World-of-warcraft – How to know what dungeon I’m in

The Dungeon Deserter debuff was implemented when the Dungeon Finder first came out, and has had several revisions since. It's intended to force you to stick with a group for a certain period of time rather than dropping group based on your own personal bias (for example, maybe you really don't like Paladins and the group you just got slotted into has four of them).

As it is designed now, you should receive the Dungeon Deserter debuff if you leave the group before the last boss is defeated (the last boss is generally the boss listed on the dungeon's achievement, for instances where you go after the last boss before optional bosses).

This is all not to be confused with the hidden-ish Dungeon Cooldown debuff, which prevents you from requeueing for a random dungeon for 15 minutes after entering a dungeon. This is to prevent pre-made groups from "rolling the dice" over and over in rapid succession to get the "random" dungeon they prefer.

However, the implementation of both debuffs has left a lot to be desired, and it's fairly easy to avoid getting either debuff. It's definitely considered an exploit to intentionally circumvent them, and Blizzard is constantly working on ways to improve exploit detection, but you generally won't receive the debuffs for things outside of your control.

For example, you'll avoid getting the debuffs:

• If the rest of the group leaves before you kill the last boss, leaving you by yourself (or even with one other person) in the dungeon, and
• If you complete the dungeon before the Dungeon Cooldown debuff expires.

I don't like grinding myself and I think WoW is one of the better games at avoiding it. For example, if you need to kill 12 enemies, you'll usually also have a quest that requires you to collect something in the same area and also one to kill a boss there too. You focus on the boss quest and you end up completing the others as you go.

If you do decide you need more gametime than 7 days, you can pick up the vanilla game for around £5/$7 (if you look around a bit) and that'll give you another 30 days of play.

Early mistakes/things you should know:

• Don't buy anything off the Auction House, you can get all your gear from quest rewards. You'll just be throwing your money away at early levels.
• If you want to do any professions, pick either herbalism (gathering herbs), mining or skinning (skin animals you kill for leather). You can sell the items you gather for good money. The other professions rely on the gathering professions, so you really struggle with them on your first character unless you have at least one gathering profession. Pick two gathering professions for maximum financial gain - you can always drop one later if you want to pick up something more useful.
• People will advertise their guilds in trade chat when you're in cities. Look for one that seems friendly and /whisper them. The main channels in WoW are zone bound - so you can only see trade chat in cities for example, and the general chat for your current zone. This means it can be quite hard to get help through them when you're out questing. Guild chat is universal and hopefully much more helpful. You can get by without one, but guilds have guild rewards, such as bonus XP and lower repair costs, so its worth having one. NOTE: don't ask the guild for money for epic flying or for anything from the guild bank until they trust you enough to give you access - it seems to be a common newbie move.
• You can follow quest chains all the way through the game (from level 1 to 85). But if you are confused about where to go next, or just bored with your current zone, there are Hero's Call boards in all the major cities that'll point you at your next/alternate destination.
• At level 10 you get to pick what 'spec' you want to be. On each spec there is a little symbol that indicates what type of role that spec will play. For example, a little dagger means a DPS spec, a little shield means a tank spec, a cross means healing. Some classes, such as Hunter can only play in DPS roles, where as others, like Druid, can play all three. At 30 you can buy a Dual Spec and switch between two different roles depending how the mood takes you.
• Use the Dungeon Finder when it becomes available. You pick what role you want to play (Tank, DPS or Healer) - make sure you pick the right role to match your spec, if you're a Paladin, for example, and your playing a Retribution spec (which is DPS) but you queue as a tank, your new party friends won't be too happy with you. Dungeon Finder finds you companions from other servers, not just your own. Queuing as DPS can take 10+ minutes, queuing as a healer or tank is usually less than a minute. When your party has been assembled you'll be teleported to the dungeon, and teleported right back to your old location when the dungeon ends - meaning you can queue while you're out questing.
• If you like a bit of PVP, you can queue for battlegrounds at... level 10, I think? Even on PvE servers. It works much like Dungeon Finder but without needing to pick a role. It's worth reading up on the different battlegrounds though, each battleground has different win conditions. On one you might have to capture a flag, on another you might need to capture three towers.

That's all I can think of right now, hope you enjoy the game :)