Welcome to Azeroth!

This is an amazing video game offering countless possibilities. Here are just a few of the many ways to play:

  • Dungeons
  • Raids
  • Professions (e.g. gathering, crafting, grinding)
  • Collectibles (mounts, pets, toys, special achievements)
  • Battle Pets (similar to Pokémon!)
  • Player vs. Player combat
  • Exploration (old quest lines, lore)
  • And much more!

If it’s your first time playing a game like this, my recommendation is to take it easy explore and experiment with everything at least once. For now, I will provide just the minimal information you need to get started.

Enter the game first time

Create Account

Before to create an account have in mind you will not play will ALL the players around the world, only players of the same region can play together (does not matter if they are in a different Realm) so if you have friends in some part of the world have in mind the players actually are split into Regions the regions are:

  • Americas & Oceania
  • Europe
  • Korea
  • Taiwan (China)

Here you can find a detailed list of Regions and Realms. One reason for this split is due to the varying laws across different countries. For example, if your friends are playing in the European region and you are located in the Americas, there may be legal restrictions preventing you from joining them. You can still create an account, but issues might arise during the payment process, in some cases the payment country is possible to change but can cause complications in the game services like wow token not able to get Battle.net Balance. Additionally, server location matters: if you insist on playing in a different region, you may experience poor connection quality, such as high ping or latency (is better be lowest possible 40ms-90ms is best you can get) (here you can do a simple ping). My recommendation is just play on the region intended for your country and you will have everything ok.

Regions contain Realms, and each Realm represents a Server. In the case of Retail Versions, players from different Realms within the same Region can play together they can create groups and do content together.

Download the Game

To download the game, use Battle.net. You’ll be prompted to log in to your Battle.net account the one you created in the previous step. Once logged in, you will have access to various Blizzard products, including World of Warcraft.

When you begin downloading the game, the app will ask to choose text and audio languages. If you speak English, I recommend playing the game in English. It makes communication with other players easier and simplifies research, between translations often change the names of items, dungeons, raids, and more. This can be frustrating when trying to explain things or understand others. It can also cause issues with certain addons. For these reasons, playing in English generally offers a better experience.

Select Region

The WoW region is selected the first time you launch based on your current selected region, the game even in Trial Mode. That means before clicking “Play” in the Battle.net app, make sure the region is the one you want. You can check this by looking next to the selection option for Game Version; you will see a globe icon indicating the current region. This selection is only available during your first time that you open the game after that, the region option disappears.

For regular players, the only way to play across regions is to create a separate account for each one. However, each account functions independently, meaning that if you purchase a subscription or WoW expansion on one account, you will need to buy them again for the other account if you want all the account have the same access.

Select Realm

Realms are split into categories, and their selection criteria vary by region.

  • In the America Region, the classification is based on location such as Brazil, the United States (North America in general), and Oceania.
  • In the Europe Region, classification is primarily based on language.

The Information is based on personal experience so the info about the other regions i don’t provide because i don’t have experience there.

Each Realm represents a different physical/virtual server. You can join any Realm at any time, so during initial selection, some factors to have in mind when you select a realm are::

  • Connection quality (ping, latency)
  • Trading between players
  • Auction House accessibility
  • Crafting Orders

These preferences may change depending on the people you meet during your journey (i explain this on other guides). If you already have friends playing, they may suggest a “good” Realm to join otherwise just select by ping only.

NOTE: When you access the game, usually a realm is already selected by default based on your network location. However, if you are using a VPN, the selected realm might not be the most optimal. If you don’t care about your connection especially in Europe (where ping differences are generally minimal) proceed directly to the character/toon creation step.

Ping Criteria

Each server has a different location, which means you will experience different network qualities related to ping/latency. Here, I explain what I experimented about each region.

America

The America region classifies realms (visible in the in-game server tab) by location:

  • Brazil
  • Latin America
  • United States
  • Oceania

It’s a large geographic region, but you can get a general idea of your closest server location from the World of Warcraft Status Page, using time zones as a reference:

  • AEST: Australian Eastern Standard Time UTC +10:00
  • BRT: Brasília Time UTC −03:00
  • CDT: Central Daylight Time UTC −05:00
  • EDT: Eastern Daylight Time UTC −04:00
  • MDT: Mountain Daylight Time UTC −06:00
  • PDT: Pacific Daylight Time UTC −07:00

Typically, the physical location of a server corresponds with its time zone. You can test your ping to each Realm simply by creating a character and checking the connection. Unfortunately, i don’t know about a easy or reliable external tool for this at the moment.

