Jame's Game Guides

Hello fellow readers, I'm back!

I apologize for being so inactive over the past few months, but I was going through some big changes in my life, so I didn't have the time nor the motivation to stay active on wow-pro and on my blog.

But now that things are back in order, expect frequent news and big projects from me ;)

WoW-Pro Leveling Addon Update - Cataclysm


1. There will be a Cataclysm Leveling Addon and Cataclysm Leveling Guides

• Yes, you read that right. I will be writing together leveling guides for Cataclysm, and that includes a full revamp of the old Azeroth zones from 1 to 60. But this time, I will do it smart, which means I won't be doing this all by myself and run out of time before the Cataclysm beta ends.
  

2. How are you going to make a full Cataclysm Leveling Addon in time?

• I will build a team made of wow-pro members, and they'll work together with me during the Cataclysm Beta to speed up the guide writing and leveling addon writing process.
• Here's how it will work: we'll get Cataclysm Beta Keys, then I will assign zones to each of member of the team, give them advices, quality control their guides and improve them as I see fit until they reach the "WoW-Pro" standards.

3. Who gets to be on the Cataclysm Leveling Addon & Guides team?

• Needless to say, the wow-pro top contributors will have priority, they already have the experience in guide writing and/or addon writing, plus they deserve to be asked first.
• However, this is a huge undertaking, so new members will probably be more than welcome to help on certain aspects of the project.

4. Where do I sign up?

• Nowhere for now, keep following my blog and I will let you know as soon as it's time ;)

5. What can I do to help meanwhile?

• We will need Cataclysm Beta Keys, and I'm not sure I can provide enough on my own. So if you have contacts to get some beta keys and are willing to help with this project, let me know so I can plan ahead, that would be a huge help.
• Keep on talking to your friends, guildmates and other gaming buddies about wow-pro, about the free quality leveling guides we provide there, and how helpful the community is.
  

Other News

HolyJame Leveling Addon Speed Testing

If you were following the progress of Holyjame, I'm sorry to let you know that there won't be a next chapter.

The reason is simple: with Cataclysm coming and the whole old Azeroth zones being revamped, it makes little sense to work so hard on the current 1-60 zones.

However, I will be doing a similar speed testing diary once we're done with the Cataclysm Leveling Addon ;)

My other big project

I lied, I haven't been completely inactive while I was away. I do have a big project going on, and yes, it's related to a Blizzard game. I can't reveal much more right now, but I will in the coming few days right here on my blog, you don't want to miss it ;)

Stay tuned, and thank you all for your patience and support!

You've all waited long enough for it. Here's an update!

• Big update for the WoW-Pro Leveling Addon
• We finally got a Shadowmoon Valley questing guide. I didn't write it myself, but trust me, it's just as good
• We've got a High Quality Naxxramas guide
  

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And of course there are many more other guides being released every week, all they need is you to test them, rate them, leave feedback. All you have to do is check our frontpage regularly!

Expect more news from me in the near future ;)

Hey guys, just released a new version of the addon!

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Alliance

WoW-Pro-TourGuide_Alliance v 0.6.3 -- Update April 1st 2009

*Default guides can be accessed again. They can be found at the bottom of the list | Thank Jahwo for this fix!
*New revamped chapters will follow soon. Please have patience!

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Horde

WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Horde v0.5.1 -- Updated April 1st 2009

*Default guides can be accessed again. They can be found at the bottom of the list. | Thank Jahwo for this fix!
*Added: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide 51-60 | Jiyambi
*REVAMPS: Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, Snowflake's Blood Elf Starter, Hosho's 12-20

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Thanks to the whole community, and especially to Jiyambi for the huge efforts on the horde side!

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of udpates, I've just been busy.

However, this is going to change real soon, I'm gonna go back to my old habits and provide you with new articles several times a week.

For starters, I need to hurry up and continue with the speed testing of the WoW-Pro Leveling Add-on (Alliance). Expect a new chapter before the end of the week.

