the blog of jim graham

Hello, my name is Jim and I’m a World of Warcraft addict. I resisted playing for years but finally decided to try it out a few months back. Lots of friends from work and Twitter were playing so I figured why not. Now that I’m playing, there’s no closing that box.

I started out with a Draenei warrior (Bwen) that I leveled to 25. I then tried a human mage (Queri) and a gnome warlock (Ze´ro´). The mage was my primary but once he hit 55 I created a night elf death knight (Cubik) and haven’t played the mage since. My DK is up to lvl 67 as of last night. The death knight is a bit overpowered or at least it seems to be compared to the other classes I’ve played. For a newbie like myself overpowered works just fine. I’ve found that the quests from the expansions are much better than the original races. Starting a Draenei from 1 was much easier than the human or gnome. Starting a DK from 55 was just plain fun. The quests are enjoyable and the progression of levels in Outlands has been great.

Over the last week or three I’ve been trying out add-ons and working on my DK professions while also questing in Outlands. The add-ons I started with were suggested by friends. As I’ve played more, read some blogs, and listened to some podcasts I’ve started customizing to my own likes. Here’s a rundown of some of my favorites:

As a new player, I don’t think I could play WoW without QuestHelper. I leveled the first character I had until about 20 without QH and wouldn’t want to do it again (And that was a Draenei which is setup better than most). I guess it was a good learning experience but also frustrating. The game became infinitely more fun for me when I didn’t have to hunt all over the place to complete quests. For me it’s about building a character up and getting new stuffs; I’m not into the story line really. I think that’s why I avoided WoW for so long but there’s so much more here even if you don’t get into the story.

Next up, unit frames. I’ll forgive you if you don’t know what that is because 6 months ago I didn’t either. A unit frame is just an addition to or replacement of the game interface with a modified version. It’s hard to explain, I know I was confused at first. My first experience with unit frames was with the most popular one, X-Perl UnitFrames. It’s highly configurable and made to look similar to the default setup. I liked it fine, but didn’t really know any other. Over the last two weeks I’ve been using PitBull Unit Frames 3.0 and like it a little better. It’s infinitely configurable, yet powerful and minimalist. I like the clean look. Either of these is great and a definite install if you’re going to play WoW. It’s all about personal preference.

Next up, Auctioneer. One of the coolest elements of WoW is the almost real-life economy that exists within the game. There’s currency, professions, and an auction house. I’m addicted to the auction house. It’s a virtual eBay with plate mail, swords, crafting supplies, health potions, etc… If you can acquire it in-game, you can pretty much find it for sale in the auction house. The Auctioneer add-on just makes it that much better, especially for someone new to the game. The interface is more robust than the default and the options it adds makes sure you get what your items are worth and that you don’t pay too much when you’re buying. I’ve also tried Auctionator, but prefer the whole suite of tools Auctioneer offers.

Last up and the most recent addition to my add-ons, RatingBuster. From the info, RatingBuster is to provide detailed, meaningful and customizable information about items so you can easily decide for yourself which item is better. Basically what that means is that it converts attributes to actual in-game percentages. It allows you to easily compare two pieces of similar equipment to see which one is better for you. At higher levels where having the best gear is a must, this is a must have tool.

That’s it for now. Sorry to bore you with my new addiction, but I thought I’d share to maybe help other WoW newbies out there. My guild mates (The Affront) and I play on Trollbane, see you there!

Tags: addons, games, videogames, world of warcraft, wow

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under default. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.