1. Amazing leveling zones. Even when you consider the ones we think stink, they are still miles above the competition in ease, diversity and solo ability.

2. Life everywhere. With 9.3 million players the zones are alive and the major cities bursting with activity. I may solo but I LOVE seeing the bustling activity of others. It adds a dimension to the game play that conole RPGs and games with small populations can’t match or simulate.

I hate the end-game blah-blah but the ride there is really amazing, and I’ve done it times 3 now to 70. I have a Warlock and Paladin. The Warlock was my main at day one, and it is now the undisputed OP class in the game so sure, leveling will be fantastic. That wasn’t the case when I was leveling mine. Paladin is huge fun too and once you hit around mid 20s check into AOE grinding with the protection spec and spiked shield. It’s a total adrenaline rush!! Lock and Pally together - nuf said on uberness. The only other combo that could be as sweet would be Lock and Druid.

Good luck and have lots of fun!!

P.S. to Peter: forget the instances until Outlands. Very few people are doing any of them in Azeroth. However, at least on Illidan, I constantly see people looking do to the Outland instances. Not so much the Hellfire ones but those are optional. I ran a few PUGs in the beginning, got pissed and skipped them Hellfire ones afterward and still hit 70 just fine. I had decent gear from PVP, quests and my tailoring professions so you’re not missing out on much.

If you are serious about playing long term at that level bracket, researh the gear you can get before you level past 10, so that you have enough xp time to obtain what you need.

As horde, you will want to get Blackened Defias Chestplate and Cruel Barb off of Van Cleef in Deadmines, Shoulders from Wailing Caverns, you can get a decent offhand from either the shredder or Smite in Deadmines as well, and the two PvP reward weapons are also pretty good.

You’ll need to pick up boots, bracers, pants, gloves, neck, and head from other sources as those can not be obtained in PvP. I suggest engineering got the Goggles at skill 135, Deviate Scale Pants, which can be made by a leatherworker, Forest Leather Bracers which are very cheap on the AH and any ‘of the monkey’ for the remaining slots.

Your biggest issue will be gear enchants, but you can add those later or over time. Don’t get discouraged if you get rolled by a twink pre-made the first few fights. Its very hard to compete before you’ve gotten everything in order.

As for RFC troubles and PUGs, I suppose we are lucky to have chosen a high population server. We were able to put a group together for Ragefire in about 15 minutes and blew through it in just over 30 minutes. It was our first time there since we played Alliance these past years.

I’m possibly the last person in the world to have started WoW, and find that it takes rather a long time to get a PUG for the low level instances - it took about an hour and a half to get a group that was capable of making progress in Ragefire Chasm, and that’s starting from two of us. Our Alliance characters have picked up the Blackfathom Depths quests but not managed to get a suitable group yet.

(this is on Eonar server)

I too am planning a l19 PVP Undead Rogue, but I’ve not got anything like that amount of gold and so am planning to equip him from PvP reward gear. Is this at all a workable plan?

I put all of the best enchants available on the items. Since I have two retired L70 toons on the server and about 10,000 gold, one toon being 375 warlock with every enchant available and tons of mats, it is really quite simple to do for me.

I played a match at L10 with no real gear equipped at the time due to the level restrictions, and I was absolutly decimated by the other players. 10-19 is really a serious pvp bracket and without top level twink gear and enchants and lots of practice, it is very hard to compete.