Filed under: WoW Rookie

In our narrative walkthrough of the pandaren starting zone, we chose to play a pandaren monk because that's kind of a huge point of the expansion. You will see mild differences if you play a not-monk. Other classes begin in Shang Xi's Training Ground, so it's not entirely a separate experience.

Like any good character, you don't begin life as a pandaren as a blank slate. No, your very first login greets you with a quest warning you of an unassailable truth: You have Much to Learn. Thankfully, it doesn't take a great deal of heroic effort to complete the quest. Just trot down the hill and speak to Master Shang Xi.

Master Shang Xi, a monk, wastes no time in warning you that your life won't be filled with bare-fisted shenanigans, despite what movies may have said about martial artists. You must learn The Lesson of the Iron Bough. Run down the hill and grab a training staff from the (many) weapon racks. Equip it, and return to Master Shang Xi.

Master Shang Xi congratulates you for your mastery of the "hold a stick" technique and sends you off to beat up some training dummies. Despite the presence of a big, honking stick, this training time is called The Lesson of the Sandy Fist. Don't worry about the Training Targets attacking back; despite many hours drunkenly threatening them with my stick, they never killed me. It was close a couple of times, but since the targets never actually attack, I was safe.

I'm here to shout that World of Warcraft is still a fantastic game for expectant parents, even if some of the activities won't be so easy once you're actually a parent. I'll cop that right away: Raiding is going to be tough. Competitive PvP is going to be tough. It's hard to balance time commitments, and those time constraints don't wait for the birth.

What makes WoW awesome is that those two things (raiding and PvP) are just part of the game. The whole world of Azeroth is there for you. These are the top five reasons WoW excels as a game for expectant parents.

Azeroth is a world made of memories. Whether you're talking about mind-blowing scenery, incredible in-game experiences, or just good times with friends, you'll experience plenty of WoW moments that you'll remember for the rest of your life. Just like in real life, it's helpful to snap a quick picture to supplement your walks down memory lane.

Taking screenshots in WoW is fairly simple. Just press the Print Screen button on a PC or Command+Shift+3 on a Mac, and the photo gets dropped in your game files.

While that's all there is to actually taking a screenshot, there's a difference between getting a picture and getting an awesome picture. Let's take a few tips and tricks from seasoned photography pros and make our screenshots truly spectacular.

The inimitable Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, lead systems designer, recently hit the forums to talk about warrior balance. Along the way, he dropped some of that classic wisdom that spawned my eternal love for Ghostcrawler. He pointed out that you don't need hard numbers to describe how a rotation feels (though you do when talking about DPS competition), but he did say he thought the community would benefit from some adjectives other than "clunky."

We completely agree. Describing the feel and sense of a rotation can be a tricky business, and clunky is the go-to adjective for most folks. There are other words we can use, though, that help provide a more refined sense of what you intend. We're here to help, so here's our list of alternatives to "clunky."

• Inelegant The rotation is serviceable but lacks poetry. It's like you can feel the rotation trying to be rhythmic, but it's constantly interrupted without meaning. A big proc counts as meaning, for the record.
• Twisted Because the flow of the rotation is interrupted to go backwards, it feels like your fingers get twisted up trying to achieve optimum. Think two steps forward, one step back ... now three steps forward, two steps back.
• Cumbersome So many button pushes are required in a short period of time (what's up, cat druids?) that it feels like you're so focused on your rotation that you can't see the game.

As we now transition to a new chapter of the story, the narrator will take a moment and indulge in literary thievery -- I mean, literary homage. Well, not really literary, since I'm stealing from a different medium, but I've always liked the idea -- and shut up and read it already, OK?

In patch 3.0.1, Blizzard added a new vehicle to Azeroth. While millions of mounts already existed in the game, this new mount was something special. It was a hog. A motorcycle. No sooner had the Mechano-Hog become a reality in the game than thousands of engineers started building them. No individual Mechano-Hog was that big a deal, really. Except for one.

This Mechano-Hog was built by a warlock engineer named Demonalisa. Struggling to make money on a roleplay server, Demonalisa spent most of his time farming materials. That plan worked fairly well for him until he ran afoul of the gem market. The Great Gem Crash of 2010 cost Demonalisa his savings, and he was forced to sell off the Mechano-Hog.

