WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

Accept this fact: to be good at playing WoW, you need to learn to use your keyboard at least some of the time. You don't have to bail on your mouse, but it's very helpful to learn some of the very basic keyboard shortcuts that will make your life in the game that much easier. (Easy is good, right?)

Using the game interface
There are hotkeys for almost everything you do in-game. You can find most of them by just hovering your mouse over the icons that you click -- as no doubt you may have already noticed. Let's start with the button bar that you use to bring up your Quest Log, Spellbook and other things. You'll see that when I hover my mouse over the gold cup icon, a tooltip pops up. The L in parentheses after "Quest Log" means you can just press your L key to bring up the log instead of clicking the icon. (Don't worry that it's a capital L, just press lower-case L. When a keyboard command is capitalized, it's written as "Shift-L".) After the break, you'll see a list of keyboard shortcuts for the game interface.

I spend most of my evenings perusing the North American and European WoW Foums for interesting topics for our Forum Post of the Day feature. I've come across all kinds of threads from the uplifting, to the whiney, to the popular discussion. They are a great resource for tips and strategies.

Blizzard welcomes constructive criticism and suggestions from the WoW community. You are welcome to be a part of it as well. There are a few things you should know about the forums.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

This has been an exciting week for World of Warcraft news and rumors. Blizzard has been hosting two major events Blizzcon and the World Wide Invitational. These events are a hotbed of information about WoW and other Blizzard Entertainment games. Here at WoW Insider we work hard to keep you on top of all of the latest developments in our beloved game. I'm sure you were aware, but this past weekend saw Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in Paris, France. Let's take a look at the kinds of information that we receive.

We did not get the piece of information that I was most hoping for: A release date for Wrath of the Lich King. Not even a beta date. Now there are a number of websites that have pre-order dates for Wrath, but none of them can be trusted as an actual estimation. We will get our new expansion "when it's ready." Blizzard is the only trustworthy source of this information. We will get that bit of information out as soon as it's available from the source.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

Having the right weapon can make a world of difference in a players leveling experience. Last time on WoW Rookie, we looked at the types of weapons that each class can use and where to train the skill for them. Now just because you can use a weapon, doesn't mean you should. This week we'll examine what to look for in a weapon.

It's pretty important to keep your hands full. You have a four weapon slots at the bottom of your character sheet: Main Hand, Off Hand, Ranged, and Ammunition. Two handed weapons take up both the main hand and off hand slots. The off hand may hold a weapon if your class can dual weild, a shield, or an off hand item that either adds to your attributes or looks cool (such as Bouquet of Red Roses or a Dark Iron Tankard.) I recommend something useful when adventuring, though it's fun to see what folks come up with when roaming the city.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

One of my favorite things about World of Warcraft is the wide variety of sharp, pointy objects and projectiles at my disposal for beating on my foes (and occasionally my friends). At times I find myself overwhelmed by the number of options for each class, and I've always wanted a handy guide to what I can use and where to get it. Since I couldn't find such a guide, I've decided to create one. Hopefully you will all find it useful also.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know

In the World of Warcraft, 40 is a magic number. Once you hit this level you get access to a 31 point talent, which usually does some pretty nifty things for your class. You really start specializing into your role as a healer, tank or DPS character. The best part about 40 is getting your fancy new mount. Once you get used to traveling the world on you pony (wolf, nightsaber, raptor, ram, etc) it can be really hard to go back to hoofing it on foot.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

I apologize for the late article. Being finals week and all, things get pretty hectic for a lot of us. You will appreciate that I'm writing as my students are busily completing their final exam.

As in life sometimes in World of Warcraft we come across unpleasant or stubborn people that challenge us. Whether it's in Guilds, PUGs, or just the environment, at some point someone will get on your nerves. Thanks to the perceived anonymity of the internet, people feel they can be much more brazen and offensive then they ordinarily would. I'm not asking you to let violations slide, but try to be mature about the situation. Let's talk about how to deal with difficult situations.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

For the last couple of week's we've been discussing reputations here on WoW Rookie. By leveling up reputation with factions you will open yourself up to special content, rewards, and discounts. Last week we examined some of the factions encountered while leveling from 1 to 60 in Azeroth. Some people still rep up with these factions, but for the most part these NPCs have been pretty lonely since the expansion.

