Paid levelling guides. Whats your opinion?

[Lorune]

I just this morning was browsing a bit, and got to a few sites which had reviews on them for paid levelling guides (Team iDemise and Zygors)

Both of them seem to feature a quite nifty ingame map system.

So here i am wondering, even tho i know every alliance quest ingame. Would this still be intresting for me and help me out. Also are there any people here that have experience with these guides/addons. I would love to hear your opinion.

ps. yes i know you can download them but please refrain from posting links as with most software i use, i dont mind paying for something good.

[Ken]

I use the free QuestHelper addon as a levelling guide. When you pick up quest, it will give you a GPS-like map assistance and will calculate the shortest routes to your quests constantly.
Aside from that, I just go to the place where I'm supposed to be, pick up all quests, follow the QuestHelper guidelines.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9924/
Screenshot:
http://media.curse.com/adjust_images/resize/750x500/105/395.jpg

[Carnage]

Ive tried a few, but i find them hard to follow as a multiboxer - I generally look at them to show me what zones to go to and when, then use questhelper to do all the quests i can find (except collections). The ingame leveling guides arent great, majority of them have alot of grinding, My favourite is Brian Kopp's guide - it comes in both PDF guide and ingame guide although i havent tried the ingame guide for it yet.

Jame's guide is also good, wow-pro.com and its free - Ive never bought a WoW guide i only download them from where i will not say ;) Not going to spend my money on something i might not even find usefull.

[mickske]

Since I have levelled a couple of characters already I already know most of the alliance quests in game by now. But I still use Questhelper (if I had forgotten some objective) and Jamie's Alliance Levelling Guide (free, wow-pro.com, when I forgot where some questgiver was).

Works like a charm!

[mikekim]

i've found that if i use Jame's Leveling Guides (the old ones - before the revamp) at www.wow-pro.com they work quite well - as for collection quests I only tend to do them if the drop rate is above 33%

[shaeman]

I've bought both Joanas horde levelling guide and Brian kopps alliance levelling guide - and found that I really didn't use them after a while.

It kind of took all fun out of the game for me. Go here do this then go here do this then go here etc. I tended just to use them to find out where I should be at various levels (and that can be found without paying for it).

I did use the undead levelling guide a free guide at wowmb.net . Again I didn't follow it word for word but it works. (up to level 60)

Personally I like questhelper - grab up all the quests in an area then look on the map to see where to go (checking to see ones where multiple quests can be completed in the same area and off I go).

It's less intrusive than stopping to read a guide in another window.

[HPB]

Joanas Guide worked fantastic for my hunter. I'd already leveled my priest kinda randomly on my own. I got my hunter to 70 super fast. It is a very fast way to level. Basically he tells you the order to do quests in, where to set your hearthstone for strategic hearthing and efficient quest lines to do. If you want to level a single toon at a time, very fast, this is the way to go. (So if you're making your first level 70 pally/mage for boosting the rest of your toons, this might be a good idea).

If you're multi-boxing, many gathering quests will drive you nuts. Now that I am boosting and multi-boxing, I don't use the guide anymore.

[Elidure]

I used brian kopps guilde on my alliance toons and i have the Joana's horde guide. The alliance guide worked pretty good. i was usually half a level a head of it. I don't know that it has been reworked since the quest xp changes in the recent patch.

I also use the Carbonite Addon which i have found is really nice for questing.

Not sure how well these would work for multiboxers though as it includes collection quests.

[Naysayer]

Joanas is the best horde guide I've seen and even comes with a video of the entire leveling process from 1-70, but I wouldn't use it for multiboxing. Too many collection quests in those guides and collection quests take way to long for the experience given.

I'm working on a horde multiboxer quest guide that I plan to have finished when they release Deathknights so that I can quest level my multibox team to 70. I'll most likely share it with this community when I'm done and it will consist of mostly routes for kill quests, single item collection quests, instance quests and such. Generally quests that best benefit multiboxers.

