by Alicia Hollenbeck

Created on: June 30, 2008   Last Updated: September 07, 2011

Anyone who has ever played World of Warcraft will agree that the game is instantly addictive. Unfortunately, it can also be extremely frustrating. Will a little bit of preparation, you can alleviate many of the frustrations and make your first character a successful one.

Before starting the game, there are some websites you should visit. The first is Curse Gaming (www.curse.com). Curse Gaming offers many add-ons, or mods, which you'll want to download now or will be required of you later if you plan on exploring end-game content. For now, you should definitely download Titan Panel, and you should consider downloading Auctioneer and XPerl as well. Titan can be configured to track things like experience (XP), money, bag space, gear, and most importantly, coordinates. Auctioneer tracks activities at the Auction House to maximize your profits. XPerl is an interface mod that provides a great deal more information than the standard WoW interface. To install any of these mods, open the .zip file into your Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons directory. When you log onto WoW for the second time (when you already have a character), there will be a button labeled "Add-Ons" in the bottom left-hand corner of the character screen. Select this and in the window that opens, check the box labeled "Load Out of Date Add-Ons". This will ensure the function of these add-ons and any additional ones.

If you want to level your first character as efficiently as possible, there are two options for doing this. You can either load up on leveling mods such as MobMap (available at www.mobmap.de) or Lightheaded, or you can follow a leveling guide. The mods will provide all the information for the locations of quests in your combat log but allow you to decide on your own which quests to do. Leveling guides also give you these locations and also provide step-by-step instructions for completing them. If you don't follow these guides exactly you'll most likely get too off-track and no longer be able to use them, but if you want to level as quickly as you can, a guide is definitely the way to go. I recommend Jame's Leveling Guide, available at www.wow-pro.com. If you decide to not use any leveling mods or guides, you can also use databases like thottbot.com and allakhazam.com to help with questing.

So now you should be ready to start!

Unfortunately, now you have to make some important decisions you have to choose your server, faction, class and race. If you have friends who play

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