requesting newbie's PvE guide

I looked around for a little bit but didn't see a newcomer's guide to GW (even in the FAQ). If there is one around, would somebody please direct me to it? What I'm looking for is a guide that will just get me to level 20 fastest and tell me what I should be doing along the way.

For example, I read that in pre-searing you should level up as high as you can off monsters and then do all the quests. I did that and got to level 9ish before leaving there, but now I'm in post-searing Ascalon and don't know exactly what I should be doing. Is it like in pre-searing where I should leave the quests for later? Or should I be conquering all the quests I can for experience?

Another specific question I had was about the loot I've been picking up. I've been selling almost every piece of loot and quest reward to the merchant npcs, with the exception of dyes, because I hear that they're worth a lot. Now I see that items can be salvaged and that there are crafting materials. How can I tell what I should be concerned with? What kinds of armor and weapons should I be getting and where can I obtain them?

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, move it if necessary. Thanks in advance for any help.

Try these sites.

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

Risky is spot on with those recommendations. They have more info than you can shake a stick at.

Here comes Neo. IBTL.

Post is much larger than pre, you can do the quests as you go since they get you skills along with XP. Level 20 is like 141,000 XP or something and the level progression is slower for you and the enemies in prophecies, so you don't need to be level 20 right away.

Every profession has different armor ratings, and every type of weapon has a different amount of max damage. You need to meet the requirement before you can do the amount of damage the weapon says.

Those 2 sites Risky gave are also very helpful, they're the GW wiki's. There is plenty of info about armor, weapons, ect, along wth mission guides and pictures.

That's a tall order. Basically, you want to do the quests and missions of the main story line (primary quests). Doing other no-primary quests can also gain you experience, skills, and gold.
You can get new armor (of two levels) in Ascalon City. Check with the armor crafters to see what materials you may need.
Armor and other things you pick up, can be salvaged for materials. Basically, you can salvage most white stuff. Blue stuff is a little better - blue armor may have Runes or Insignias you may want. (Use an expert salvage kit to remove them.
Purple and gold items are worth more, and/or have mods or Runes/Insignias you may want or need, or are worth more. Gold items are often worth much more than there "merchant" value.
However, much of that takes time and experience to really know.
Keep asking questions here and check out the Price check forums for more info.
Also, check out the wikis - there's one linked off the guildwars.com site ( don't have the bookmarks on this laptop.)

I'm going to start doing all the quests I can and exploring. I zoomed out on the map and man the GW world is HUGE.

Armor from collectors seems to be good enough for now, and I don't think my weapon matters all that much. I just realized I could type /bonus and get an awesome staff for using with my necro.

Thanks for the links, they are great resources!

Edit: two replies while I was typing, I appreciate all the info. I will be back if I have more questions, thanks everybody!

That's only one of the "worlds" too.

But yeah, use the wiki and if you can't find the info you need, keep asking questions. That's why there's a Q&A section to this forum.