When the level cap was at 60, prior to the Burning Crusade, players spent a most of their time at level 60 repping up with PvP and raid factions. Many players gain reputation with these factions for the right to purchase crafting patterns from their vendors.

Grinding for reputation is a part of the game. Think of it as leveling up with different factions. Last week we looked at the levels of reputation. This week we'll examine some of the reputations that you encounter in Azeroth.

Each of the major cities represent factions reputations that you can grind up with by completing quests and donating cloth. Increasing your reputation with the cities of your faction gives you the opportunity to purchase their racial mounts and tabards, in addition to discounts from vendors. For example if you play a Human, you can rep up to exalted with Darnasus in order to get a Nightsaber mount. Be warned, though because of scaling restrictions some models may not have access to all racial mounts.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

As a social game, it's fun to make friends in an MMORPG environment. In World of Warcraft, you must also make friends (and sometimes enemies) with members of various faction groups. Reputation (rep) is gained through killing a faction's enemies and completing quests to assist a particular group. Obviously, killing member's of a particular faction reduces rep. For example, killing Bloodsail Pirates increases rep with Booty Bay (Steamwheedle Cartel), while decreasing rep with the Bloodsail Buccaneers.

There are many reasons why we may increase or decrease reputations. You may be asked to do so to as a quest objective or to gain particular rewards. By gaining exalted reputation with the major cities you have access to purchase their racial mounts (provided your they may be scaled to your racial model) and their guild tabards. Higher levels of rep also allow discounts on goods and repair services from vendors, and higher prices for selling useless items. For the next couple of weeks, we'll be taking a look at the ins and outs of reputation on WoW Rookie.

WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

Over the years, World of Warcraft has gotten some bad press from people who invest too much time into the game. Some people have had trouble with work, school, and relationships as a result of spending too much time in the virtual world and losing touch with the real world. One woman cited WoW as the reason for her divorce request; her husband dedicated all of his off time to playing, while neglecting his other responsibilities. In perhaps the most sobering case of game addiction, a young lady died of exhaustion as a result of a marathon WoW session.

As much as we may complain about Blizzard, there is no doubt that they have made a fantastically engaging role playing game. True, from a psychological standpoint they have mastered reinforcement schedules and give goals that compel you to keep going. It's an excellent game, but along with its MMORPG predecessors, it can become all-consuming and soul-sapping. Just remember that it is your job to make sure your WoW time is safe, sane, and balanced.

I have to compliment Blizzard on paying attention to the tools the players are using. They've made many changes to the User Interface to integrate those tools into the World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, like the voice chat interface, many of those changes have had bugs and have not been widely accepted by players. As you progress through the levels you will find that you will likely have to download third party programs to facilitate your play.

Ventrilo and Teamspeak are some of the most widely used third party applications used in WoW. These tools facilitate voice chat which is necessary when quickly coordinating activities. In most cases you will find yourself excused from a raid or premade battleground if you do not have the proper tools.

We heard from a few people either new or returning to WoW that the amount of information overload on our front page was reaching critical mass, so it occurred to us that it might not be obvious why the fabled Patch Day is such a ("Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! Details at 10!") big deal in these here parts. Here's an older WoW Rookie on "What is a patch?" from Amanda Dean if you're new to the business of how Blizzard updates its content.

For the uninitiated, Patch 2.4 is what is known as a "content patch," which is a sanitized version of saying "A ton of stuff gets added to the game and all hell breaks loose." This particular patch doesn't contain a lot of new content for people still leveling their first character, so you're unlikely to notice any differences unless you have a fairly high-level toon being affected by the class changes coming in or one who was beginning Karazhan attunement, which is no longer required. Apart from that, a rare new-5 man is being added (Magister's Terrace), a new endgame 25-man raid (Sunwell Plateau), and a host of new quests and a rep grind if you've got a toon at nearing 70.

The official patch notes are here, and WoW Insider has full coverage on the changes if you want a more in-depth look. Enjoy Patch Day!

It's been brought to my attention that there are rookies of all levels. Recent columns have covered very basic topics such as instance play, group etiquette, and account security. Once you get to level 70, you'll have several options including solo play, PvP, and instance raiding. Raiding is a major part of the game, but can be somewhat overwhelming at first.

Raid instances vary from ten, twenty, twenty-five, and forty players. These instances are similar to five-person dungeons but require considerably more coordination. Ever player must work in concert to bring down challenging bosses, and they are typically rewarded with excellent gear for their efforts.