Meanwhile, Jiyambi just released the second chapter of her Speed Testing character on the horde side. Check it out, it's a good read (and you can see her wearing only underwears !)

• Jiyambi's Blog
• The adventures of Mokrana (Chapter 2)

Hey folks!

We've got a big update for the Leveling Addon today, especially on the horde side. Make sure to download the latest version.

A next chapter of the Adventures of Holyjame should follow in the coming few days, stay tuned ;)

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WoW-Pro-TourGuide_Alliance v 0.6.2 -- Update March 13th 2009

• FIXES: to Snowflake's Draenei Guide (1-12)
• FIXES: to Sven's Bloodmyst Leveling Guide (12-20)

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WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Horde v0.5 -- Updated March 13th 2009

• NEW: Jame's Death Knight Leveling Guide | Coder: Gethe |
• NEW: Shinke's Tauren Starter | Coder: TzTz |
• REVAMP: Zerinj's Orc Starter
• REVAMP: Snowflake's Blood Elf Starter
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide 21-31
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide 31-41
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide 41-51
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide Hellfire Penninsula
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide Zangarmarsh
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide Terokkar

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Enjoy and please help us test and improve the addon!

Here we go for another chapter of the adventures of Holyjame. This chapter will cover levels 20 to 30, while following the WoW-Pro Leveling Addon version of Boston's Alliance Leveling Guide (20-30).

At the end of the previous chapter , we were Level 20 with a /played of 9h 3min.

==Note== I had a little bit of rested bonus at the start of this chapter, for about 40% of level 20. This couldn't be avoided, despite the fact that I purposedly logged out outside of an inn, I still had rested bonus from not touching this character for a couple of weeks.

In any case, this is still less rested bonus than any normal player will get. So the results are still very accurate and are obtained under very handiccaping circumstances:

• I remind you that this is done with NO rested bonus. I logged out my character outside of an inn on purpose. I only had about 40% of rested bonus at level 20. That's it.
  
• I'm leveling a Paladin, they aren't exactly the fastest levelers, as you all know.
• No twinking. I'm leveling on a new server, so this character isn't getting any financial help for his gear. You can check Holyjame's Armory Profile and you'll see he's only using greens from quest rewards or which dropped for me while leveling. The only exception is the weapon, which I bought from the AH. But this level 30 sword was quite a bargain and only cost me 1 gold.
  
• I'm leveling First Aid, simply because it's something I think every character should level. This probably slowed me down by a good 10 minutes.
• I died a couple of times once again, simply because I played like a reckless noob trying to take on camps of 5 mobs with no mana left and lay on hands on cooldown. Another 10 minutes wasted.
• I alt tabbed and fixed a couple of mistakes as I went. Another 10 minutes.
• I added the whole Paladins quest line in this chapter while doing the speed run. It made me waste another good 10 minutes because some quest turn ins were being annoying and not updating properly. However, I'm quite happy with the end result, I think the paladin quest chain is now incorporated beautifully and fits perfectly in the guide ;)
  

So there you have it, another 30 minutes wasted. and if I had logged out inside an inn, you could easily chalk off another 60 minutes. If you add that to the time wasted similarly in the previous chapter, it's safe to say that we could substract 2 hours from the total /played at the end of this chapter.

Now let's see how this section went:

Yes, I know. I'm late once again. I should have released the next chapter of the addon days ago and made a speed test with Holyjame, but I just got caught up with a lot of RL stuff.

However, I will right those wrongs tomorrow morning and do you one better:

• I'll upload new versions of the Horde & Alliance leveling addons, including new revamped zones by me and Jiyambi (who is doing an awesome job at it by the way).
• The default guides won't appear anymore. This means you won't have to scroll down to find the wow-pro guides ever again! It will also fix some issues people were having with guides not showing up on the list.
• Many other minor fixes

Meanwhile, Jiyambi has started revamping the Horde Leveling Addon and is also doing speed tests with a new character she just created. Check it out on her blog !

