Tips for Newbies, or "What to Do & What Others Will Kill You For"

Do....

• ...offer something to other characters when requesting food/water or buffs, such as your own buffs (casters) or a few silver (melee).
• ...bring your own reagents when requesting a city portal. Any respectable mage should agree to make a portal for free if you bring the materials.
• ...spell out the word "please" when asking for a favor. Not spelling things correctly makes you look dumb. Proper punctuation makes you look like a genius.
  
• ...lay off of herb and mining nodes if someone else is beside it fighting. They may have staked a claim.
• ...buff others if you're able. It's just nice.
• ...help someone if you notice they're dying. It's rude not to.
• ...ask your pick-up-group's rules on loot. General courtesy says it's impolite to roll need on things you can't use, but okay to roll greed on pretty much anything, unless otherwise noted (ie, an enchanter can disenchant and party members roll on disenchanting mats).
• ...immediately equip any gear upgrade you get in an instance.
  
• ...start with a pure class (mage, priest, warrior, rogue, hunter, or warlock).
• ...find a balance between game and life.
• ...find someone nice with the same class as you and ask them your class questions. It is worse to stay clueless than to get help. (Guilds are custom-built for helping new players learn the ropes.)
• ...have a guild website. (This is for established guilds, not new players.) I don't know how many guilds I've been interested in but had no way to get information on them without asking complete strangers in the guild a myriad of questions.
• ...test all of your new spells as soon as you get them. A lot of new players don't use spells that they don't understand, and later these spells turn out to be the very best spells for your class.
• ...train everything available. My brother and husband, fresh into the game, didn't train things they thought they wouldn't need (brother - mage - didn't train conjure water, and handed out buyable water in an instance when someone asked for water). My husband (whose first was a warrior) didn't train anything for two of his stances because he didn't think he'd be using them. (He hated warrior then, but now he loves it.)
• ...read up on your class. There is a bevy of information out there on how to play, and the more informed you are about your strengths and weaknesses, the more fun your class will be.
• ...feel free to respec. Though it costs money, it won't cost much if you don't do it too often. Respeccing is removing your talent points at a trainer and reapplying them in your talent tree.
• ...apply the points in your talent tree. They're there to make you much stronger, and there are plenty of suggestions on which talents to choose for any spec.
• ...leave the public channels. Those are where people tend to be jerks. Just go to a city and type [/leave 1], [/leave 2], [/leave 3], and so on. It will save your sanity.
  

Do not....

• ...stay in a group with Free Loot or Master Loot on. Unless you're in a guild situation such as a raid, or a higher level is giving you all the loots, these are red flags that the person you're with is stealing everything.
• ...Free or Master Loot as the head of your own group, thinking you can pick anything up and it's okay. The civilized way of grouping is to Group Loot with a roll for uncommons (greens), which means everyone gets a turn looting monsters, but the whole team gets to roll on anything really good.
• ...beg for money. Most higher-levels have gotten all the way to 70 by grinding out their own copper, silver, and gold and expect lower-levels to show the same work ethic. It's a huge annoyance to be approached by a beggar. If you're desperate for money, I have a few tutorials. My main advice is just to take up gathering.
  
• ...vendor trade materials like cloth and ore. They're the fastest sellers in the Auction House.
• ...start with a hybrid class (shaman, paladin, or druid).
• ...choose a name that you and others will regret. There are plenty of decent name sites on the web. USE THEM!
• ...pop your guild charter on someone without talking to them first. This is incredibly rude.
• ...ditto group invites, guild invites, etc. RUDE.
• ...join any guild that asks you. Most guilds are built by players who want to have control over the guild and guild name. What you need is a warm, nurturing environment that will help you grow as a player. Get to know individual other players, talk to members of a guild over the course of a few weeks or so, and then decide if you want to join. Dropping a guild is worse than not joining in the first place.
• ...leave a guild without explanation. This causes hurt feelings and sometimes resentment.
• ...start your own guild. The only exceptions are if you have a group of friends playing and want to play under the same name (ie, Manasseh started a guild on alliance back when we first started playing just for our core family group) or when you've become fairly experienced and know you can bring something to a guild that no other guild on your server can. But, if you are alone in the game and know no one, your guild will be just you and the random people you pick up along the way (usually the people who know as little about the game as you do, because experienced players will belong to more well-established guilds). The desire for your own name and tabard is strong, and even I feel it. I still want a pink tabard, for example. But the benefits in gameplay of joining a strong guild outweigh being able to pick your own design. You'll just lose money forming it.
• ...argue with morons. It raises your stress level and ruins your health.
• ...be a moron. Ditto.