The Questing Handbook

Some players like to tell you that the game really starts at level 80–whether you agree with this or not, there is definitely a case to be made.

That doesn’t mean that the first 79 levels have to be a miserable experience!

The truth is that questing makes up most of the meat of the WoW experience. Love them or hate them, you can’t ignore them. Blizzard has gradually reduced the difficulty of quests and streamlined the leveling experience, but many players still find themselves fumbling at the reigns.

Approaching the Situation

There’s no such thing as a universally “correct” way of questing.

Wrangling experience from questing is very different for a new player compared to someone who has played the game many times over.

While experienced players may have a perfectly logistical and highly polished system of efficient questing, I think it’s more important that new players focus on immersing themselves in the questing lore and enjoying the experience.

You only get to be a newbie once, and as strange as it may seem now, you’ll regret rushing through things later!

General Questing Tips

Once you’ve decided the breadth of your approach, it’s time to tackle some frequent stumbling blocks for new players.

• Organize quests by location so you don’t have to be traveling back and forth to the same zones. The in-game tracker will tell you where you need to go, but it’s always better to read on and decide exactly what all you can get done while you’re in an area.
• You can only accept 25 quests at any given time so you may have to prune old quests occasionally that have fallen by the wayside.
• Don’t forget to share! If you’re questing with a friend, sharing quests can be a huge time saver.

Add-Ons and Resources

Some of us need a little extra help in streamlining the leveling process. Fortunately, WoW has a bustling add-on community that is constantly hard at work creating new shinys for us commoners.

The Vanilla Quest Tracker

It may be default, but it’s not bad by any means. The enhanced world map can automatically track quests and list them to the side for easy reference.

Blue polygons are the marker for points of interest on your map. It’s very easy to zone out and go from marker to marker while questing.

There’s also a zone map that can help you keep up with your current progress and keep your bearings while traveling. Nifty!

Carbonite

This is an extensive free add-on that helps add a layer of functionality ontop of the default quest system. On top of providing an awesome in-game map that will help you see quest objectives more easily, it also has a number of other features such as enhanced battleground maps and a convenient HUD to guide you.

Although it’s really well maintained to be a free add-on, I suggest taking a look at our review of Zygor Guides if you want the fastest leveling paths.

WoWHead

Whenever you’re stuck, this should be the first site that you consult. It’s basically a WoWikipedia. The real power is in the user-comments. Chances are that any problem you could possibly have in a quest has already been posted at least once.

General Knowledge

These are the things you don’t really want to ask but everyone expects you to already know.

• Keep yourself updated by linking your current quest with your chatlog. Just [LEFT CLICK] on the quest while holding [SHIFT]!
• Don’t cut your quest-givers off when they’re talking to you. It often takes a few seconds for follow-up quests to appear—by which time you would be long gone.
• You can’t raid and do regular quests at the same time. Also, you don’t get the same amount of reputation from killing normal mobs.
• If you’re in a group, don’t immediately release after dying. Even if you’re dead, you can still get credit for the kill if your group can finish it off!

As we mentioned before, there’s not really a “correct” way to quest, but there are ways to make sure you’re getting the most out of the experience. Did you rush through the levels as a newbie and regret it?