Here we go with the Adventures of Holyjame - Chapter 2 ( Click here if you missed Chapter 1 )

This chapter covers the Addon Version of the levels 12-20 of our Alliance Leveling Guides: Maw's 12-20 Alliance Leveling Guide.

At the end of the last chapter, we were Level 12 and 78% done, and our /played was 2h 54min.











Level 20 /played: 9h 3min
Average time per level this chapter: 50 Minutes

This is quite good, and it's even more encouraging if you take into account the following:

• I remind you that this is done with NO rested bonus. I logged out my character outside of an inn on purpose.
  
• I'm leveling a Paladin, they aren't exactly the fastest levelers, as you all know.
• No twinking. I'm leveling on a new server, so this character isn't getting any financial help for his gear. You can check Holyjame's Armory Profile and you'll see he's only using greens from quest rewards or which dropped for me while leveling. The only exception is the weapon, which I bought for 25s at the AH (quite a bargain ^^)
• I decided to level First Aid while leveling, simply because it's something I think every character should level. This probably slowed me down by a good 10 minutes.
• I died a couple of times, simply because I played like a reckless noob. Another 10 minutes wasted.
• I alt tabbed and fixed a couple of mistakes as I went. Another 10 minutes.

So there you have it, if I hadn't wasted those 30 minutes and if I had logged out inside an inn, you could easily chalk off another 60 minutes. Which means that the /played from 1 to 20 could be somewhere close to 8 hours, which is awesome for a non-twinked Paladin.

Stay tuned for the next chatper!

Just released a new version for the alliance!

WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Alliance.zip v0.4:

• My own latest chapter - Maw's Leveling Guide 12-20 - Try it, the quality is very high!
• Also added a new revamped version of the Borean Tundra Guide (Thanks to Wizerd - also thanks to Elmo23 and NLX3647 )
• Started to rename the files, so that it looks more organized in the list. YOU NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION OF TOURGUIDE FOR IT TO WORK.
• Fixed a few minor bugs in several other files
  

And you know what this means? This means we'll have another epic chapter of The Adventures of Holyjame the Paladin tomorrow!

You don't want to miss it :p

Hey guys, a quick post to inform everyone that I just released a new version of the WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Alliance.zip
Here are the changes:

• Many improvements were made to the Borean Tundra Guide | Original Coder: NLX3647 | Revamp by: Wizerd | Needs further testing
• Fixed names in .xml
• Fixed a few errors in the 1-12 night elf guide

As usual, you can download it here.

On a side note, I'm working on the Maw's Leveling Guide 12-20 and it should be out later tonight. And of course, the next adventures of Holyjame the paladin will follow a few hours after ;)

Stay tuned!

In short, we decided to stop working on two leveling addons at the same time. We'll only focus on one addon format from now on: the WoW-Pro Leveling Addon.

This means we're abandonning the wow-pro custom addon. So all efforts should now be concentrated on the tourguide version of the WoW-Pro Leveling Addon.

More information about this decision here.

It looks like my interview with GameSpy is having side effects.

Wowinsider just published a news article about my guides ;)

You can find the article here: WoW Insider Article

I appreciate getting more coverage, really. Because the only weakness of my guides is that they aren't known enough. People tend to overlook them because they are free, thinking that because it's free, it's probably crap.

However, there are a few inaccuracies in this article, sadly. I wish the guys at wow-insider would have contacted me and I'd gladly have provided them with more accurate information.

