The TeamiDemise Leveling Guide

TeamiDemise is a professional Counterstrike gaming group. They've earned plenty of cash by killing many opponents in Counterstrike and now they've come over to WoW, as a team.

Imaging these guys in WoW PvP... Talk about a brutal premade.

They've also written a leveling guide that's pretty cool. Like Joana's Guide and Brian's Guide it uses the Map Notes addon to allow one to quickly locate each and every quest in the guide.

So what's cool about the iDemise guide? The entire guide is in-game. They've taken the map notes system and written it up as Step 1, Step 2, etc... You enter a zone appropriate for your level, click step 1, set a waypoint, and off you go. Then hit step 2, which just happens to be nearby, and so on... Also included, with the notes and waypoints, are quest tips, lots of "do this, here" notes, and professional gameplay tips.

Edit: the iDemise Guide has been updated for more in-game goodness. Go to this post for details -> iDemise leveling guide update

This image is a partial screenshot of their Ironforge map. Note the steps, which areas to go to for which levels, and the tips provided with the steps.



No more alt-tab switching to the PDF guide, now you can go from 1-70 without leaving the game. Our resident expert, who's been playing since beta, and who's played enough of all aspects of the game to be seriously burnt out, says the iDemise guide made the game fun again. Pretty high praise.

They also claim to have set a number of speed records and our expert agrees that you can go pretty fast with their system (He's matched Joana's speed previous to this.)

One more thing is that Brian and Joana's guide focus on the Hunter, well known for its solo leveling speed, and the iDemise guide doesn't. Play whatever character you like, the iDemise guide will get you leveled fast.

Now, if you're the type of player who likes to print out pages from a guide, put them onto a clipboard, and check them off as you do them (which I did with Joana's Guide) then you'll have to get past that or this isn't the guide for you.

There's also one big minus from the point of view of the newer player. The iDemise guide assumes you already know your way around the world. Now I can get around fine on the Horde side, since that's where I've been running through Joana's guide, but alliance side was new. My wife and I rolled Night Elves, ran through the iDemise guide to the point where we'd done all the quests, and then it tells us to go to Dun Morog.

But says nothng about how to get there. I know, you find that funny as did our 15 yr old expert (darn teenagers ;) ) but we didn't know what connected to what or why we wanted to go to Dun Morog. (Why go to the Dwarf starting area???)

We finally found out, once our expert stopped laughing, and made our way to Loch Modan, Ironforge, Stormwind, and eventually to West Fall. Where a level 37 Hunter invited us into his guild and then ran us through most of the Van Cleef instance (up the the ship.) Ok, it wa a little outside the guide (heh) but we got some nice greens, useful blues, and gained a level.

So in my view those are the two hits against the guide - the little one that you can't put it on a clipboard (and no links to thottbot, etc.) and the bigger one (for some of us) that there's nothing that tells you how to get from area A to area B, whereas Brian's Guide has pictures and Joana's Guide has pictures and videos.

Having the entire 1-70 leveling guide in-game though is just damn cool, though. And since it's based on the map notes system you can edit the notes for your own needs (as you can with the others.) Check out the TeamiDemise leveling guide here (it's for both Horde and Alliance.)

That WoW Druid Quest Thing

So my wife started a Night Elf Druid and bumped into the Druid Bear Form Quest. She found it a bit confusing, as any new player will, so did some research, found her answers, and wrote up her own guide. This is for the level 10 bear form quest and has a walkthrough for both Horde and Alliance characters.

It's on squidoo: WoW Druid Quest Guide (Bear form)

Enjoying my WoW Rogue

Sometime back I made a post about a Blood Elf Rogue that I'm working on. The point of that post was that I'm using Joana's Guide for the leveling and Valkor's guide for the cash.

So here's an update. I'm currently at level 65 and have 380 gold on the character and about 1100 on the auction house mule. I'd show you a link to the Armory stats, but that site isn't working right now. (But here's a cool character creator sandbox I found.)

/played shows 13 days, 14 hours, 40 min, 6 sec. All solo. Not too horrible, especially since I'm one of those players who likes to explore a bit. I've spent a fair amount of time sneaking through instances and looking over the next hill. Yeah, I'm a newb, get over it. ;) I haven't done any PvP, out side of mutual ganking, and no raids or group instances, so I don't have the hot gear.

