My human character, a warrior named Aabde, has now completed all the quests in Elwynn Forest and reached level 12. One of the highlights was the griffin ride from Westfall to Stormwind; I should have taken some screenshots. The final two quests were to get rid of Hogger and Morgan the Collector; in both cases my timing was fortuitous in that I found other players to team with. Hogger in particular was a pain because the kobolds had a very low drop rate for the quest items (armbands), so we kept having to roam around that area and ambush every kobold we could find, and Hogger would keep respawning and attack us over and over. Still, it’s amazing how much more effective even a small group of two players is than going solo. I also managed to join a Guild – the first one that invited me while roaming around Stormwind City. Thus far my Guild membership hasn’t really been a material benefit but I figure it’s good to be affiliated for now. I am indebted to Anachronda’s character Chisa for the plethora of bags; thanks, man!
So, at any rate, I’ve gone as far as I can in Elwynn at this stage. It seems the next thing to do is go to Westfall and start the quest chains there (kill X of this, Y of that… etc). I did venture east and discovered Three Corners, but there were all sorts of level 15 creatures roaming around, so I lost my nerve and turned back. Another option might be to take the tram to the Dwarven City and see what quests I can find up there. Any suggestions? Whats the natural pathway? (I do have one quest that will require a trip to Loch Modon).
I also have picked up the leatherworking and minng skills, and have collected a pile of leather hides and copper ore, but am not cure how I go about turning this into money. Plus, I have earned two talent points, but that doesnt seem enough to actually buy any talents yet. I did catch a couple of fish, though. I want to get a bit more up to speed on these skills but am really unsure where to start.
There is one other temptation, to shelve Aabde for a while and focus on my elf Zzamba instead. He just graduated from the playpen and is at level 6, so getting him up to level 10-12 will be a good diversion and change of pace. Well, change of scenery, any way.
Anyone have any advice for me on where to go and what to do next?
The “natural path” is probably to continue through Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood (in that order), at the end of which you should be around level 31. All the races are laid out pretty much the same: there’s three zones that get you up to level 20, one generally shared with another race that gets you to 30, and then one path per continent to get to 60. (The 60’s are in Outland and the 70’s in Northrend, of course.) It’s always possible to “switch tracks” and level a human in dwarf/gnome territory (or even elf territory), but there’s not generally any good reason to do so, especially this early. (Later on, a lot of people prefer to do their 40’s in Tanaris rather than the Hinterlands.)
If you plan on having several characters of different races, I’d suggest sticking to the “natural path” to minimize boredom as you repeat the same leveling quests. (Though dwarf and gnome almost completely overlap anyway.)
It’s fairly unlikely that you’ll be able to make much money from crafting this early; the real money’s always at the endgame. That said, check the auction house in Stormwind for leather gear that sells well, and keep an eye on the price of ore and metal. (Ore often sells for higher prices than refined metal, since jewelcrafters need raw ore to prospect.) There’s a phenomenon called “twinking” where players deliberately keep a character at the top end of a decade (e.g. 19 or 29) so as to use it in PVP, which is grouped into 10-level brackets. These are generally players with other, max-level characters, and will have money to buy expensive gear that no one with only one equivalent-level character and no other money source can afford. If you can get some of the rarer leatherworking patterns, they can often be a good market.
Your talent points can be spent one at a time, but you have to build up to the higher level talents. Make sure you’re looking at the top of the talent window (“n” shortcut key by default) and you should be able to buy something from there. As you get to higher levels, how you arrange your talents is one of the major factors determining what role you’ll play in larger groups (in your case, DPS (arms and fury talents) vs. tank (protection talents). It’s not terribly important right now, but you should probably give at least a little thought to talent layout, and maybe do some online research. (You can probably find a “levelling spec” that’s optimized for low-level solo play.) Just be aware you have to pay gold to change your talents (except when a patch comes out that changes them enough that Blizzard refunds all your talent points, which happens about once every six months on average).
ok so that makes sense for the human. whats the natural path for elven characters?