Anyway, I'll list the inaccuracies here:

• My guides do not turn the game into a "to-do" list. It does not ruin the content, it actually makes it more enjoyable. Every single person who tried my guide said so. The reason is simple: while following my guide, you're doing as many quests as possible, in the shortest time possible, with as little running around as possible. So basically, you will probably do more quests than if you were not following my guide (because I make sure to include even the most hidden quest chains in the game when they are worth it). You will effectively enjoy more content than if you were on your own. Moreover, what my guide does is cut a huge chunk of "running back and forth", by smartly optimizing the quest routes (and if you thought QuestHelper's route optimization tool was smart, you'll think my circuits are genius). So yes, my point is simple, my guides WILL make you enjoy the game more, while also making you level faster, I guarantee it.
• While following my guide, nothing is preventing you from reading the quests descriptions. Moreoever, you can read it in a more relaxed way, you don't have to focus on sorting out what part of the information is important to complete the quest, you can simply enjoy the lore instead.
  
• My wife didn't "need help" leveling ^^. As I said in the GameSpy interview, we were both leveling our alts together, and she was simply following me because I already had those "optimized quest circuits" in my head, and she was just enjoying the ride. But she would have been fine leveling on her own, even though I wish I could be that superhero taking a damsel in distress through the mazes of Stranglethorn Vale. But it just wasn't like that :P
  

Luckily, I see that a few of my loyal wow-pro members are already posting there under the article to correct those discrepancies. So it's all good, and I'm really happy to have such a supportive community.

In any case, I'd like to thank wow insider for bringing my guides to the attention of their readers. Because that's really what I care about the most: people trying my guides. A lot of effort was spent on writing them and improving them (and not only my effort, an army of wow-pro members also helped testing them and gave me feedback), so it always pains me to see people totally ignore my guides and jump on the "paying" guides, simply because they think "FREE" cannot be as good "Paying". Well, this is true in most cases, but not in this case. And to change that mindset, all we can do is spread the word about it, and that's exactly what wow insider and gamespy are doing at the moment. So cheers to them!

ps: I'd gladly give an interview to wow insider, should they be interested in more infos about my addons, guides or future projects.

Hey guys, sorry I'm not done with the next addon chapter as I had planned. You'll have to wait a little more for the next adventures of Holyjame the retadin.

However I've got some interesting reading for you instead. I had an interview with GameSpy today and they wrote a nice news article about it.

You probably know part of what we discussed already if you follow my blog, but there is also some new stuff I never talked about before, so I recommend checking it out, it's very nicely written.

You can find the article here: GameSpy Interview.

Feel free to comment and discuss!

Hey guys. Just a quick post to inform you that I tomorrow I should be done with the second chapter of Maw's Human Leveling Guide (12-20).

And that means that you'll be able to see Holyjame in action again! :P

Meanwhile, I've also been playing Urban Rivals a little. It's a free online card game and it's pretty fun.

I created a guild there for WoW-Pro members, we've got about 20 members already ;)

My blog followers are of course more than welcome, check this forum post I made for more info about joining.

Come join and the fun, and stay tuned for the next chapter of the adventures of Holyjame!

"Hey m8, how much /played you need to finish your guide?? From 30 to 60?? From 37 to 38???? Do you like ponies?!"

I get this question a lot (no, not the one about ponies). So I've decided to finally answer it once and for all.

I'll be using this blog entry to keep track of the leveling speed of each of the wow-pro leveling guide in addon format.

Everytime a section is 100% complete, tested and perfected, I'll run through it with a normal character, with no rested bonus and with no help from other characters (no twinking, powerlevel or anything).

For now, the only section which I consider 100% complete (by my standards) is the one I just released, for Maw's 1-12 Human Leveling Guide. See previous blog entry for more info.

I just coded my very first addon chapter into an addon format. I've put a lot of effort into it and I can proudly say that it's near perfect.

As a starter, I decided to pick Maw's Human Starter Guide (1-12). It's the best human starter guide we have, and I thought it would be a great way to let everyone test it and see what kind of quality the wow-pro leveling addons are aiming for.

• 99% of the steps auto-complete when the objective is reached. When they don't auto-complete, a note in the step tells you to simply close the step after reading it.
• 99% of the steps have a TomTom arrow guiding you to the next location. When there's no arrow, it means it's totally unecessary.
• There's even an arrow pointing you to the nearest NPC to sell junk and repair.
  
