Loads of players seem to miss the key point of World of Warcraft. It is not a game about epax or achievements or even glory and fame. The only really interesting part of any MMO is the community, but not the big population of the realm, but the very community that you are part of and that you often build together for years. Many players (especially the young ones!) constantly look for “greener grass” by transferring around, changing factions or guilds, annoying others – all in pursuit of achievements or progression. They all eventually end finding nothing of value, while constantly passing on the real opportunities and are blind to them.

Don't be blind to Friendship!
Friends > all else in any game

Friends are not easy to make, unless you already start the game with them. Even then, it’s essential to stay true to them, because it’s all too easy to take them for granted and that’s as far from truth as you can imagine. You build and maintain friendships, carefully over years and that process is never truly finished. And it's way easier to break friendship than to form one. So it’s not easy, in fact it’s the hardest aspect of this game, but it is also the most rewarding one – far more than anything else. Takes time, patience, sacrifice.

At some point you might get frustrated on something: the guild has low progress, some of your friends play too little, servers sux, class sux, president sux. Here is another great advice and something I’ve personally experienced the wrong way:

NEVER leave friends!

I really mean that caps. REALLY! It would have to be something trully profound to make you event think about something like this. If there really are things that you find problematic for yourself, always try to figure out how to overcome them with your friendship intact. Help your friends or convince them to try harder for you. But of course, this is not always possible – there is life and there are things one has to take care of regardless of intentions. So if your friends are busy with something or otherwise just can’t meet your needs – accept it. Stay with them, play at their pace and find something else to do in the rest of your time (possibly help you friends fix whatever problems they have).
Stay true to these guidelines and trust me, you can’t do wrong. You may not be the Mr. annihilator gladiator and realm first, but to be honest these things are appealing only when you dream about them. Once you really do it, stepping over all the people along the way, you find nothing in the end. The only real way to get there is with your friends and there is no other way than that, if you think you see one - it’s all illusion, you can trully take my word for it, I've seen all too many of them.

Of course, others may not do things the same way, they may leave you themselves, they may even abuse the friendship. While this may feel quite bad, you shouldn’t burn bridges. They ARE making a mistake, you (or something else) just need to make them realize that. Once they do, they will come back and the friendship is likely to be even stronger. Unfortunately some never learn, makes me quite sad.

Thanks for reading the longest guide ever, have fun with your friends while building your awesome guilds and being realm first in friendship score, the only score that Blizzard still fails to track properly!

FL.