1 Make friends

Join a guild — being a member of one will give you ready-made groups to play in. Higher-level players might decide to be nice and take you through dungeons and do all the fighting — an easy way to get XP (experience points) quickly. Dungeon loot tends to be better, too.

2 Pick the right professions

You can pick two professions. Try to pick ones that complement each other. At lower levels, it’s better to choose “gathering” professions such as skinning, mining and herbalism — there’s always a healthy market for raw materials.

3 Learn to specialise

Most classes allow specialisation. For instance, Mages can choose to specialise in frost or fire — fire Mages cause greater damage, but ice Mages have better defences.

4 Learn your role within a group

Heavily armoured classes (such as warriors) should “tank” (absorb damage). Priests heal and Mages cast high-damage spells from a distance.

5 Make money at the Auction House

The best way to make money is to buy and sell at the Auction House. Learn how this works as soon as you can. There are Auction Houses at most of the major cities.

6 Rest in the inns

You can choose to make your home at one of the inns. one near your quest locations and you can teleport there using your hearthstone. Always logout at an inn to maximise your rest time.

7 Choose the right quests

Try to pick up as many quests as you can in one area. Quests listed in your log book as red give the most reputation and XP. Yellow and green quests yield less XP.

8 Visit the battlegrounds

In the battlegrounds, Alliance and Horde players fight against each other. Battlegrounds don’t yield any XP or loot, but players gain reputation and “honour points” instead.

9 Communicate

Talk to the rest of your group and let them know what you’re doing. Be polite to other players, but ignore them if they beg for gold or call you a “noob”.

10 Use Warcraft websites

There are several websites devoted to WoW. wowwiki.com is excellent for tactics. Others, such as allakhazam.com and thotbot.com are good for explaining quests. Game add-ons can be downloaded to provide map co- ordinates and other enhancements.