• Information has been adapted to the addon format so that very few reading is needed. The aim is to really not waste any second and level as fast as possible.
• Class Quests are included
• Optional quests are also included
• Easy item use: whenever you need to use an item, a little icon pops up next to the tourguide bar. All you have to do is click it and it will use the item. You won't have to look through your bags.
• WARNING windows pop-up if you sell an item by mistake
  
• The guide has already been thoroughly tested

All it needs now is people using it and giving feedback! So go install the latest version of the addon, log in, scroll down the list and choose "Elwynn Forest (WoW-Pro | Maw's Human 1-12)".

Follow this link to learn how to install the addon: WoW-Pro_TourGuide_Alliance

Please note that the other guides have not been coded by me and have not been thoroughly tested. But they are still very good and they WILL become perfect at one point, with the help of the wow-pro community.

Now go create a human and have fun!

ps: I recommend creating a paladin, they really are easy to level from 1 to 12.

Most of you probably already heard about it. Yes, all the wow-pro leveling guides are finally being converted into an addon format.

There will actually be two addon formats and the community will make sure that they both get supported and updated.

Why? Well simply because both addons are very good, but have slight differences, and a poll has shown that people are very divided on which of the two addons they prefer. So we'll keep both of them ;)

Let me introduce them to you in a nutshell:

WoW-Pro Custom

WoW-Pro Addon Info Page

A custom made addon for wow-pro, coded by Jahwo, a wow-pro member.

The advantage of this addon over the other is that it stays closer to the appearance of my guides in terms of text formatting. It uses the same color codes. Basically, it looks more like my guides.



It looks great and it has most cool features you want in a leveling addon: an arrow tells you where to go, steps get automatically completed once you're done with them, etc. More features will be added in the future whenever necessary.

List of finished guides:

Alliance

• Maw's Human Leveling Guide (1-12)

Horde

• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Dragonblight
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Grizzly Hills
  

Please note that these chapters have been coded by the addon creator himself, so they have a very nice quality.

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TourGuide WoWPro

And then there's the other addon format, TourGuide.

The advantage of this addon is that it takes less space than the other one on your screen, it is very minimalist. It only takes one line of text:


And when there is more information, all you have to do is hover over the window with your mouse pointer and the extra information pops up:


TourGuide uses the very cool TomTom addon to give you directions in game:


It also has the auto-completion step detection feature, as well as another cool feature: when a quest requires you to use a certain item (like a torch for example), an icon automatically appears and clicking it makes you use the item, without having to look for it in your bags.

List of finished guides:

Alliance

• Snowflake's Draenei Guide (1-12)
  
• Boston's Gnome/Dwarf Guide (1-12)
• Boston's Leveling Guide (12-20)
• Boston's Leveling Guide (20-30)
  
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (30-40)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (40-50)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide (50-60)
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Hellfire Penninsula
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Zangarmarsh
  
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Terokkar
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Nagrand
• Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Blade's Edge Mountains

Horde

• Snowflake's Ghostlands Guide (13-21)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide (21-31)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Hellfire Peninsula
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Zangarmarsh
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Terokkar Forest
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Nagrand | Black Cat
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Howling Fjord (70-71)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Borean Tundra (71-73)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Dragonblight (73-75)
• Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Grizzly Hills (75-77) {~80% complete}

Please note that many of those chapters haven't yet been tested, so there might be a few glitches here and there. However, I've tried a few of them and so far it's been great.

The wow-pro community is already working hard on more chapters, so expect to see new releases almost every day from now on ;)

Testing the addon

If you want to test either addon, simply follow these links and read the explanations:

WoW-Pro Custom Addon
WoW-Pro Leveling Addon

If you test the addons, please leave some feedback.

Contributing

If you want to help by writing a section for the addon, check these links:

TourGuide Style

• How to Contribute
• List of works in progress
• Forum Discussion

WoW-Pro Custom

• How to Contribute
• List of works in progress
• Forum Discussion
  

Enjoy!