In late 2010, the Mechano-Hog was purchased for Lolegolas by a stalwart orc named Throgg. Throgg felt the two-seater Mechano-Hog would be a great benefit to them in the Battlegrounds. After all, two coordinated fighters doing battle together can very easily turn the tide of victory. It turned out Lolegolas just liked making "vroom" sounds while doing laps of Dalaran.

This Mechano-Hog had the same basic abilities of all the others, but none of that is what's important. What's important are the details like the chewing gum Throgg used to glue the license plate down. Or the "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" bumper sticker Lolegolas ironically slapped across a fender. Or the extra growler racks Throgg installed to prepare for their trip to Pandaria.

As Lolegolas started the engine and Throgg plopped into the passenger car, neither of them could know how important that Mechano-Hog would be.

Item notes The Mechano-Hog and Mekgineer's Chopper are both still in the game and clearly the most popular ground mounts available by 56%. Source: I made that number up.

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Phat Loot Phriday brings you the scoop on some of the most ... interesting ... loot in the World of Warcraft, often viewed through the eyes of the stalwart Throgg and indelible Lolegolas. Suggest items you think we should feature by emailing mikeg@wowinsider.com.

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Blizzard is a fairly tech-savvy company. You can tell on account of this huge, massive game it runs. More importantly, though, Blizzard maintains a fairly robust online presence even outside of the game. It even keeps a fully stocked, awesome YouTube channel dedicated to Customer Support.

The thing you might not realize about the videos is that they're awesome. I don't just mean that in the sense that Blizzard is putting good information out there; the videos themselves are well crafted, lots of fun, and brilliantly narrated. I'd like to make sure you're not missing out on any of the cool stuff. So let's review the best Blizzard support videos available on YouTube.

Item Restoration

The Item Restoration video above is probably my favorite video. It introduces the new Item Restoration service, which is a huge benefit all its own. The narrator really grabs this subject by the horns and runs with it. Of course, the shocked worgen is equally awesome, and I spent the day making my own shocked worgen face at myself in the mirror.

So, you've just started playing the World of Warcraft, and you're thinking to yourself, "This is awesome. I love this. I'm all killing kobolds and slaying dragons. Too bad I have to work in the morning." (Or, alternatively, you might lament having to go to school in the morning.) And you think to yourself, "I spend half the day on Facebook, anyway. How can I get my Warcraft on in Facebook?"

OK, a little hyperbole there, but you get the point. Not only has Blizzard promoted its social networking channels, but I actually had a reader write in with a similar question:

What's the best places to get WoW stuff plugged into my feeds? It doesn't need to be news since I'm just using it for little diversions through the day.

So with that in mind, let's talk about how you can get Blizzard's information -- and WoW Insider's, too -- right in your social networks.

A roleplay realm recently suffered a little bit of drama when a very large guild suddenly took up residence. While we could talk about the details of that little explosion, those details aren't actually the point. I see this happen all the time. For one reason or another, a huge group of folks spot some greener grass on an RP server and go there. The RP server sees this huge influx of people and freak out, worried about RP griefing, pun names, and other misery.

I see this happen with such regularity that you can nearly set your watch by it. I'm convinced no one is in the wrong, per se. It's just a matter of communication, expectations, and general fear. So with that in mind, if you happen to be in a large guild getting ready to transfer to a roleplay server, here are some tips to make the transition smooth, easy, and friendly.

Maybe you're just coming back from vacation, or maybe you were having a baby. Maybe you were just super busy at work. Certainly, you weren't dallying with those other games. Whatever it was that kept you away from Azeroth, now that time has passed and you can get back to some good old-fashioned, well-balanced WoW.

Firing up your character for the first time in a while can be a little disorienting. It's worse than forgetting where you left your keys. What does this button do? Where's my hat?! Why is a murloc chewing on me?!

Let's alleviate some of that initial logging-in-the-first-time confusion with a handy checklist. Just go down the list and make sure all your gear is where you left it.

