So your friend or loved one has talked you into playing World of Warcraft, or you just wondered what it is that's been occupying the time of twelve million people for five years and picked up a copy of the game. And you haven't ever really played games in the past, so all the standards and conventions that other people seem to find quite natural seem very alien to you.

And maybe you then went out on the web looking for guides. But where you were looking for information like, "why do my character's attacks keep stopping and starting, and why would I want to learn how to fish?" what you found was information like, "you can obtain a 0.36% increase in DPS by swapping Foobar's Manacles of Furious Bedplay for Whonker's Enormous Bracers of Thwacking, as long as you gem correctly." And somehow, this just didn't seem very helpful to you in understanding the game.

This guide is for you.

We're aiming this content at the people who are coming into World of Warcraft not merely without prior experience with massively-multiplayer online games, but without much experience or comfort in video games at all. If you're familiar with the game, this information is going to seem extremely basic to you. But if you've talked your mom into playing for some reason, she may find it helpful.