Still, for this being my first character past level 8 I'm quite happy with the pace and have enough cash that I can get whatever I need.

Joana's 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide has made the whole trip to 65 (so far) easy. Someone who wasn't totally new to the game and who just blasts through the guide, without all the side excursions, should be able to get close to Joana's record leveling times. Want to break those records? I think you'd better have a pretty polished game.

As you may know, every quest in Joana's Guide has a link to one of the WoW databases (eg: Thottbot) and everything has a video. In fact, you can watch his entire speed run on video. I've found a couple of those videos quites useful and have used the links more than once.

With the Valkor's guide tips I have my epic chicken mount and have bought plenty of gear, some of which has been replaced with Outlands gear. I expect to be able to buy my epic flying mount at 70 without too much work.

Of course, the dedicated gold grinders will have a lot more gold and the people who know the game well, and are more focused, will level faster with the guide than I will.

For the person who's doing the game solo, or mostly solo, then I strongly recommend Joana's Guide (for the Horde.) Valkor's Gold Guide has lots of tips which I've found to be quite useful, even for low level chars, so check it out.

WoW Mining and Gold Making

Mining is one of the easiest ways in the World of Warcraft to make some extra gold. All the ore you'll ever mine sells well and for a good price. If all you do is mining and the routine gathering of monster loots through your questing then you'll do fine in the money department.

Here are some quick tips and a short WoW mining guide. If you really want the heavy duty guide, covering every last aspect of WoW mining and engineering, then you should take a look at this killer mining and engineering guide.

WoW Cooking Guide, From 1 to 375

Looking to level up your cooking in Wow? Either all the way or just to get past a certain point? Then check out this WoW cooking guide and see if it helps.

One of the reasons to cook in WoW is to get the buffs, but there are also a couple of other interesting wow recipes. One will turn you into a pirate and the other will let you breathe fire.

Master the Game

Classes, Professions, Leveling, Earning Gold, PVP...

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Blizzard Pwns Peons4Hire

The debate about buying gold, items, and leveling in games such a World of Warcraft has been going on for quite some time, and not only in WoW. Some feel that it damages the game, other argue otherwise.

One group, In Game Dollar, was known for very aggressive in-game marketing of their products. While I didn't bump into them I've heard people describe some of their tactics. Beside being a direct violation of Blizzard's terms of service these tactics sound really annoying and would certainly damage one's enjoyment of the game.

So Blizzard took them to court over the issue and Blizzard won. Virtually Blind says:

Blizzard’s lawsuit against virtual item and power-leveling company In Game Dollar (doing business as Peons4Hire) has settled, resulting in a permanent injunction that essentially shuts down In Game Dollar’s entire World of Warcraft operation. Though no monetary damages are specified, the injunction represents a complete victory for Blizzard.

The rest of the story is here.

WoW Fans Level up With Dell Computer

You've heard of the deal between Dell and Blizzard, right? In a nutshell, these two have combined efforts to make the Dell XPS M1730 Notebook PC. Custom World of Warcraft artwork and whatnot, bonus items, you can even align it with the Alliance or the Horde.

You can read the news release here

And you can visit Dell, and see the comp, here.

Is There a Tauren Chef in the Kitchen

Massively.com has an interesting post regarding my wife's WoW cookbook. They say...

Have you ever found yourself playing World of Warcraft when you found yourself overcome with a desire for Redridge Goulash or Beer Basted Boar Ribs? No? Well, neither have I, but I have to say that Tauren Chef's Unofficial World of Warcraft recipes have me intrigued anyway....

Here's the rest

Personally, I don't think $19.97 is too high a barrier to entry, especially since you can download it immediately, but people differ. Anyway, it seems to be getting some good reviews, so we're pretty pleased.

By the way, if you want to check out Ironforge Bread Pudding, hop over to theWoWcookbook.com.

World of Warcraft Gold Limit Found!

Wow, there does seem to be a limit to how much gold one can have on any one character. Wired Blog Network says...

According to Internet sources, the limit is currently set at 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper, and once reached will prevent you from receiving any more cash.

Now how the heck did they find that our? Did some character actually hit the limit? Yow. Now, for most of us that number is a dream. we'll never get close. Even if you follow everything in Valkor's Gold Guide it'll take you a looooooong time to hit that point. It's a nice thought, though...