Zinj's General tips to a better playing experience.

Right, this is a guide to help you not be so overwhelmed by the game when first starting off. (This is my first time writing a guide, so take this with a grain of salt... please?)

As you read through this, remember this one little bit of wisdom,

"It is best to learn from mistakes. Whether the mistakes are yours or someone else's is up to you."

Onward ho!

1. Have Fun!

Yes, it's a game that some people take seriously.
Yes, it's a very vast game with a seemingly endless supply of quests and/or activities to participate in.
Yes, it's a game that could be challenging at times, and unexpectedly boring at other times...
But in the end, it's a game. And games were made for you to have fun!

2. Play it your way.

One (and of course, not the most important) of the beauties of the game, is how there seems to be a minimum of game rules or set guidelines in it. If you like the way your Blood elf looks, but absolutely despise the Blood elf starting area, then you can trek all the way down to Tirisfal Glades and quest about with the rotting carcases known as The Forsaken.

You can choose to be the sneaky, cunning Rogue or you could bash some faces in as a Warrior... OR you could be a sneaky, cunning Warrior.

3. Money

Face it. Business ethics are apparent in the World of Azeroth as well. But, use it to your advantage and you will never be in search of Gold again.

A) Professions

My personal preference for professions on your first character would have to be Enchanting and Skinning. This combination is, in my opinion of course, the most efficient combination of professions.

Considering that, more often than not, your kills will be skinnable beasts; you might as well get everything you can from your kills (I.e. Experience, Loot, Leather/Hides= Maximum Efficiency).

Enchanting on the other hand is also very nice. Mainly due to Enchanting your new gear when you upgrade, Disenchanting your old gear when you get new ones, And/Or selling the materials you get from Disenchanting said items.

The reason why these two are my personal favorites is because both of these can be done while questing and don't particularly need to have time taken out of your questing/leveling to search for Mining nodes, Herbs, etc. Experience has also shown me that Enchanting materials and Leather sell for alot on the Auction House, especially at Higher levels. You can also start up an Enchanting business and earn money that way.

B) Bankers

If you wish to attain the highest level in the shortest amount of time, then you'll have to focus on Leveling and spend less time at the Auction House or at the Bank and so on.

The best way to do this is to create an alternate character whose primary purpose is to Buy and sell at the Auction House as well as holding onto items that you don't want clogging up your bag space.

The beauty of this is that as long as you find an Inn (which you should do every time you log out of the game) you'll be able to transfer funds/gear/items to and from your Banker without taking alot of your time travelling to and from Cities or Auction Houses and so on and so forth.

C) Buy low, Sell very High

Sometimes, I don't really feel like questing too much. Those times I spend in the Auction house, just checking out what's selling and what isn't.
Write some of these things down and always keep in mind that what was selling for 5 gold a stack one day might not sell for even 94 silver the next day.
After a while, you will notice prices on items/weaps/gear/etc and whenever you notice something that is severely underpriced, buy it and sell it for the 'correct' price or if you're a risk taker, at a higher price.

(Like today for instance, I saw 8 [8!!] weapons that are usually sold for about 3g being auctioned off at 40silver! I snapped it all up, sold 6 of them by the end of the day at my 3g buyout to make a very nice profit )

4. Omissions

Since this is your first character, you want to do everything you can right? You want to jump right into a Battleground, or buy the best gear available in the Auction House, etc.

Well, it is really for the better that you stay out of Pvp action unless the urge is just super duper crazy great for you... And I'd recommend staying away from the Auction House unless you're selling stuff (and if you were listening, your Banker should be doing that for you). This reduces the time it takes for you to hit 60-70 because of the lack of time you would have spent travelling to and from those places.

Also, once you hit the high levels you can quest for gold so easily that your banker can actually resign from its position and level up to 70 itself.

5. Talents

After you level to 10, every level onwards you will get a Talent Point to spend on several talents to "tweak" your character or your character's abilities (sometimes, even give you new abilities altogether... and then 'tweak' them).
Take some time to quickly scan through all the different talents at your disposal.

The best thing to do would be to spend them so that you deal the most damage as possible... OR you could do whatever you want to. Either way, you can head to your nearest class trainer (or the one furthest from you... but that's stupid...) and pay them in gold to untrain all your talents and let you re-spend them as you wish.

The cost of this service is as follows:
1st time: 1 gold
2nd time: 5 gold
3rd time: 10 gold
4th time: 25 gold
5th time and onwards: 50 gold

And as someone said, "It's better to plan out your talent points, to help you do this I recommend the wowhead talent calcultare, it's the best out there in my opinion:

Wowhead Talent Calculator

To be continued...