[Sanctume]

I stopped doing quests until Outlands when I could p-level with my toons with a 70 pally.

But before that, I managed to get a lot of level 70, and I've used my own notes to quests.

I preferred my notes because it was more of a step by step of where to do such as:
1. Go to Place (xx, yy)
2. Get Quest (Min Level/Quest Level) "Quest Name" from NPC (xx, yy)
etc.
Do "Quest Name" - objective (xx, yy), other notes.
Turn in "Quest Name" NPC (xx, yy) -- get Quest Chain Name" 2 of 5

I also add specific loot I wanted for my character and research them ahead of time while bored @ work. Thottbot, Allakhazam, (before) and WoWhead now are great resource.

[-silencer-]

I think paying for the guides is a waste of money. I've glanced through the paid guides while at a friend's place who swears by them, and the steps they give are virtually the same as the guides on wow-pro.com. Sometimes the paid guides have better maps or videos, but I don't think they're needed at all if you know what you're doing. I prefer to look at the quest rewards I want, and make sure those quests are in the guides.. then I like to skip collection quests in the guide unless I need the rep - like Stormwind so I can have my horses with draenei/night elves.

[Talamarr]

Check out TourGuide addon

http://www.tekkub.net/addons/TourGuide

It is a free in-game leveling guide addon. It comes with guides for 1-70 but you can actually create your own or import ones others have made. It's really neat. I prefer it to QuestHelper as its less resource intensive and more efficient (I don't know all the quests by heart).

Using QuestHelper, TourGuide and Lightheaded would probably be a pretty powerful collection of resources.

[GizmoxLoW]

Questhelper only gives you the shortest route with the quests your currently have in your log. I use joannna's guide which will actually tell you which quests to get from what area and when to get them to minimize travel time between zones..

[BGuru]

I tried all the paid guides and like TourGuide best.

Here is a post I made in the macro forum.

Here are some addons I use to help with leveling.

Tour Guide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7674-TourGuide.html')
TourGuide is an ingame leveling guide I've used the paid guides and this free guide is better than all of them.

Doublewide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6887-DoubleWide.html')
DoubleWide is a simple AddOn for a simple idea -- pull the quest log into side-by-side areas so it's double wide instead of cramping the size of the quest list.

Light Headed ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7017-LightHeaded.html')
LightHeaded is a very simple addon that displays quest information and comments from http://www.wowhead.com in game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on quest.

TomTom ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7032-TomTom.html')
TomTom is your personal navigation assistant in World of Warcraft.

Cartographer ('http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Cartographer')
Cartographer is a modular, lightweight, and efficient framework for manipulation of the world map.
Get the latest Cartographer here ('http://files.wowace.com/Cartographer/Cartographer.zip').

QuestHelper ('http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9924/')
QuestHelper compiles a list of waypoints for the quests in your quest log, and sorts them so as to minimize the distance between them, and so that they happen in the correct order.
Make sure you enable the tracked filter or it will interfere with TourGuide.
Just a heads up QuestHelper has a known bug where it will lock WoW up when starting a timed quest.

There is a FAQ about installing addons ('http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/faq.php?faq=install#faq_howto_install').

Enjoy.

[Tree]

http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/james_horde_leveling_guide_chapter_i
http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/james_alliance_leveling_guide_-_chapter_i

^These are the best WoW guides I have ever seen. I leveled THREE 60's solo with them and they're fantastic. Efficient and fast.

[Lorune]

I tried all the paid guides and like TourGuide best.

Here is a post I made in the macro forum.

Here are some addons I use to help with leveling.

Tour Guide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7674-TourGuide.html')
TourGuide is an ingame leveling guide I've used the paid guides and this free guide is better than all of them.

Doublewide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6887-DoubleWide.html')
DoubleWide is a simple AddOn for a simple idea -- pull the quest log into side-by-side areas so it's double wide instead of cramping the size of the quest list.

