In-Game Communication

If you want to not feel completely alone in a game like WoW you need to talk to others, right? In order to talk to others you will need to use the in-game chat (which can be confusing).

I'm going to assume you are familiar with chatting in general and need pointers just on WoW specifics.

WoW groups player to player communications based on purpose in several channels:

• the General channel is for 'general communication', that is anything goes (as long as it is legal). If you chat in the general channel you will be head by all players in your current map region (and will see what they type as well)
• the Trade channel is for players who want to sell items to each other without the AH (AH takes money to list items at and takes a cut of your sale price if a buyer is found). You can type in 'trade' any time you are in a major city of your faction and players in any such major city will be able to see what you type.
  
• LFG - the 'looking for group' channel is for people looking for other people to play with (sometimes called to 'group' with, from forming a group). You can join this channel by accessing the LFG window (press 'i'). Anyone who did the same will be able to see what you type
• The 'say' channel and 'yell' channel are channels you can type into at any time and be heard by players who are near you. When you type in 'say' you will be head around you, when you type in 'yell' you will be heard a wider area around you.
• whisper - not really a channel. This is a command you can type in to communicate with any other player and just with them.
  

If you want to chat . This will prepare you to type in the last channel you typed into (by default 'say'). If you wish to switch the channel, type '/', followed by '1' for general, '2' for trade, 'say' or 'yell'.

For instance if you want to say something to those around type "/say Hello all those around me!". If you want to sell something, you may try "/2 selling loads of cloth".

If you want to say something just to your friend Druidex, type "/w druidex Hi, there, druidex!".

Now, suppose you then see a reply from your friend Druidex and want to continue your conversation. You could type again '/w druidex some other message", but it would be easier to just hit 'r'. This will automatically allow you to reply to the last whisper you received.

For more info on how to chat in trade, check this post.