BTW, if you look at your character’s Acheivements page on the statistics tab, there’s a statistic for “deaths by Hogger”.
Natural path for an Elf is Teldrassil until about level 12 or so, out to Darkshore until about 18, and then down into Ashenvale and out to Stonetalon. Stonetalon’s nice for a miner because there’s copper, tin, iron, and mithril.
Personally, I usually peter out in the human lands somwhere in Westfall or Redridge and head out to Darkshore. I’ve never managed to make it through Dun Morogh; even my dwarves (Svensdottir on Staghelm) wind up out in Darkshore. I don’t know why Redridge and Dun Morogh don’t interest me.
Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention.
To turn things into money, you’ll want to get acquainted with the auction house. You can put stuff up there to sell to other players (or buy stuff if you’ve got money burning a hole in your pants). There’s one in each major city (Darnassus for Teldrassil, Stormwind for Elwynn, Ironforge for Dun Morogh).
Personally, I’ve not noticed much of a difference in pricing between ore and bars. I usually check, though, before I do a big batch of smelting.
At your level, you’ll need a tame leatherworker to turn your ruined scraps into light leather. Feel free to mail them to Chisa, and I’ll mail the leather back.
Later on, you stop getting scraps; at least, until you hit Outlands, where you start getting scraps again. Once you get to Northrend, it’s not a problem; anyone can turn Borean leather scraps into Borean leather.
The market for leather seems spotty; sometimes stuff sells, some times it doesn’t. And I usually have difficulty predicting what will sell.
as far as finding the natural path goes, just look for quests to show up that take you to an adjacent zone, and ignore the occasional ones that ask you to go more than one zone away (until you get past 30). bliz leaves plenty of breadcrumbs around.
i created a blood elf last night. Have decided to make my horde characters female just for kicks 🙂 I think im going to try to get my players up to 10 one by one. to be honest the idea of slogging throuugh Westfall is not that appealing right now, so i am motivated to try other paths and races, so that when it is time to revisit Aabde I am refreshed.
I did find the auction house and have started selling the crap armor pieces I’ve been accumulating; so next I should start auctioning my raw ore and leather too I guess. All I really want money for is to make sure I can keep on top of the training costs and keep upgrading my weapon. Anachrnda, i’ll be sure to send you my scraps, much appreciated! I guess I should also send Zzamba some of AAbde;s extra bags and some leather armor , too, while I am at it.
deaths by Hogger? ok this i have to look into …
Ah, well, I only have one horde character on Staghelm, Weisenheimer, that I created for use when making the occasional snarky comments on the WoW forums. I don’t think I’ve even logged into him.
My horde characters primarily live on Icecrown; Smarmette’s about to hit 80.
oh? maybe ill move mine there
There are some interesting quests over on the draenei starting area, and the blood elf 10-20 zone (the Ghostlands) is very well done.
As far as skills, I’ve found that raw ore sells for slightly more than bars, as jewelcrafters use it for their trade. You can actually make enough starting gold to equip your character in style (well, greens) early on by selling copper ore.
If you’re ever on the Uther server, Horde-side, buzz me. My toons are Sanguinari, Graveheart, and Boomstick.
Hogger is the first elite monster you run across in the human lands, and since it’s quite common to pick a human as your first character, his kill-count is legendary. I was actually saddened recently when I took my level 80 warlock through Elwynn to pick flowers, and accidentally killed Hogger. He spawned next to me, attacked, and my pet cut him down with a single stroke.
You want to go through Westfall at some point, so you can go through The Deadmines. Not only is it a great dungeon, but it provides a bunch of cash and gear, and leads to other quests. It doesn’t hurt to follow the Loch Modan breadcrumb quest and visit the dwarven lands for some variety, though.
Regarding the Deadmines, I’ve long been of the opinion that VC should give up his evil plans and just open a seaside Hooters franchise…
-j