What would you say to a player starting out on Kronos?

Over 3500 characters have now made it out to level 60 on Kronos. That is 3500 characters that had to face the hardships of leveling, farming, dungeons running, gold making and other challenges. But we also have over 20'000 characters level 10-50, with a lot of those no longer playing and many players still starting out on the server [See my interviews]. Those players will very likely end up with the same questions the previous ones had and advices might be useful to them to avoid making some mistakes.

Thus I decided to send in-game messages to 40+ different characters from varying levels, both Horde and Alliance and I asked for advices, guides or tips.

Here is what they answered :

• Join the world chat (/join world), it helps you to find groups and enjoy your time here (B & B, 27 priest and 60 priest)
• Make sure all your characters have four bags to carry all the items and make some money. Invest in bags early on. (K, 42 warrior, HizOdge)
• Don't level alone, get some friends with you, 2 is the best number. (S, 40 rogue)
• Take your time, leveling will be long. Rushing removes the fun in it. (M & A, 41 mage and 41 priest)
• If you are tired of the leveling, try out helping some friends or doing a dungeon. (N, 60 warrior)
• Pull mobs away from eachother. (E, 7 rogue) 
• Think well before you chose a class, faction, race and the looks of your character because you won't be able to change those afterwards. (Pussochkram, 33 mage)
• Prepare your questing by mapping your path with Google to make the best of your time and finish as many as possible before you return to the questgivers (K, 42 warrior)
• Sell your items as much as you can on the auction house (K, 42 warrior)
• Turn on instant quest text (K, 57 druid)
• Level alchemy and herbalism, it makes easy money and helps for raiding. (B, 60 priest)
• Do quests and use your professions to make gold (S, 60 warlock)
• Fish wreckages in Stranglethorn Vale or sell herbs to get the gold for your level 40 mount (S, 60 warlock). 
• If low on gold at level 20, try farming the wolves north of Duswood and selling their Soft patch of fur (6 silver each). (Ddarr, Redditer) . At level 35 you can farm the turtles in the thousand needles for their shells and scales and the silithids.
• Install the addon Questie, and check Joana's leveling guide, unless you want to immerse yourself as much as possible (K & T, 57 druid & 29 warrior) 
• Be friendly, you will get friends on the way. (L & B, 60 hunter & 60 priest) 
• Set your hearthstone somewhere practical, near current questgivers  or in main cities. (Abyxsal)
• Try to logout as much as possible in inns to get the rested bonus. (Abyxsal)
• If playing is starting to get boring or repetitive, there's no content for you or you don't find much pleasure anymore then take a break, play some other games for a couple months or maybe on another server and then give it another try. (Muneca) 
• Skip buying the spells and abilities you don't need (eg. Eye of the Beast, Eye of Kilrogg, etc.). (wreckfish)
• Focus on yellow quests, orange, red and elite will give you a hard time. (Zipzo)
• Before doing a dungeon be sure to get as many of this dungeon quests as possible. (Esibelle)
• As a rogue pickpocket everything in your path. (Nualkrisaarx)
• Level up First Aid and use bandages as much as possible so you don't have to eat/drink between fights. Same thing with Cannibalize as a forsaken. (Covello)
• If you are a caster check out for low cost wands while leveling, often they end up dealing more damage than your spells for no mana cost at all. (Covello)

My personal answers :

• Try out some classes at max level on the PTR to be sure of what you like playing at 60. It can be quite frustrating to take the time to level and find out you don't like the gameplay of your class.
• Join the world channel with /join world (but be ready to quit it with /leave world) and a guild, add the players you meet to your friend list during your play or play with someone. Leveling alone is incredibly long and sometimes frustrating, communication with other players makes you forget about the time.
• Check out the details about what you want to do on the server before you start (when raiding guilds do their raids, what the NA population is, if there is PvP, etc).
• Use addons, they really add to your quality of life (titan, caster bars, Ezdismount, Mobinfo, Equipcompare, timers on dots, etc.)
• Since line of sight and pathing are implemented, use them to your advantage.
• Keep the low-level green and blue items (especially weapons) you get to give them to your alts or other classes you would like to level. The first levels are much faster and easier / pleasant with them. Ask guildmates for some items to help.
• Use autowalk and abuse it. You will face long walks, very, long, walks.
• As a hunter you don't need to put your pet's Growl on automatic, a single cast per fight should keep the aggro on your pet.
• The server is currently in need of tanks, it could help to roll a class that can do this job. If you are a warrior, paladin or a druid you will be wanted. Besides it makes it easier to make groups as a tank. (also suggested by N, 60 warrior)
• If the game is way too hard then maybe consider rolling a hunter or warlock, pets help.
• Use the Census (population) (discontinued), the Kronos forums, the account manager, diverse databases, the bugreporter (and its guide please), the armory, the honor rankings and the character auctions to fulfill your needs. Also, do not hesitate to use the different class guides you can find on the internet.
• There's also a way to see all the boss kills and check how some class is doing. A webpage that shows each guild's raid progress. And a talent calculator. And if you are into comparing servers or looking for a specific player with an item maybe Realmplayers is your tool
• If you prefer to see how encounters, talents, scripts, PvP work first-hand with videos, there is a video thread for that! 
• Happy about the server? Then tell the devs, they'll love it!
• If you find someone is abusing bugs, boting or breaking the rules you can report them too. And assuming you need some assistance there should be gamemasters ready to help you on IRC (#kronos-wow & #kronos-help) most of the day.
• If you can't connect to the server, check my guide.
• If you wonder how long a dungeon could take, check this table. To help find players for it ask in the world channel and whisper all players of the appropriate range (with /who 30-40 for example) with a friendly message like "Hey, we are going to do the Wailing Caverns, would you like to come?".
• When creating an auction on the auction house do not set a low bid. Players rarely bid, they buy when a short amount of time is left and you will lose money if you set a bid too low.
• Sell fused wiring from the simple target dummies (engineers only) to make some starting gold.
• Go for the chests. They often contain some items of value and at higher levels herbs.
• Create level 1 bank alts to keep your items without having to mind about bag spaces. Also send items you would like to sell on the auction house to him so that you don't have to travel.

Others offered feedback about the server instead

• Everyone I have met here is pretty nice (D, 51 rogue)
• The population is lower at NA times but there is enough to always be able to do dungeons (B, 27 priest)
• This is my favorite server after trying Nostalrius, Primal and Dalaran. Good scripts, no lag, and the best community I have met so far. (K, 33 warrior)
• This is a high quality server in term of programming with a small population but I suggest you stay on it, it is getting more popular (T, 20 hunter)
• Hit me up if you want to do some low-level dungeons. I have a druid tank, a healer, (D, 51 rogue)
• The closest vanilla server to retail must be this one, I recommend it. (A, 44 paladin)
• The server is worth it. (W 60 mage)
• This server is the best scripted. (E, 60 warrior)
• Have fun. (L, 60 hunter)

I hope you have found it insightful and have learned something useful today! If not, maybe you can think of a different advice for new players and tell it in the comments? Have a great day!

[See other articles about Vanilla]