Light Headed ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7017-LightHeaded.html')
LightHeaded is a very simple addon that displays quest information and comments from http://www.wowhead.com in game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on quest.

TomTom ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7032-TomTom.html')
TomTom is your personal navigation assistant in World of Warcraft.

Cartographer ('http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Cartographer')
Cartographer is a modular, lightweight, and efficient framework for manipulation of the world map.
Get the latest Cartographer here ('http://files.wowace.com/Cartographer/Cartographer.zip').

QuestHelper ('http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9924/')
QuestHelper compiles a list of waypoints for the quests in your quest log, and sorts them so as to minimize the distance between them, and so that they happen in the correct order.
Make sure you enable the tracked filter or it will interfere with TourGuide.
Just a heads up QuestHelper has a known bug where it will lock WoW up when starting a timed quest.

There is a FAQ about installing addons ('http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/faq.php?faq=install#faq_howto_install').

Enjoy.

Nice post ! :)

Thank you, i'll try Tourguide out.

The reason i asked is actually not to level with, but to do all quests after i hit 70 in outlands to gather cash. so i hope thats possible :P

[pyrem]

I also use Jame's leveling guides with Carbonite, TomTom and Lightheaded. I don't follow Jame's guides step by step (there's plenty of collection quests I skipped) , but I found them to be excellent guides that pointed me to the right direction, especially regarding which zones I should be questing in at specific levels.

On another note, has anybody here tried both the Tour Guide Add-on and Jame's Leveling guides? Which one did you find to be a better guide in terms of xp gain efficiency? I've been interested in Tour Guide, but I'm not sure how the built-in guide stacks up to the others.

I know you can create your own guide in Tour Guide...now if someone can put Jame's guide in Tour Guide code, that would be awesome...

[Havelcek]

Jame's instance guides are also excellent.

[Stabface]

TourGuide is pretty good... just needs a no-collection-quest guide and it would be awesome for boxing. :)

[Kissell13]

I bought brian kopps levelling guide a long time ago and it was worht every penny. That being said now there is the quest helper addon and it pretty much eliminates the need for a guide

[Zaelar]

Zygor's isn't worth the $50 price. It's just marks on cartographer and the list of what to do in what order in the game. The guide itself is about the same as the free ones, but less detailed. I had to look up information a few times while using it. It also has a few mistakes and doesn't always update properly.

If it was free I'd say it's not bad but needs to be polished.

[Tdog]

I think paying for the guides is a waste of money. I've glanced through the paid guides while at a friend's place who swears by them, and the steps they give are virtually the same as the guides on wow-pro.com. Sometimes the paid guides have better maps or videos, but I don't think they're needed at all if you know what you're doing. I prefer to look at the quest rewards I want, and make sure those quests are in the guides.. then I like to skip collection quests in the guide unless I need the rep - like Stormwind so I can have my horses with draenei/night elves.I bought Brian Kopps guide which yes will get you to level 70 in roughly the same fashion as Jame's guide. HOWEVER the important difference is that Brian's guide was realized prior to TBC even coming out while Jame's was just barely finished a few months ago.

Now not knocking on Jame's guide as I've used his for horde leveling and it is also awesome nearly to the extent that Brian's is but what was worth the $30 is the fact that it came out when I actually really needed it for my very first journey to 70.

For now just use Jame's guide off wow-pro.com. No need to spend money for a guide that is nearly the same as a free guide. However if Brian Kopp puts out a Horde guide for WOTLK, yes I will be buying it.

Side note, Joana's guide was a major disappointment to me and not even close to the horde counterpart (as is clamied) to Brian's guide.

[gankzer]

Yep - both Joannas and kopps guides are awesome. I think joanna's for horde is the best. Even has videos to show how to accomplish some tasks when solo. A little different than the above poster but regardless both guides make quest execution faster and more effecient. Especially with the quest exp boost from 20-60.

