungeons with you I'm Muduck or Mington on the Ner'Zhul server. Thank you TL!!!
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that's level 70 gear not level 60? wasn't even out during vanilla, it was arena set 1 for locks, same model as T4 for warlocks
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vanilla wow pre bg was glory days. town raids were actually fun, windmill hill or w/e was fun, back and forth for hours. grinded high warlord and got the gear. quit before bc, but i miss true vanilla 40 raids oh nostalgia
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Arena didnt exist in vanilla, thats level 70 s1 gear.
But I do hold some nostalgia, when i got my might set for my warrior i was so jacked.
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10 man UBRS runs, trying to get last Valor pieces and Draconian Deflector. Those were the days.
Fucking "Anyone have key?", Dragon broodling wipes @Leeroy Jenkins room, and failed Drakkisath hunter kitings <3
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whooops linked wrong one!!! :O
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On April 13 2012 05:26 BenBuford wrote:
10 man UBRS runs, trying to get last Valor pieces and Draconian Deflector. Those were the days.
Fucking "Anyone have key?", Dragon broodling wipes @Leeroy Jenkins room, and failed Drakkisath hunter kitings <3
Aye. I remember running UBRS when it was endgame. You could count the groups doing the instance on two fingers, participation was invite only on our server. Oh the glory. And the joy when I rolled high enough to win the Chromatic Carapace for my Breastplate of the Chromatic Flight ... now that was an epic you could show off.
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coolest staff in the game was the staff of dominance from MC, i pretended to be a 16 year old girl just to talk to someone who had it
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On April 13 2012 06:29 Endymion wrote:
coolest staff in the game was the staff of dominance from MC, i pretended to be a 16 year old girl just to talk to someone who had it
ROFL
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On April 13 2012 06:29 Endymion wrote:
coolest staff in the game was the staff of dominance from MC, i pretended to be a 16 year old girl just to talk to someone who had it
i dont know whats more sad 
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On April 13 2012 05:26 BenBuford wrote:
10 man UBRS runs, trying to get last Valor pieces and Draconian Deflector. Those were the days.
Fucking "Anyone have key?", Dragon broodling wipes @Leeroy Jenkins room, and failed Drakkisath hunter kitings <3
UBRS was 15 man! Not 10!
I was a hunter, 100% Baller kiter right here! LOL
Vanilla WoW was so god damn fun, for me, there has never been a game that fun since, nor do I think there ever will 
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On April 13 2012 06:29 Endymion wrote:
coolest staff in the game was the staff of dominance from MC, i pretended to be a 16 year old girl just to talk to someone who had it
I was always after the Azuresong Mageblade because I found an epic offhand (which escapes me at the moment).
I had Rod of the Ogre Magi since right after DM came out. I remember having to jump through all those hoops to do a tribute run, that was so much fun. Precursor to the Ulduar hardmodes and all that.
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I just got Gurthalak, its a pretty cool 2 hander.
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On April 13 2012 06:29 Endymion wrote:
coolest staff in the game was the staff of dominance from MC, i pretended to be a 16 year old girl just to talk to someone who had it
Damn... changed my view of wow all the sudden haha
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I know this might not be the best thread to ask, but I couldn't find any other threads or a general WOW thread. I'm thinking about giving this game a shot, what would you suggest doing to get started?
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On April 13 2012 09:24 mastergriggy wrote:
I know this might not be the best thread to ask, but I couldn't find any other threads or a general WOW thread. I'm thinking about giving this game a shot, what would you suggest doing to get started?
Get the starter edition and level to 20 figure out some classes and races you like to play then if you REALLY like it buy it. BC and Vanilla are only $20. Its so worth it.
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On April 13 2012 09:24 mastergriggy wrote:
I know this might not be the best thread to ask, but I couldn't find any other threads or a general WOW thread. I'm thinking about giving this game a shot, what would you suggest doing to get started?
My humble suggestion would be to not follow this guide/thread at all. No offense to the OP, it's a solid writeup - but it'll kill most of the fun a newcomer to the game would have.