One of the nice things about the WoW community is that it tends to be full of friendly, kind people. There are plenty of folks in the game -- and on the forums, even! -- who are happy to lend a helping hand. It can be fun to chat with strangers, joke, and share in a bit of camaraderie.

But people are people, and sometimes you will encounter a troll or just mean-spirited n'er-do-well. It can be a heck of a souring experience to cruise through a few random groups and then run face-first into a big ball of negativity. It's almost inevitable you'll cross paths with someone who wields racist, sexist, or just plain foul language.

While I wish we could tap a magic wand and make all that negativity just go away, that's just not possible. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are a few things you can do about it.

While this column is nominally titled WoW Rookie, if you'll pardon the redundancy, it actually tends to serve as a cross-section of content for new, casual, and (as I like to call them) play-a-little players. It's for folks who don't really have hours on hours each week to devote to the hobby. After all, when baby's gotta eat, baby's gotta eat; can't nurse three hours later just so you can do the hard mode first.

With that in mind, Mists of Pandaria brings a lot to recommend it to our crowd. While it's tempting to give in to scuttlebutt and think this expansion is mostly for the hardcore crowd, I promise that Blizzard hasn't forgotten about its loyal, beloved casual playerbase -- because boy, oh boy, is there a lot for us to love!

This topic comes up this week from reader Angela, who wrote:

I've been reading in forums about how MoP is mostly for the raider and hardcore crowd, that Blizzard isn't catering to 'casubads' anymore. Is there any reason for a full-time worker and mom to care about MoP?

I promise, Angela, there are reasons to care. Let's talk about them.

What? It's Movies of the Past Week? Well, let me check my email here for suggestions. "Blind, blind, blind, blind." The interesting thing about Blind is that no matter how many times we feature it, the movie is still new to someone. It's an amazing thing.

While we joke in your intrepid WoW Insider newsroom about getting BLINDED, it's all in good fun. This video is so good that it's not only stood the test of time, it's slapped the test of time around and rammed it down a Bronze Dragon's throat.

So, if you've never seen this video before ... enjoy! If you've seen this movie a billion times, you'll probably still enjoy it.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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Last week, we started talking to the brand new players in the game. These are the folks who just installed WoW for the first time. They're so fresh to the game they have to sit through all the cinematics, figure out a username and password, and spend time reading every tooltip as it appears.

While the in-game instructions in WoW are pretty good, there's still some basic context to the whole MMORPG genre that can help out. Let's review some more of the basic assumptions that a new player should know. Setting these expectations can help the starting experience make a lot more sense.

We've been talking about a lot of high-falutin' concepts lately, like PvP and protecting the healer and killing the healer and so on. But having started a few new games in the last month, I've been able to ride the noob train and get a new look on my old, comfortable car, the World of Warcraft. While getting smacked in the face with the cold, wet noodle of noobdom, I came to realize how many of WoW's most basic concepts we take for granted.

At the most basic level, consider the NPC bad guys we call mobs. Do you kill them? Fight them? Run away? Consider if WoW were the first video game you'd ever really played. We all know Mario killed turtles for points, but bypassing those same turtles was perfectly fine. Is the same true in WoW? Some mobs surrender to your unassailable assault -- do they all? Should that be a regular tactic? This basic dynamic is something we take for absolutely granted, and it's the very first "What the hell am I doing here?" moment in WoW.

So let's jump all the way back and consider some of the truly most basic assumptions about the game.

We've been talking about Battlegrounds a lot lately. That makes a lot of sense, since those Battlegrounds can be a refuge for the casual or limited-time crowd -- not to mention, since we're stuck in the purgatory between expansions, now's the time to get your PvP on.

An indispensably important part of the Battlegrounds is having capable, willing healers. Just a small handful of powerful, practiced healers can make your Battleground team invincible. When you are the healer, you get to decide who lives and who dies on your team. You extend your warm, golden glow around the mere DPS who clamor to bathe in your power, and by means of that glow, provide victory to your team.

I might be engaging in a little hyperbole, but you get the point. A good healer can be incredibly powerful in Battlegrounds. You'll find the role engaging and complex; your greatest enemy will be tunnel vision, self-reliance, and the ability to communicate on the fly. Let's talk about how you can maximize the power of your time as a healer.