[Dooz]

I used to use Joanna's guide until I started using carbonite and lightheaded. I finish quests much faster because both are in game. Carbonite is a for pay addon (for the full version, the lite (really lite) version is free). The full version of Carbonite is not just a quest mod, its much more and without bugs. It's $11 dollars per person, not per account. So you can have it on multiple toons accross multiple accounts. I don't see myself using anymore guides unless the addon goes unsupported.

[Fuzzyboy]

I bought brian kopps guide a while back and liked it a lot, but it's not great for multiboxing.

TourGuide is really good (sort of an in-game version of the levelling guides - lets you skip collection quests easily though), combined with doublewide, tomtom and lightheaded. Questhelper isn't really a replacement for the levelling guides since it doesn't tell you anything about the quests you don't have or what order to complete them in (it will always assume the closest target, indifferent to questchains, unlike the levellingguides/tourguide).

[Icetech]

I have used kopp's guide and joana's guide.. kopps is amazing... especially the map mod, but with questhelper now.. the map mod isnt' needed...

I had 3 lvl 70's before trying kopps and i leveled alot faster using it, just more efficient questing:)

Joana's is ok..

I would pay for kopps, not joana's... didnt pay for either though:) Thanks emule!

[lamrith]

Has oanyone tried the elite-wow guides.com? they have a package one. Just wondering if it was a "grinding Guide", Collection guide etc..



I plan to try tourguide, sounds really good.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

i've found that if i use Jame's Leveling Guides (the old ones - before the revamp) at www.wow-pro.com they work quite well - as for collection quests I only tend to do them if the drop rate is above 33%Ditto. With triple xp, I don't even bother with collection quests unless they open up great loot or a bunch of follow-on quest chains.

[Icetech]

I'm soooo jealous of you guys with RAF... i can't bring myself to buy 4 new accounts:)

[Katharsis]

I don't like being told what to do. I'm here for the fun, not a big rush to 70. I've removed all leveling guides but continue to use Carbonite and Jason's Quest for general info.

[mlwhitt]

I used Joanna's for my Mage and Pally. For my newer Alliance toons I am using Brian Kopps. He has a nice built in mod now that is sweet. I also have Team iDemise but never use it.

[Rudi89]

I've used Brian Kopp's and Joana's. I liked Kopp's better and used it almost immediately when TBC came out (he was down for a few days due to server load, I think). I found it to be excellent and I leveled quite quickly for being a semi-casual player.

The only drawback I find is you can get a significant amount of tunnel vision when you focus on leveling fast with a guide. Not that big of a deal if you're in a rush to start hitting the endgame instances and raiding. But I do think it hurts the gaming experience to rush through zones without really noticing what color the sky is. ;)

[Tdog]

I've used Brian Kopp's and Joana's. I liked Kopp's better and used it almost immediately when TBC came out (he was down for a few days due to server load, I think). I found it to be excellent and I leveled quite quickly for being a semi-casual player.

The only drawback I find is you can get a significant amount of tunnel vision when you focus on leveling fast with a guide. Not that big of a deal if you're in a rush to start hitting the endgame instances and raiding. But I do think it hurts the gaming experience to rush through zones without really noticing what color the sky is. ;)If it's your first 1-2 max level toons I'd probably agree but when you are on 10+ level 70's you couldn't care less what color anything is as you have seen it all before and are just trying to get to endgame at that point.

[Lorune]

Seeing this thread pop again, figured i would give a headsup on the path i took.

I didn't find a addon i wanted (that showed quests when 70 and all)

I ended up questing to 68 sofar. just finished nagrand. I been making a killer from other stuff in terms of gold. So thats not a issue and with dailys on top of that, i recon i should be set in a bit

[Jaese]

I also use TourGuide (with TomTom).

Been using it since I started this team. You can easily skip quests that are a PITA and I have outleveled it a couple times because I decide to go off on tangent quests that aren't in the guide but I can easily do as a group.