The magic of MMOs consists of exploration, learning about the world and finding your own pace in the game. Do your own thing, make your own mistakes. My fondest memories of WoW - despite having raided the endgame for years, across various expansions - come from leveling, from exploring the game back at release and from random nonsense that had nothing to do with leveling up, or getting better gear, or having the most efficient approach to everything.
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On April 13 2012 20:10 Shockk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 09:24 mastergriggy wrote:
I know this might not be the best thread to ask, but I couldn't find any other threads or a general WOW thread. I'm thinking about giving this game a shot, what would you suggest doing to get started? My humble suggestion would be to not follow this guide/thread at all. No offense to the OP, it's a solid writeup - but it'll kill most of the fun a newcomer to the game would have. The magic of MMOs consists of exploration, learning about the world and finding your own pace in the game. Do your own thing, make your own mistakes. My fondest memories of WoW - despite having raided the endgame for years, across various expansions - come from leveling, from exploring the game back at release and from random nonsense that had nothing to do with leveling up, or getting better gear, or having the most efficient approach to everything.
Going to repeat this sentiment. MMOs are best played by finding out everything yourself the first time. You can never get that back if you spoil it for yourself.
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On April 13 2012 07:30 Silidons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 05:26 BenBuford wrote:
10 man UBRS runs, trying to get last Valor pieces and Draconian Deflector. Those were the days.
Fucking "Anyone have key?", Dragon broodling wipes @Leeroy Jenkins room, and failed Drakkisath hunter kitings <3 UBRS was 15 man! Not 10! I was a hunter, 100% Baller kiter right here! LOL Vanilla WoW was so god damn fun, for me, there has never been a game that fun since, nor do I think there ever will
Yes it was fun, because everything was so new at the time.
I remember when the pvp system was released, I was lvl45 and there were very few lvl60 at the time still, and all I did was raid the X-road with tons of other people instead of levelling, because it was so fun.
I remember also worshipping people with epic gear (even a single at the time, because it was so rare). Fun time.
What we often like to forget tho, is that the game was also boring most of the time, but we only remember the fun parts.
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The game was not 'boring' during vanilla days. It was far more social, as organising anything required actually talking to people, not just sitting in a queue while you were solo questing the hours away. Queueing for bgs/arenas/dungeons from any location are what made wow feel empty outside of capital cities, yet people embraced it out of convenience. Basically levelling faster became more important than the levelling experience. I mean its quicker to go from 1-85 now than it was to go 1-60 in vanilla, a lot quicker.
Things like raiding crossroads/tarren mill dont happen nearly as often now, and its not because there is more to do at 85 than there was at 60, its still the same 3 core things, raid/pvp/repgrind. Thats all there was in vanilla, and thats all there is now, its just cloaked in arena, guild bg's, daily quests etc so there are more options of the same thing, whereas back in vanilla we made our own options. I mean lets face it, a lot of people now just spend their free time on wow farming achievements that really dont mean anything, like /hugging animals or w/e.
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This guide def is not for newcomer. Its for the guy thats been sitting on a level 85 for a while and wants to reach the next step. There are so many things to do in WoW this is just one option. I personally love to raid which is why I did this. If you like to PvP you can do BG's and arena then RBGS. You might hit 85 and decide you want a lot of achievements. It's really up to the individual person. Just find out what you like best and run with it.
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On April 13 2012 23:30 Gulf wrote:
The game was not 'boring' during vanilla days. It was far more social, as organising anything required actually talking to people, not just sitting in a queue while you were solo questing the hours away. Queueing for bgs/arenas/dungeons from any location are what made wow feel empty outside of capital cities, yet people embraced it out of convenience. Basically levelling faster became more important than the levelling experience. I mean its quicker to go from 1-85 now than it was to go 1-60 in vanilla, a lot quicker.
Things like raiding crossroads/tarren mill dont happen nearly as often now, and its not because there is more to do at 85 than there was at 60, its still the same 3 core things, raid/pvp/repgrind. Thats all there was in vanilla, and thats all there is now, its just cloaked in arena, guild bg's, daily quests etc so there are more options of the same thing, whereas back in vanilla we made our own options. I mean lets face it, a lot of people now just spend their free time on wow farming achievements that really dont mean anything, like /hugging animals or w/e.