Europe (EU)

The Europe region classifies realms (in-game server tab) by language. This region is physically smaller than America, and although its servers are distributed across various locations, the ping difference between them is usually minimal. Therefore, choosing a server based on ping is more simple in Europe.

Instead, your main selection criteria should be whether you want to interact with players who speak your own language or a different one. The server classifications are by language like:

  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Russian
  • Italian

On English realms, it’s common to encounter players who speak languages not listed in the previous classification.

Realm Type

When you view the list of realms in-game, you will also see their type. There are two type of realms: “Normal” and Roleplaying (RP). If you are a new player, I recommend choosing any Normal Realm. However, if you are interested in playing based on lore, have a good amount of time to dedicate to the game, and want a more immersive experience, I i suggest researching about Roleplaying in World of Warcraft. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is better to first to familiarize with the core aspects of the game before diving into complex or specialized content.

Create Character/Toon

Once you’ve selected a realm, you can create a character there, on that process are many things to select, such as:

  • Faction: Defines your character’s main “team” in terms of Player vs Player (PvP) either Alliance or Horde.
  • Race: The species of your character, such as Elf, Orc, Draenei, etc.
  • Class: Determines your character’s abilities and playstyle, including magic, melee, ranged combat, weapons, armor, and more.
  • Gender: Male or Female.
  • Customization: Depending on the chosen race, you can modify skin color, hairstyle, hair color, facial features, and more.
  • Name: Each name must be unique among players on the same realm. (The same name can exist on other realms, but only one player per realm can use it.) Choose any name you like for your character. Special symbols are allowed, BUT I recommend use only English characters because other players may need to type your character’s name, and special symbols can be frustrating to type, as well as for addons and other in-game tools.

At first, if you are playing solo, Faction and Race don’t matter much. The most important choice is your Class, as it significantly affects your gameplay experience. It’s also the only aspect of your character that cannot be changed later. The other things like race, faction, or name to change costs money, while gender and customization changes cost gold in-game. If you’re unsure, I recommend choosing one of the following classes. In my opinion, they are the most straightforward and useful in endgame content (most of the time):

  • Paladin
  • Warrior
  • Death Knight
  • Shaman
  • Demon Hunter

Choose any class you like, with any Race and Faction. (If you are looking for a race and Faction recommendation, Draenei are strong and easy to play) I consider these classes “simple” because they have lower complexity and variations compared to others classes. I recommend to set DPS (Damage) role (I will explain later more about roles in the guide) especially if you are new on this game, becase the other roles (Heal and Tank) usually lead the teams and is better that roles when you know more about the game.

NOTE: At the beginning, focus on just one character and take your time to learn the game BEFORE exploring other classes.

Exploring the game, level up

Once your character is created, you’ll be sent to Exile’s Reach an island designed for new players. There, you will complete simple quests that introduce you to your character’s abilities and the general aspects of the game. Read the quests carefully. Once you complete all the quests in that zone, you will arrive in Stormwind (if you are Alliance) or Orgrimmar (if you are Horde).

The next step is to level up your character to the maximum level. During that journey, you should practice using your character effectively: combine spells, test talents, explore zones, and complete quests. You can level up not only through quests but also by running dungeons, which is often the fastest and easiest method. However, I recommend spending at least the first 10-20 levels getting comfortable with your character before diving into dungeons and the “best” or simple zone will be Dragon isles you automatically at level 10 will have a quest to follow the quest lines to dragon isles.

I know the game, level up then what?

Now depending the things that you like the game you should explore by yourself to identify which aspects of the game you like more for example

  • Get Achievements
  • Get mounts
  • Get Pets
  • Get Toys
  • Do Dungeons
  • Do Raids
  • Do PVP

but only experiment at least one time at max level of these things you will know if you enjoy that thing of the game, for the moment that is all for first steps, the other guides will focus on specific things of the game like.

  • graphics
  • UI
  • Addons
  • professions

And more, See you in Azeroth! Dioniss aca (Safe journey in Draenei language)