Icesnake’s Add-on Emporium, Segment #26: Leveling Guides
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Segment 26: Leveling Guides
This week we’re going to look at leveling guides; specificly, Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and an alternative.
Let me start off by saying that I emphatically do NOT recommend Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and I’m not going to give you a link to the official Zygor site. If you still want it after listening to this segment, you can find it easily enough.
Zygor’s Leveling Guide is an in-game guide; that means it’s an add-on. It also is sold, not supported by voluntary donations. That means it’s in blatant violation of Blizzard’s terms of service for add-on developers.
I quote:
1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.
“Zygor” wants $80 (currently discounted to $60) for this add-on package. Frankly, that’s just too much even if it didn’t violate the TOS.
Zygor’s guide is technically beautiful; it has cute little animations to show that it’s doing something, it gives you waypoint arrows, and it does help you find the necessary quests for leveling. That said, however, it takes up as much add-on memory as the free alternatives which I will outline here, and tends to get in the way when you really don’t need it.
Enough said about that; here’s how you can get all the same functions without spending any money (although I do encourage you to donate to the add-on authors who accept donations):
1. Download and install Carbonite from the Carbonite add-on home page.
2. Download and install Lightheaded (see my previous review, Segment 25, for details) from WoWinterface or other sources.
3. Open your favorite Web browser (which I sincerely hope is not Internet Explorer) and go to Jame’s Leveling Guides.
Another option is to go to WoW-pro.com and get the WoW-pro leveling add-on.
You will still need Lightheaded and TomTom also.
In order for any leveling guide to be effective, you really need to start using it as soon as you create a new toon; but the Jame’s guides make it somewhat easier to start in the middle (after making a few levels) than Zygor does (another plus for freeware/donationware add-ons).
In conclusion: You can spend money to violate Blizzard’s terms of service, or you can go with free/donation-supported add-ons to do the same thing. It’s up to you. I know which I choose.
Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Yarn of the Buccaneer,” by Pierre Langer and Scott P. Schreer.
General leveling tips:
- Obtain bags as soon as you can. There are many quests that have you gathering items, and you need someplace to carry those items.
- …Members of The Gathering can get bags out of the Guild Vault, or whisper Valkillmoar or Leftbank. The rest of you are on your own.
- If you aren’t using a guide, pick up as many quests as possible when you get to a new zone
- … and complete as many as possible before running back to turn them in.
- Avoid dungeon quests unless you have a regular group with whom you’re leveling together.
- Avoid Sven in Duskwood unless you like traveling a lot and getting very little reward for the effort.
- Make a “bank toon” who will stand around in a capital city and handle auctions and banking for you. The mail system works well and your bank toon can make boatloads of gold from gathering profession items.
