Dugi’s Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide Reviewed

Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide Reviewed!

This week brings my next in-depth WoW leveling review, and this time its Dugi’s Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling Guide. What did I think? Is it worth checking out?

Keep reading and find out!

My last week of play has had me going from level 30 through to level 35, mostly in Hillsbrad Foothills, Thousand Needles, and Stranglethorn Vale.

The key differences I found in Dugi’s Ultimate WoW Guide when compared to the other guides on the market are:

their versatility,
their flexibility, and
a comprehensive range of information that goes beyond just leveling.

Dugi gives you all the guidance you need on where to go next and when to level the fastest, and his guide also gives you the tools and assistance you need to make buckets of gold, or how to spec and kit out your character for PvP.

The way Dugi’s Ultimate Guides do this is through the use of 3 bundled mods that have been expertly tied into his leveling guide – they show you exactly where to go, and in what order to most effectively complete a series of quests.

The mods & their interfaces are also easy to use once you get used to them – and using the bundled map mod is a bit like a combination between Google Earth and Supreme Commander, and works very, very well to give you a clear picture on exactly how to get to your next quest location in the fastest way possible.

Dugi’s Ultimate guides are also about the most full featured and well rounded available – you can get gold guides, class guides, pvp guides and profession guides, all designed to get you to level 60, 70 or 80 as quick as you can.

But enough preamble – lets get into the nuts & bolts of Dugi’s guide and talk about the installation, ease of use, and its overall effectiveness in leveling you fast.

Installation – 5 out of 5:

Extremely detailed point by point install guide. Step by step instructions are given in easy to follow format and you’re never left wondering what goes where. Both text and a video demonstration are provided to leave no doubt how it works. Dugi has also been thoughtful enough to include a forum for people, just in case something still somehow goes wrong.

My experience was 100% positive, and I believe only the greenest of newbies couldn’t work out how to get the guide functional after the guidance provided. If you can install World of Warcraft, you can install this. Easy.

Ease of use – (3.5 to 4.5) out of 5:

I’ve given you a score in brackets for Dugi’s Ultime Guide because there’s a small learning curve. So to begin with I felt I could have had a bit more guidance (3.5), but after a few moments of familiarization I was really comfortable and impressed with the way the guide worked (4.5).

Selecting which quests I wanted to track was easy – and was one of my favorite parts of Dugi’s Ultimate WoW Guide. Simply click the quest to be tracked from the interactive quest tracker (which replaces the normal non-interactive quest tracker), and a waypoint arrow and map objective pop into view, leaving you in no doubt how to best get there.

For some quests with objective locations, you might still ask after you arrive there, “Where do vultures spawn? Only at this waypoint? Or do they appear elsewhere?” After all, its common to kill off all your foes in an area (or arrive just after someone else has) and then begin to wonder where else you can find them.

To solve this problem, Dugi’s guide pops a transparant overlay of exactly where you need to hunt to kill a certain monster. A simple and very effective use of a map mod.

Dugi has also integrated some excellent questing notes from Lightheaded into his guide. If you ever get a confusing or tough to figure out quest, Lightheaded includes pre-loaded quest notes next to every quest in the game. A great time saver & can clear the air for you from within the game. Just click any coordinates in the Lightheaded info window, and your waypoint arrow will point the way for you – very handy.

So what about the guide itself?

The level 1 to 80 guide, which is available for both Horde and Alliance, is of course an in-game leveling guide which requires no alt tabbing to view. The guide integrates itself with an excellent add-on called “Carbonite”, and each time you embark on a new quest you’re provided with a minimap location and waypoint arrow pointing the way.

The guide also has its own help section on how to use it, which covers everything you need to know on how to get the most out of your time.

The guide is divided into “books” and “pages”, so, for example if you’re level 35, you click the book which covers level 30 to 40, and then choose from a page from within the book. For me, the first pages covered level 30, and I went along from there, just clicking down the page as I completed quests.

Very easy to use.

To improve the guide and make it simpler to use, it would be nice if you could simply double click a book title to be taken directly to the page selection screen. A minor gripe, but I like to be thorough.

I’d also like to see Dugi’s Ultimate WoW Guide include a more detailed “Welcome screen” when the mod first loads. These kinds of welcome screens are an ideal way to help new users come to terms with a guide quickly, no matter how easy they are to use or how much help is available.

After using Dugi’s guide for a few short minutes, every part of his in-game leveling guide was as comfortable for me to use as WoW itself, and I believe you’ll come to rely on the excellent combination of inside information, detailed maps, directions and waypoint arrows to get around quickly.

Dugi’s Ultimate Guide has more features and information than any other out there, especially if you’ve gone ahead and got the gold, profession and pvp guides — all of which are very in-depth and thoroughly researched guides… and they work! I went from 7 gold at the beginning of using Dugi’s guide (I had just bought the most expensive gear I could find), and finished at 91… and I was only using ONE tip he gave me from his gold guide.

91 gold from just 1 tip!

Guide effectiveness – 4.5 out of 5:

Dugi’s Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling Guide does its job very well. An in-game guide that tells you which quests to accept and where to level the fastest from a leveling pro is a great start… but when you add the other fully integrated mods and guides, Dugi’s Ultimate WoW guide becomes one of the most full featured and flexible guides available.

If you go for Dugi’s package deals and get his profession, leveling, pvp and gold guides, you’ll find there really is nothing else you’ll want to complete your leveling wish-list, and there’s nothing else that puts as much value into one package.

Dugi simply loses a half point for not making a more comprehensive welcome screen for his mod. This is something personal that I like, and I believe it would help a lot of newbie WoW players get up to speed with the guide quicker.

Conclusion – 4.5 out of 5:

Very fast, flexible and comprehensive guide, with a full featured suite of leveling mods and add-ons that’ll become your best friends in no time.

What’s Dugi’s Guide the best at?

The overall package is unmatched. You might find a faster Horde route with Joana, you might find automation with Zygor, but Dugi offers a stunning all round package that together can’t be beat.

I think you’ll find Dugi’s Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide a very worthy investment into your World of Warcraft experience, and after few days you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.