Jame's Game Guides

The Cataclysm launch went very well. I dinged 84 last night with my character, and I did that while:

• Editing mistakes I saw in the leveling addon files
• Sleeping and eating (granted, I don't sleep much) normally!
• Only took the morning off on tuesday, which means I almost did normal work hours since the release and still managed to hit level 84 last night around midnight in Uldum while taking notes and updating the leveling guides as I went.
  

This just shows how good our leveling addon is! It allows for such fast leveling, without ever having any downtime being stuck on a quest. I'll hit level 85 tonight easily, while taking notes to update the Twilight Highlands guide ;)

And it keeps getting better, as our team of guide writers and testers go through our guides several times, we spot mistakes or things that could be optimized, and we improve them!

Cataclysm is out since only 3 days, and we already got tons of updates, which will be implemented in the next Addon Update (coming soon!).

Meanwhile, if you can't wait and want the latest versions, I've uploaded the new Uldum file, which I just re-optimized myself. It should be near perfect now:

Download: WoW-Pro Leveling Addon - Updated Uldum File

And of course, our Uldum Leveling Guide gets you the following zone achievements:



About addon leveling speed: I honestly don't think there can be a faster way to level up. I was level 82 in about 7 hours of /play after the launch, and that's with:

• A very poorly equipped character which I hadn't played since he hit level 80 back then in WotLK!
• All the overcrowding and fighting over the same NPCs with other players. I even lost 20 minutes on a certain quest in Mount Hyjal, it was hell.
• I was taking notes as I went! Wasting time alt-tabbing between the game and my notepad.
  

So just imagine the kind of leveling speed you can get without all those hinderances ;)

All in all, I'm extremely happy and impressed with the our Leveling Addon, and I can't wait to do a speed run with a new character once it's all finished.

I'll post my results of course once I'm there, so stay tuned (list of our feeds, twitter, facebook, newsletter, etc) for more leveling guides and addon updates!

Hey everyone!

We've been working hard on our leveling guides for Cataclysm, and they're ready!

Not only do we already have a lot of guides ready for Cataclysm:


But we also have our own in-game leveling addon:


If you've never heard of our amazing free leveling addon, here's a quick video to give you an overview:



Please remember that all our guides are free and driven by the wow-pro community. The only thing we ask in return is to SPREAD THE WORD!

• Talk about it (tell your friends, your guild)
• Share the video on Facebook
• Share the video on Twitter
• Share the video on message boards you visit

Thank you in advance!

For those who haven't heard of our Cataclysm Leveling Guide project yet, here is a short summary:

• Our aim is to have a full 1-85 Leveling Guide by the time the Cataclysm expansion pack ships.
• Not only will have have the usual paper version of the 1-85 Leveling Guide, but we also plan to have it available as an in game 1-85 Leveling Addon, covering all zones.
• This includes a full revamp of all the old Azeroth leveling guides.

To that effect, we've been working on our very own leveling addon, with Jiyambi leading the wow pro leveling addon development. She's been making big progress with the leveling addon, which is already in a stable version.

For a list of all the current and upcoming features which will be integrated in the addon, please visit our official wow pro leveling addon page.

So far, the support from the community has been great and I'm confident we'll have the best set of leveling guides and leveling addons by the time Cataclysm is launched.

If you want to test the addon and help with improving it, you can get the latest version here.

Stay tuned until then if you don't want to miss on this huge project! Follow me on twitter if you want to be informed instantly whenever we have news to share.

Proof that my leveling guides are still quite performant.

Tizz recently posted a screenshot of the latest character he leveled up while using my leveling guides, and here's the result:


3 days 11 hours 37 minutes 47 seconds from level 1 to level 80.

Granted, he had the Heirloom items (Chest, Shoulders, Weapon) and some gold to twink his character, but still. With no rested bonus, no recruit a friend bonus and no powerleveling help from any other character, this is pretty amazing.

And this character is a shaman. Shamans are very quick levelers, but not as quick as say, hunters or death knights for example. So this score can be beat while using my leveling guides :)

If anyone is up to the challenge, I'd be curious to see this record beat!

Original post on wow-pro.

It looks like we won't be able to use TourGuide as a base for our leveling addon in the near future. To find out why, visit this thread: http://www.wow-pro.com/node/2850

But this might actually be good news, now is actually a great time to create a new addon, specifically for wow-pro, and with all the improvements we would like to implement.

We were already going to re-write the whole guides from 1 to 60 for Cataclysm anyway, with the arrival of Cataclysm and the revamp of all the old Azeroth zones, so the timing could not be better on this.

We've already got a few wow-pro members willing to help on this new project, but since this is a huge project, we'll take all the help we can get.

In any case, we need everyone's input for our new leveling addon.

What features would you like to see in the new addon version?
What would you like to see changed compared to the old version?

Discuss it here, your opinion matters.

In case you missed it, a new Zul'Drak leveling guide is out, both for the Horde and the Alliance.

• Alliance Zul'Drak Questing Guide
• Horde Zul'Drak Questing Guide
  

If you take a look at it, you'll probably think that I wrote it, because it looks exactly like one of my guides. I didn't, this guide was written by Theos, who recently joined WoW-Pro.

I must say I was blown away, the quality level is just as good as mine, and it was his first guide!

This makes me pretty confident about my Cataclysm Leveling Addon and Guide project, when new members are able to be this helpful, I really think I'll get enough help to make my Cataclysm project work.

Now all this guide needs is Testers! If you got a character who hasn't touched Zul'Drak quests yet and feel like helping out, then try the Zul'Drak guide and report the following:

• Spelling mistakes (if you see any)
• Quest circuit optimizations (if possible)
• Leveling Speed (XP/hour) - If you can

Please post your feedback as comments directly under the guides so that Theos can easily find them. Oh and, don't forget to rate the guide too ;)

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!