[moji]

I used Jame's guide from wow-pro once. It's free and awesome. After that experience, I pretty much just go where I remember to go and just wander around. Quest helper is a godsend for collection quests and such while boxing though.

[sqeaky4100]

I use both QuestHelper and Joana's Guide together. ( Joanas for running paths, which quests to pick up when and where... and QH for the tooltip display feature it has )

[hellsown]

idk...but i use the zygor guides...:) zygorguides.com...incredibly fast lvling...for solo..i turn it off for mb'ing and use quest helper i know most of where i am going now around azeroth...lol

[evaqwesta]

I've tried to follow jame's at wow-pro.com, but its so janky compared to Joana's.

If you don't want to dick around with anything and you just want to get your character to level 70, Joana's guide will get you there. If you wanna do low lvl instances, quest randomly, explore then have fun, but there is no way I'm gonna play another character up to 70 w/out using a guide.

Plus, I've wasted more money playing poker, mtg, movies, shitty dates, etc to justify $30 to get my char to max level sooner than later. Just buy bud light instead of guiness for a month 8P

Joana's guide also tells you what zone to visit and when. Quest helper isn't gonna tell you to run to Stonetalon and do the first couple quests at lvl 15 because you have to get those quests for the addon to help you...

[valkry]

Not needed at all. End of discussion!

lol

[Killerc]

I used brian knopps guide for a long time, i've recently come across tourguide and this has now replaced my need for any guide outside the game, unfortunatly at times i do need to check up on things on wowhead but Lightheaded would solve that problem. I would recommend to anyone before they buy a guide, try tourguide, its free so you have nothing to lose :)

[not5150]

I haven't used any guides, but I swear by carbonite. I estimate it increases my leveling efficiency at least 2-3 times.

It outlines all the areas for quests and pinpoints all the quest givers. So if you need to kill 10 things, it will tell you exactly where they spawn.

No guessing anymore where things are... you just steer towards the colored area. Another awesome feature is you can scroll and zoom the map just like Google maps.

[Glord]

You can get all the info you need for free.
This will cost you time. There are also some free guides and some are very good. Personally, I'd say: Don't waste time on levelling guides. Or any other guides. I get curious all the time, but mainly you get the information that is posted on the forums / fan sites, pressed into a double-line-spacing pdf. And that's it.
If that's worth the money... well, you decide.

[Kaynin]

Paid leveling guides aren't worth it.

The time you win by leveling quicker, will be wasted on reading the manual. Seriously, get an addon like questhelper, and more you shouldn't need. :P

[Fleecy]

In the past I've used paid levelling guides and at the time were well worth the price. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any paid levelling guides on the market at the moment so I couldn't offer an informed opinion. As others have mentioned, there is a mod called Carbonite (paid subscription) and it's well worth every cent they are asking for it. To be honest, if they tripled the price I'd still pay for it. Some people have an objection to paying for a mod, but I guess it's the same people who have an objection to paying for a levelling guide.

[5fingersofdoom]

If you are multibox levelling all you need is questhelper.or another of the freeingame add-ons.
I wouldn't go near i-demises guide,after 6-months they still havent fixed the Nagrand and Blades Edge coordinates.
That and their new interface sucks badly.

[BobGnarly]

Paid leveling guides aren't worth it.

The time you win by leveling quicker, will be wasted on reading the manual. Seriously, get an addon like questhelper, and more you shouldn't need. :PI hear this all the time and it's just not true. Questhelper is a great mod, and I use it a lot, but it doesn't completely replace a guide if you're looking for max leveling efficiency.

Here's why:

Suppose you start out in area A with a bunch of quests. Some of those quests tell you to go to area X and do whatever and then come back. So you do, then finish all the other quests in area A which gives you the breadcrumb quest to the next area, call it area B. Now in area B you find there are one or more quests asking you to go back to area X and do whatever. Sometimes even kill the exact same mobs. Clearly this is not efficient.

Questhelper will never tell you "oh yeah, wait on this quest because you're going to need to go there anyway a few quests away", so it doesn't help you figure out the optimal path of execution.

