New characters

Well the only new character I plan on making at this point is a death knight when the new expansion comes out, but I thought it might be a good idea to talk about creating a new character and the thought process that goes into it. This will be mainly for newcomers to the game, as I'm sure most veterans already have their own methods when it comes to their creation of characters, but all too often I see characters made with about as much thought as it takes to choose a name for your 10th email address, which I don't think is really enough.

First off, you have to choose your class, faction, race, and gender. I would suggest choosing in that order although faction can come first now that both factions can have every class. The reason to pick your class before race is because you should be more concerned with what class you want to play because I believe this will determine how long you stay interested in that game much more than what your character looks like. Gender seems like just a preference, but it can be a much bigger deal. Your gender determines how most players are going to treat you in the game. If you pick a male character you will pretty much be treated as the average player and no one will second guess you (even if you're actually a girl). As a female character you will get a range of reactions from other players. Some will assume you're a girl and you will get lots of in game help this way, just ask! On the other hand, some will assume you're a guy playing as a girl, and this can backfire on your plan to get helped out because they will think less of you for choosing that way to go about it. Either way you get more help than you would if you picked a male, so it's all up to you on how you decide to play the game.

Next you're going to be picking your look. This step is entirely objective and you can pretty much choose whatever you want here. I usually try to match hair and skin colors up so they look natural (as natural as fantasy races can look), but it isn't necessary since you'll eventually be wearing so much armor that there are only minor differences between you and others of the same class besides what armor you have on.

Last up you have to pick a name, and this is where I see way too many mistakes. Many players out there have it in their heads that your character name should be like a screen name and maybe describe the character somehow, or just be something silly that people will laugh at when they see you run by (e.g. Noobcakes). While I'm not a roleplayer in this game by any means, I strongly disagree with this method of name choosing as it makes you look stupid and you aren't taken as seriously by other players. The other method I disagree with is putting X's at the beginning and end of the name you want because the one you wanted was already taken (e.g. xXSephirothXx). I just call this lazy, and if this happens you should either spell the name slightly differently (still lazy, but acceptable), or come up with something else.

When I choose names I usually use outside references for ideas. Many of the names I chose were characters from books I've read or television, sometimes I looked up names of mythological beings, and when all else fails I hit the random name button a bunch of times until I see something I like, but I usually modify that name to make it my own idea, just with a little outside help. I really feel like you're picking the name for your character in this game rather than just to identify yourself like you would in an FPS or RTS game, or like you probably did with your account name. I do like the idea of picking a name base on your race too, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary so I wouldn't stress too much about that one, just don't pick a really cutesy sounding name if you're an orc.

That about does it for your character creation, now it's time to start playing. Next time I'll give some insight into what I do with a brand new character. Since I've started so many throughout my time playing I like to think I have a pretty good idea of how to get through to early levels.