Then you don't remember that you had to wait something like hours oftentime to get into a bg (or like weeks for alterac sometime), that it was a nightmare to find groups for basicly anything, that the pvp rewards were given to people no-lifing the most etc...
Yes, a lot of things in WoW remained boring throughout the expansions, but its false to say that EVERYTHING in vanilla wow was fun and all.
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The thing about vanilla was it was quite terribly designed in many respects, and the community had to band together to make its own fun. Saying the game was better designed in Vanilla is to tell an outright lie, to say it was more fun to play is subjective, but I kind of fall into that camp.
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On April 13 2012 20:10 Shockk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 09:24 mastergriggy wrote:
I know this might not be the best thread to ask, but I couldn't find any other threads or a general WOW thread. I'm thinking about giving this game a shot, what would you suggest doing to get started? My humble suggestion would be to not follow this guide/thread at all. No offense to the OP, it's a solid writeup - but it'll kill most of the fun a newcomer to the game would have. The magic of MMOs consists of exploration, learning about the world and finding your own pace in the game. Do your own thing, make your own mistakes. My fondest memories of WoW - despite having raided the endgame for years, across various expansions - come from leveling, from exploring the game back at release and from random nonsense that had nothing to do with leveling up, or getting better gear, or having the most efficient approach to everything.
This find out only what you need for your character to be classed a non retard and then just enjoy it
Best memories are from when I thought raiding was something you do at like 15 so I and some guy gathered up 15 other clueless players and we raided duskwood full of skull wolves that dropped fuckall but it was fun none the less
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I wonder who has the longest AV run in wow history. My record stands at 13 hours and 23 min (full duration) and lost as (you guessed it, Alliance).
AV was something I hated so much but I just needed the rep and honor back then. How silly of me to think like that 
Also The AQ opening damn
Ahh when raiding cities were fun and grinding actually was long and hard xD
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On April 14 2012 02:49 shannn wrote:I wonder who has the longest AV run in wow history. My record stands at 13 hours and 23 min (full duration) and lost as (you guessed it, Alliance). AV was something I hated so much but I just needed the rep and honor back then. How silly of me to think like that Also The AQ opening damn Ahh when raiding cities were fun and grinding actually was long and hard xD
AQ opening was sick. My Shaman (original character) was on Medivh, which was the first server to get the gates open. I remember it crashing so many times because leeches from other servers kept creating characters and mass suiciding trying to get them to Silithus.
As other people have said, the nostalgia is strong for Vanilla WoW, but most of the features that have been added have been improvements, aside from dumbing down raid encounters. The reason people don't see them as improvements is because the game is old and you just can't muster up the same enthusiasm as you could when it was fresh and novel. It has little to do with what Blizzard has or hasn't done with the game, it's just time to move on.
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My favorite things in vanilla were wall jumping and abusing the hell out of Divine Intervention.
On PvE servers (well, all servers but it only applied to PvE servers) there was a spot behind one of the pillars by the bank that registers as Loch Modan. So Horde friends would come came out at it all the time, in between killing off flagged lowbies and such. If they died, they'd just run back in, wait until they were unflagged, and resurrect. That one didn't really require too much wall jumping, but it was fun to get on top of the auction house and bank.
I used Divine Intervention practically every time it was off cool down. It was even better when you were still stuck in place where you were when the spell (DI and Ice Block) was cast, so you could jump off a building, cast it in midair, and be stuck there for a few minutes. I have tons of memories spamming DI with friends, but I have three favorites.
The first was during a ZG raid when we were a fairly small guild, of people who cared more about having fun than really progressing. We cared about that too, but it didn't stop us from slacking off. We were really heavy on paladins, so we always had 3-5 in a raid. One time we had our warlock hold the soulstone back, and then right as we pulled a mob, we cast DI on all tanks and maybe some of the healers.
I also screwed around one time as we were preparing for the Tiger boss (I think? The one that had the two priests that needed to die at the same time.) Everyone else was outside the room preparing, and I ran in and pulled the boss. I died right there, but was expecting him to reset. Nope. He proceeded to track down and kill every single person in the instance, excluding those who managed to escape through the portal.