You may think this is a small difference, but trust me, when you put it all together it saves you a ton of time.

[Dgc2002]

The main advantage with leveling guides is not that it tells you how to do the quest. Its the order that you do the quests in.

WIth joanas guide he has leveld tons of 1-60/70 and i'm sure 80s on beta/live but he basically goes through and decides which quest take less time for the most exp.

I found joana's to be really efficient.

[Iceorbz]

I used joannas guide way back, and it was the best thing since sliced bread for speed and efficiency.

I use quest helper now, just to help give me cordinates... but nothing I have found in game replaced the "good" guides.

[Duese]

The big thing is that many of us leveled without the guides and addons. We wanted to go faster so we bought the guides since their were no real addons that do what questhelper/tourguide/etc does at the time. If they were out there, they were buggy as hell. I bought Brian Kopp's and even though I was on my 5th toon to lvl 60 (these were single boxed), I learned so many quests that I missed the first 5 times that it wasn't even funny.

Honestly, with outlands and northrend, I would have probably only used it to tell me which quests to skip. Let QH tell me the specifics for most of the quests.

I have used Joana's up to lvl 43. I 2-boxed it and did all the quests (even loot quests... it's 2box, not 5) Ended up 2 levels behind the guide. Let my rested xp catch up a little bit and fell right back into place with it.

Brian Kopp's was a little better than Joana's for me, but I will still randomly turn on the Joana 1-60 videos when I can't find anything on TV for background noise on a late raiding night.

Regarding the OP, I don't think the paid guides are neccessary now. The addons and free guides will suffice.

[mikekim]

Got to the point now that I have levelled up 5 sets of toons and I know the levelling route backwards now :thumbup:

[Knobley]

I've used Brian's guide, and, to a lesser extent Joanna's.
I think they were worth it at the time.

Nowadays Questhelper does the job well enough for me. The only real advantage to the guides that questhelper doesn't provide are what quests to AVOID. But since that was mainly from a solo perspective it wasn't as applicable to multi-boxers. The guides offer some other slight advantages to help you optimize your path as well as things like "make sure you save all your xxx, and be sure to buy an xxx while you're inn xxx"... a few little things like that to speed things along. I'm not sure those niceties are worth the price any more.

[HPB]

I've used Joana's extensively for several characters. My opinion is that if you are in a hurry and plan on quickly leveling, use it. There are some caveats though....

1) It sucks the life out of you. Questing is no longer fun, it is a horrid grind. It becomes WORK. For some reason this is much more depressing than using a mod like Quest Helper or Liteheaded/TomTom.

2) If you follow the guide the way Joana wants you to, you won't be doing anything else, no professions or anything (other than first aid), so prepare to grind that later.

3) This is not a multi-boxer friendly guide. Quests that are 'Group' quests are often skipped by Joana, while a boxer would find these quests quick and easy. Gathering quests that Joana takes the time to do, would simply kill a multi-boxer.

So if you're leveling one character, want to do it fast and don't mind being a mindless zombie for a few days, go for it. That's how I leveled my hunter to 70 super fast. Otherwise, don't. For some reason, the mood is lighter when you're picking your own path, and honestly with all the quest mods out there, you can be just as effiecient while being the master of your own destiny and determining what quests are good for you and which ones to skip.

edit: Additional note - I felt compelled to say that I attempted to follow Joana's WOTLK guide while dual-boxing my priest and hunter. By the time I hit 75 I was ready to /wrist /delete /unsub. If you've got even 2 characters going at once, don't do it that way.

[DgtlSorcrs]

Before I started MultiBoxing, I bought Brian Kopp's Alliance guide and when I went Horde, I bough Joana's Horde guide.

I found they helped a lot when I didn't really know the area/quests, and even when I was coming around an area leveling a new toon and sort of knew the quests, I found the guides to be useful for locations and for "stacking".

