Which is the best way for someone to start in WOW

So after a year away from WOW my wife decided she wanted to play a game again that was a role playing game that had a bit of depth to it.
So after a lot of head scratching about login names and passwords we finally got her old account reactivated and she set off back into Azeroth with a new character.

Last time she tried out WOW we leveled together and to be honest it didn't work out that well. Being grouped together diluted our experience so we ran into level issues on quests rather rapidly. Also with me being an officer in my old guild I made the mistake of joining the guild with my leveling toon so hence got distracted by guild chat a lot. Over all her interest wained and the account was shut down when she got stalled at about level 12.
This time around we tried a different tact she chose her toon (a Draenei as I think they and the belfs have the more interesting starting zones for beginners being later additions to WOW) and set off in Azeroth. I basically pootled along on my main toon just be be around to give help when needed if she got stuck on anything.
Well it worked a lot better this time round her hunter is now level 16 after only 3 days and she is looking forward with anticipation to getting her first mount having carved a swath through the Draenei with her faithful bear.

This got me thinking for the lower levels of WOW is it really more beneficial to level up alone with advice on hand rather than leveling with someone who knows the game well? I think in our case with me being about all the time previously it took away that "shiny new feel" you get when you first step into the WOW universe. Also WOW does seem to be geared towards solo play at the lower levels to get a feel for the game.
Has anyone had better experiences of leveling together such as Recruit a Friend or have you found like me that the group part of the game really takes off when you have learned your toon by solo play and get into raids and guilds at a higher level?

I hope my wife does get her hunter a long way thins time as I am looking forwards to her experiencing raids and dungeons with the guild. Fingers crossed this time she will have a more fun experience making her own way in WOW rather than having hard bitten me in the background all the time.


Zetter

Finally Got there!

So apart from changing the layout to something a bit more interesting you may have noticed the picture in the title has changed.

Yes after summer did it worst with people moving house, the world cup, holidays and PC breakdowns Kingdom of Rust finally did Glory of the Icecrown Raider. So we now have all spiffy bony dragons to ride about on (note this doesn't apply to me much as flight form is just awesome).

A big hats of to the guild for all the hard work they put in on this and especially to Nightmare and Faster who skillfully lead us to essentially finish the expansion in terms of raiding. We are going to have a go at LK 10 heroic but getting glory was really our goal to complete before Cataclysm hits. Not bad for a 13 person guild who only raids two nights a week.

The final real hurdle was heroic Sindy and for me it was a nice boss to finish on as it really made the healing team step up to the plate. As always the three musketeers of the healing team pulled together and kept everyone alive to see Sindy bite the dust.

I must admit this has been one of the joys of Wrath for me since we formed Kingdom of Rust to be part of a really tight healing team. It has got to the stage where during fights we know know who is doing what almost automatically with the minimum of discussion its like a well oiled machine springing into action.

A lot of us in the guild have yet to put down a marker on what role they will play in Cataclysm and I am sure there will be some people who want a change of pace from what they were doing in Wrath. But I do know that Kingdom of Rust really pushed on due to a solid regular raid structure and a solid healing team who knew what each other were capable of.

I don't know what I will be doing yet in Cataclysm I am tempted to try tanking as a main role as I have written before. But I must admit the temptation to carry on healing is great as I still love to have the ability to save someone from the jaws of certain death. Also for me healing on my druid is very strategic with lots of forward planning which I like as a game style.
Maybe its the temptation to stay with something I know that is safe and that I can do well I don't know but hey I still have I estimate till November to decide.

Zetter

p.s

BONY DRAGON!