Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

• Go to your options and turn on anonymous & hidden, it will reduce bot spam.

• Look for an add-on called spam me not, makes bot spam completely irrelevant by blocking 100% of it.

• In scenarios as a DPS class, leave a party and join your own, preferably with a dedicated healer, you will make considerably more experience. (some people whine about this, ignore them).

• Talisman making is worthless (at the time of writing, Oct 28, 2008), use apothecary, preferably with cultivating.

• There are unique titles/achievements and tome unlocks that you cannot get once you out level the tier 1 and tier 2 maps, be aware of this and consider looking up tome of knowledge unlocks as you get close to leveling out of those areas (23 and 33 respectively), check http://moneyne.ws/2008/09/28/warhammer-online-tome-tactics-guide/ for more info on unlocks or check the thread in MMO HMO.

• When taking objectives in world PvP, you get 200 renown for taking it, and another 200 for defending it after 3 minutes, ALWAYS defend the objectives until they reach the TAKEN status, after which they are invulnerable for a short period.

• By taking world PvP objectives, you increase your realms control over a given map/tier, the bar on top of your radar displays this, when a realm controls the tier they are given nice bonuses, try to help your realm keep control of tiers as much as possible.

• On the map when you see an explosion icon, that indicates world PvP in an area and is triggered by PvP deaths, the bigger the icon, the more pvp action in the PvP.

• FIND A HIGH-POP SERVER. This game is only really fun with other players around, don't get stuck in a ghost town with no open-world PvP or public quest participation (that goes for both factions, so try and find one with a decent balance).

• Roll a class you intend to play properly. Pretty standard MMO stuff, but there was a lot of talk pre-release regarding how healers or tanks would be valuable as damage dealers and other such silliness. Healers heal. Tanks tank. Damage dealers deal damage. That's how it works, that's how you win: you play your role within your team. This makes solo play a little duller than WoW, but if everyone plays to their strengths in a party it can be quite fun.

• To that end: join a guild. The game basically assumes this from the outset, as they have their own set of levels and rewards to take advantage of. Besides that, you'll want to have others around to organize groups for PvP/dungeons/whatever, and it's always handy just to have the chat there to warn you of any action that's happening (particularly in larger guilds). Vent is basically a must for PvP.

• Hit up PQs early and often. They're your best source of loot, possibly until end-game, but it could be difficult to find others to do them with now that many are in the higher levels. Keep an eye on the open group window and try to ask around in general chat to generate interest (type /1). Loot isn't massively important, certainly not as much as WoW, but it helps ease things along.

• Beware the level curve. It might be a bit more forgiving since I quit, but don't let the lenient-at-first grind fool you. Levels 1-20 will basically drift by, but after that it gets a bit tougher. Tiers 3 and 4 more or less require you to complete all of the quests in all three corresponding zones, in addition to whatever XP you're getting from scenarios and whatever else. The last ten levels in particular are a bit of a slog, but the game never really puts a lot of pressure on you to rush things anyway, so it's mostly bearable as long as you're enjoying yourself (and not getting ganked too much).