Now that QuestHelper and other addons are out there, I find that the real value of Joana's guide (for me) is still in "stacking". Sometimes, they send you to get all these quests in one area, and where according to QH, you'd just go kill these guys, turn in./ whatever, the guide will say "now, go here and pick this quest up" and sure enough it turns out that you can now complete two quests at once instead of ending up running back to an area you've been in to do a different quest you could have done at the same time had you known.

Also, since the guide tells you when there's likely to be an escort or when something is a "collect x of these" if you read slightly ahead, you can adjust for multiboxing.

Also Also, with the new phasing areas and the way that quest givers/turnin folks tend to pop up in multiple places in Northrend, QH has been directing me to the wrong place (mostly for quest turnins) a lot. I find that double-checkin to see that Joana's given location matches questHelper (and putting in my own TomTom waypoint if it doesn't) has saved me a lot of frustration.

The lesson here is that no matter what tools you use, there is no substitute for paying attention and using your head.

So, I tend to use Quest Helper, do a quick check of Joana's guide, and refer to Thottbot, wowhead, and wowwiki as needed, and in the end, I rarely follow any of them 100%. They're only tools.

[glo]

Back in the days you might have found a guide useful but there really is no need for it now. Blizzard has gotten much better at their zone and questing design almost to the point where you can't really mess up regardless of which direction you go. Grab questhelper addon and take a few seconds to read the quest text before you head out you should be able to knock levels out fast enough. If you come across a collection quest hit your favorite site and see if the chain is something you want to do.

[heffner]

I like Jame's guides. If you want a plug-in/add-on and videos to go with the guide then you will likely have to pay for a guide. They aren't really expensive and it's only worth it if you want those extra items, but buyer beware because I know that there was at least one guide that basically took Jame's guide word-for-word up to L60. I consistently read good reviews about Joanna's guide.

As for content, I'd say Jame's guides are better, if not as good as, the others I have seen. I have used both his Alliance and Horde guides to 70. However, since I installed Questhelper I find that it's fairly adequate for my needs.

The main advantage of a guide is to make leveling the most efficient through "multitasking" and reduce time by not running in circles. Guides also indicate those out of the way escort quests and dropped quests (you know the ones that you get a drop and click on it to start a quest). Questhelper does not show dropped quests (AFAIK). They are the easiest quests to do too!

Also, the majority of guides are obviously not written with multiboxing in mind. Of course, that doesn't stop me from using them as I just skip the collection quests I don't have the tolerance for.

At this point I doubt I would pay $ for a guide.

[Ellusionist]

I can't believe I'm only like the 3rd person posting that uses Zygor's guide! It uses TomTom, also.

It's absolutely awesome! I have NEVER opened a webpage to look up quest information since installing Zygor's guide. There are times it doesn't advance to the next step on its own, but with a little common sense (knowing you've completed that step), you just press "next" and you're back on track. It has every quest in the game except dungeon quests, for obvious reasons.

I'm a sole believer in finishing every quest because -- what if you miss one quest that was part of a huge chain where you could have gotten major XP? You do just that--miss it! While it's not that big of a deal pre-BC or pre-WotLK now, still having every quest in the game is priceless.

QuestHelper is too sloppy for me... you pick up a bunch of quests, but it doesn't strategically send you down the quickest path. All of my slaves run it, just so I can see when they've picked up all "20 items" or something without having to shift-click the quest in my log.

[Evilseed]

I'm using http://wtbblue.com and rocking my 5x druids nicely.

[Pippin]

I have used Joanna's and brian's and there were both really nice but my only complaint about them is that I had to either print them off or keep minimizing to read them. I am using zygors now and it freakin rocks. I hate questinig and this made it so much easier. Mind you this was only on one toon.

[darkxer]

I tried all the paid guides and like TourGuide best.

Here is a post I made in the macro forum.

Here are some addons I use to help with leveling.

Tour Guide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7674-TourGuide.html')
TourGuide is an ingame leveling guide I've used the paid guides and this free guide is better than all of them.

