Tales of a Wow n00b: Day 2
After the horribly entertaining (read: deathly dull) events of Day 1, I actually decided to give logging on, character creation and playing a shot. Go figure.
First off, 4 more software patches and updates, I shit you not. I realize this is a hugely popular game, but for a first-timer I was prepared to chuck it if I had to sit through another update prior to actually playing.
That said, my first login went really smoothly and I chose Nordrassil (side effects include nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath) as my realm.
Read on for the tyranny of choice and indecision that is character creation.
Why it took me a day to get up and running, only the good folks at Blizzard and my cable company (is THIS the connection speed I’m paying for?) know for sure. In any event, the initial character creation screen is brilliant. Big, bright, bubbly (needed a third “b”) and very intuitive.
I knew from the beginning I wanted a good guy (Alliance) and not bad guy (Horde) so I chose a Night Elf. This is mostly due to the fact that “human” doesn’t offer much opportunity for roleplaying and fantasy, since I know what it’s like to be one of those. I think.
I also couldn’t very well choose Gnome or Dwarf since I have a slight aversion to those of short stature. Don’t get me wrong, I love Little People, Big World as much as the next guy, but I’m 6’3″ behind this keyboard, so I wanted something a bit more grandiose.
And nothing says stature and presence quite like a purple-hued, pointy-eared Night Elf druid, which is what I am. I’m not ready to share my Armory page yet (mostly because it doesn’t exist), but also because the name I chose is hardly original. Pulling from an alternative spelling from Greek mythology, I chose the ravenous sea creature “Schylla” (of Schylla and Charybdis fame) as my namesake.
See for yourself how original I was. Go ahead.
So that bummed me out a bit, but I’m strong; I recovered.
My first “quest” went well, but I’m still the asshole who needs to invert the vertical on my mouse. I kept having trouble with my camera diving to the ground or assuming the most detached 3rd person perspective ever. That said, I recovered quickly and was running around in no time flat.
I still think they should warn a fella about the potential carpal tunnel damage of holding down 2 mouse buttons simultaneously. If the keyboard worked as smoothly with the camera and motion, I’d become ambidextrous in a heartbeat.
Speaking of which (and I’ll look later, but I thought I’d ask here) is there a way to map that 2 button forward movement to the scroll-click or something? Anything to save my manual dexterity.
Anyhow, in an hour of questing I leveled up once and found a great deal of real estate to explore. Oh, and I died twice, both times running away.
I realize my journey (vive le double entendre!) has just begun, but I have a taste for it now. An inch in my brain and my mouse.
It took me two days, but I finally feel like a part of this thing now.
“I chose Nordrassil (side effects include nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath) as my realm.”
Okay, hi-laaaaarious. Also very true… try jumping off the side of that tree sometime and see what happens. Vertigo is not your friend.
Also, I resent the fact that my nature-loving, nomadic, honor-driven tauren is considered a bad guy! We’re nowhere near as bull-headed as those humans… pun intended. Now excuse me, I think I have some gnome I need to scrape off my hoof, you Alliance scum.
/jk
Welcome to the World… get ready to stay awhile.
qwe
asd
for movement… or the arrow keys.
I agree on the patching times, they are horrendous enough doing them one at a time. I can’t possibly imagine sitting through them all at one go, one after another. Blizzard really should have an alternative download which would include all patches at one time.
Heh, I’ve only been playing about 6 months, and compared to some am still a reletive n00b. Though upon reading your posts, I realize that I have come a long way actually.
You realise that numlock is autorun I hope?
Failing that – use interface options to bind it to something else?
Personally I have a mouse with programmable buttons – so autorun is set to one of those…
hit the little computer button on your minibar – or just hit ESC a couple times till a menu comes up. The select key bindings.
Every action (and pretty much every addon you can get) can be bound to up to 2 different keys or key combinations.
I’m a big WASD for driving person, but I remapped W to autorun (default for auto run is NUM LOCK).
I then moved over to an N52 gamepad – and have mapped the DPAD to WASD.
I’m can’t really see the disadvantage of using ‘W’ to run forward while left clicking to look around or right clicking to mouse-turn. Holding down both mouse buttons is going to get tiring after a while =[
And as Miz said, numlock autorun is such a great feature and will definitely be used most of the time.
Since I’m on a laptop and don’t have the extended keyboard, I use a combo of arrow keys and remapping y to run (key bindings interface). No holding down multiple mouse keys for me (I already have tendonitis, thank you very much).
Thanks for all the excellent advice and help!
As I continue playing and writing this post series, I’ll try to incorporate my own experiences with sites, players and offline users in extending the game experience beyond the confines of just logging on and playing.
Tonight’s post (Day 3) will likely be about running, the scope/enormity of the world and a third thing, tbd.
nice idea
HAR HAR… he thinks the Alliance are the good guys. That is rich.
I’m not posting on my personal laptop but I recall an option in the digital game manual that will allow you to right click on an object. This right click will walk you over to that object and perform the available action or simply click to move.
I’m currently firing up my laptop to get you specifics.
Ok, by pressing esc bring up your menu.
look in your interface options menu you can turn on the “click to move” option. This will allow you to click to move.
If you’ve played neverwinter nights that is how it would play.
You do know that there are no set Good guy/Bad guy roles in this world right? Horde has just as many evil little schemes as the alliance do. I am sure as a starting out Night Elf you helped that Satyr? That was a demon. Already tainted your good guy image eh?
Yeah, Max, as I discover more of the backstory of the Night Elves, I’m less and less impressed with their forethought and planning.
That said, their connection to nature seemed interesting and I like the idea of a 7 foot tall purple smurf. ;-)
And you’re right, it’s not the race/class/character, it’s how you play it.