It's the little things....

Everyone has guides for all the big stuff. Guides on how to pick talents or mob specific macros. Bosskillers is a whole site devoted to killing the big time bosses. There are guides to creating gold, to crafting, gathering, etc.

So, what about the little things? What little things in WoW did we have to learn all by ourselves? Number 1 right off the bat for me were the abbreviations, they are the worst, because there is nothing that says "n00b" more than asking what STV means, so I have provided a link to a guide from wowinsider in the column to your left. the other thing that had me flummoxed right away and took awhile for me to figure out were guilds.

Now if you are joining your real life friends on your server this is generally a no-brainer -- you and your friends either create a guild or join one together. But if you are alone and people keep whispering you to "Sign my charter" or "Join my guild" as a level 10 or 16 or 20 whatever, how do you know what guilds to avoid and what guilds to join?

At least if you join the wrong guild, you can always /gquit, its not like if you picked the wrong gender, class, race -- at least you're not stuck with it. (I would say hair style, but we'll get to change that eventually.)

Truly, the answer to these "tells" is either to ignore them or give them a polite no. I would not join a guild until you have run at least one instance with a PUG (Pick up Group) and if you get along with someone in that PUG, who is in a guild, ask them about it -- if you like what they tell you about it, ask how you join. (I did that with my first guild after a Deadmines Run and as soon as I asked how to join, I got an invite and then that person bought me a tabard and it was a great guild.)

There are also plenty of class specific things you wind up having to learn by yourself, for me one was how to learn new talents for your pet without going to the trainer.

But one thing I will say about these little things... when you do discover them all on your own, there is a sense of accomplishment. Sure you're not the first one to have figured it out, but you did figure it out -- without a guide, without a friend, without asking.

So take a lot of pride in those little things you figured out along the way-- those wonderful AHA moments -- one day, one of us n00bs is going to have an AHA moment that no one else has ever had before and then, well then, we won't be a n00b anymore and we will have graduated to n00b first class!