Doublewide ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6887-DoubleWide.html')
DoubleWide is a simple AddOn for a simple idea -- pull the quest log into side-by-side areas so it's double wide instead of cramping the size of the quest list.

Light Headed ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7017-LightHeaded.html')
LightHeaded is a very simple addon that displays quest information and comments from http://www.wowhead.com in game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on quest.

TomTom ('http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7032-TomTom.html')
TomTom is your personal navigation assistant in World of Warcraft.

Cartographer ('http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Cartographer')
Cartographer is a modular, lightweight, and efficient framework for manipulation of the world map.
Get the latest Cartographer here ('http://files.wowace.com/Cartographer/Cartographer.zip').

QuestHelper ('http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9924/')
QuestHelper compiles a list of waypoints for the quests in your quest log, and sorts them so as to minimize the distance between them, and so that they happen in the correct order.
Make sure you enable the tracked filter or it will interfere with TourGuide.
Just a heads up QuestHelper has a known bug where it will lock WoW up when starting a timed quest.

There is a FAQ about installing addons ('http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/faq.php?faq=install#faq_howto_install').

Enjoy.The post i quoted is right on the money.
Lightheaded + QuestHelper + TomTom or Cartographer = Better than any guide..

I bought Zygor's guide and asked for my money back with NO reply from the seller.

[Ualaa]

I'd have to say, the Brian Kopp guide was amazing for pre-BC and it was far and away the best guide I've come across for the BC era of wow as well.
Unfortunately, Kopp promised lifetime upgrades to his guide when purchased, for all those who purchased at or around (or prior to) the release of Burning Crusade.
Sometime prior to WotLK, he updated his site and changed the site to read, lifetime upgrades for Classic through Burning Crusade content, but that each future expansion would be its own product.

I can understand where he's coming from; he puts in a lot of time during the beta to find an optimal path.
But he pissed off a massive number of people. If you give lifetime upgrades to something you sell, you should honor your word.
Bottom line, anyone who purchases now will get what they paid for, lifetime updates to the content purchased.
Anyone who purchased the previous guide is ripped off by someone whose word has no value.

I'll never give Kopp another penny.
Even if his guide was the best I've found to date, integrity has a value and Kopp has demonstrated he does not have many values.





*Edit - To the poster above me*
If the author guarantees you money back with no questions asked, both paypal and your credit card company will credit you or give you a charge back.
I did this with a wow guide that did not deliver remotely close to what was advertised.

The authors site promised a no questions asked money back guarantee.
The author answered my emails while I was a prospective buyer, but would not respond to me as a politely disgruntled purchaser.
Paypal was quick to credit my master card.

[HPB]

Joana's guide did the same thing. Promised free upgrades, then wanted extra cash for the Northrend Guide. The reason is that I'm sure the old guide wasn't making as much money anymore as everyone already has it. No incoming flux of cash means no reason to upgrade it. It's the same thing that happend to my favorite mud client, Zmud. The software creator had promised free upgrades for life and it was all good for a while. When the money stopped coming in, his next major upgrade was called Cmud, so he could charge for it again. It's a shame in a way to have to pay more money, but if there's no influx of cash, there's no reason to keep working on the product. At that point, you've always got the chance to stop using the product, which is why I never moved to Cmud. I did however purchase the Northrend guide from Joana, thinking it would be useful (and I'm sure it is to single-boxers).

[mmmbox]

I used Brian Kopps lvling guide and they are really good.

Not only from an XP point of view which is where they shine, they are also constructed to max your rep with each faction.

On a side note, alot of odd things like pets etc are also included as "optional" ie if you dont mind getting side tracked for 15-30 mins.

Never paid for em tho, but i would say they Brian Kopps would have been worth it.

From a mBox perspective i use questhelper, I get all quests and with 5 chars i just trash, no guide needed since they usually never include xping in instances and I prefere to lvl in instances.