Helpful Hints for Newbies

Well first off let me say welcome to World of warcraft! Your about to begin a long journey through a very complex game.
There are several main aspects of World of warcraft that I'll break down for you.

Ultimately, the greatest aspect of this game is gaining levels and experience through killing monsters and completing quests. Where you quest can make all the difference between a good time and a bad time.

The second biggest aspect of World of warcraft is the massive community within the game. There are over 8.5 MILLION players to this game now, and at any given time there will be several hundred people online in one world at any given time. Much like any real life community, there is an ettiquite to World of warcraft and engaging with other players in the world.

Now, I know lots of you are thinking ok, but what about KILLING other people, which is where the PvP system comes in. Now i wouldn't recommend PvP for newbies untill you've got most minor aspects of the game figured out. (note that a newb is someone who is new to a game and wants to learn. A NOOB, is someone who refuses to be corrected when they do something wrong, even when others who are much more experienced are trying to kindly point out that there is a better way to do something.)
But the PvP system is designed to award points for every player you kill that are close to your level, you can spend these points as well as tokens you earn from completing a battleground (a encolsed area where a team of alliance and horde enter for match of capture the flag or king of the kill or "beat the enemy's leader" match.)

Another big aspect of the game is proffesions. You can train two main proffesions, and any amount of secondary proffesions. Basically a proffesion is something like leatherworking, blacksmithing, mining, skinning, alchemy etc that allows you to create and find items you can use or sell from things found within the world.