My second was just a bunch of friends and I hanging around in Ironforge. We were all in our various bits of costume wear, and for me this was a full Aurora set. We invited a random lowbie into the party and cast Divine Intervention on him. He honestly sat there for five minutes trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
I don't have a particular third, but towards the end of vanilla's run, I spent practically every minute I had in Orgrimmar. At this point, I think I had more friends Horde side than I did Alliance side, and I was able to hang out with AQ/Naxx equipped 60s for hours at a time without getting killed. The war room was a great place to hang out because you could stand behind one of the pillars without the NPCs hitting me... though every now and then they'd bug out, whirlwind nonstop and kill a bunch of Horde lowbies. Anyhow, my priest friend would often go with me to Orgrimmar and Mind Control/Divine Intervention random 60s.
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I think Vanilla/BC WoW were the funnest games overall I've ever played in my life. WOTLK was also quite fun because I loved the Northrend zones, but I got super bored at max level lol.
Cata I only did free trial, but I LOVED the leveling, not sure why everyone hated Cata from what I saw. I loved new westfall, new redridge, etc. On my main I only got to do a bit of leveling in Vash'jir and Mount Hyjal (level 81 cap) but I enjoyed it. Maybe it was the end game that sucked? Free trial doesn't let you go past level 81
I especially loved leveling Goblins, that zone (lost isles) was an epic adventure hahaha. Worgen was also quite nice
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I'm normally a player who likes to be immersed, and who is a completionist, but I never got that with WoW.
I leveled my first toon as quickly as I could and started raiding as quickly as I could. Then I got more and more hardcore into raiding, and nothing else in the game ever really mattered for me.
At one point I was raiding twenty hours a week over five days, and peaked at a world 400 rank in t11 for a couple weeks before our entire guild suffered massive burnout and stopped caring.
I don't know what happened with that game, but I just did not enjoy questing.
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Currently the game lacks the feeling of adventure, as you have very detailed guides and maps and whatnot about every aspect of the game, most of the creative ways to use skills have been rendered impossible or nerfed to ground. Instances are shrunk and made much shorter size and trash-wise. Then again, if you are into achievements, PvP and so on, there's more content than ever before. Raid fights have plenty of variety, but it doesn't matter much as you are given pretty much a straight away map through the mechanics.
Ah, there's so much to rant about when it comes to the game. A lot of the updates have been actually pretty good, but the community has grown worse (thrown to dungeon/whatever with random guys from your battlegroup, when the encounters have already been made trivial), maybe aside some RP as people have access to more places, races, items etc.
I actually had about as much fun just (re)exploring old content and taking my time with some achievements and just generally chatting with guys from my server (those RP guilds really set up some good stuff occasionally) as playing with tightly knit guild and raiding with humane times (playing it as an extensive co-op was really enjoyable at the time)
If they manage to bring more options to endgame and maybe introduce more vanity rewards from achievements etc. it might encourage people to do something else aside from idling in capitol and raiding once in a while.
Overall I think it's pretty decent as social platform among other things and a timesink ofc.
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On April 14 2012 08:02 Seldentar wrote:
I think Vanilla/BC WoW were the funnest games overall I've ever played in my life. WOTLK was also quite fun because I loved the Northrend zones, but I got super bored at max level lol.
Cata I only did free trial, but I LOVED the leveling, not sure why everyone hated Cata from what I saw. I loved new westfall, new redridge, etc. On my main I only got to do a bit of leveling in Vash'jir and Mount Hyjal (level 81 cap) but I enjoyed it. Maybe it was the end game that sucked? Free trial doesn't let you go past level 81
I especially loved leveling Goblins, that zone (lost isles) was an epic adventure hahaha. Worgen was also quite nice
Cataclysm endgame was a complete clusterfuck. Blizzard alternated between alienating the casual majority and the hardcore minority by screwing up dungeon difficulty, item achievement and amount of things to do at 85. In the end, everyone was annoyed at what the game had become.
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EPT
