IF u can't launch the game(that's possible, because it's Early Access ATM) go to https://forum.worldwar3.com/index.php?/forum/46-known-issues-and-fixes/ and read, read, read.
If u succesfully launched the game, choosed side(East or West), flag etc. first impulse is to press the Quick Join button and go pwn dem noobs, right? But it's a wrong way to play WW3.
The are many things u need to do. U need to spend 51k(The Farm51, 51k?;) ) of the currency u have from the start. And u need to do it profitably. U need to adjust ur video settings. U need to choose the voiceover u r going to run with on the fields of war. U need to customize ur weapons. U need to adjust HUD/UI settings to ur liking. And only when game is fully customized u can expect that ur perfomance will be defined mostly by ur skillz and not by something else.
Customization Menu will be reworked but I'm sure all the options and settings will be there.

From the start u have 51k of currency. U can buy ~3 guns u like and go fighting(and earning more currency) with almost literally naked azz. Or u can spend them more wisely and buy things that will make ur first experience not so painful(it will be, trust me).
Remember! All attachments that were bought must be EQUIPPED!
Musthave things.
Want it or not but in WW3 there are vehicles and we need to fight them off. Happily, we have no need to buy RPG. But! Current amount of grenades in ur backpack is 2(two). And these 2 grenades deal 18x2 damage to tank. Isn't that much, ye? Max amount of the single stage grenades we can carry - 3(if we find ammopack). Legal way to increase amount of grenades u can carry - choose alternate ammo. +1 grenade. Tandem grenade. It does double dmg, so as u can see 1 tandem grenade doubles the damage u can deal to vehicles. -1500 currency.
Little note. With medium/high magnification scopes RPG-7 is pretty good choice to hunt down snipers or vehicles. Something like this.
And since we are now talking about ways to oppose vehicles there is 1 thing that can be useful - Quadrocopter with 3 different warheads. The one we need is HEAT(black) warhead. It deals ~78damage to APC, ~55 to AFV, and ~44 to tank. And more than enough to infantry. - 5000 currency.
With 0.6.5 u don't need to buy HEAT warhead anymore. But it's attached only to Sucide Drone...Quadrocopter now deals ZERO dmg to vehicles
Vehicles in WW3 can be upgraded too. Even if u don't like them, sometimes u simply have to call them in. But if vehicle isn't customized it'll be destroyed in count of seconds. So there are some things u need to buy. First, without thermal optics it'll be much harder to find and shoot enemy infantry in the battle. There is choice out of 4 kinds of thermovision optics. I recommend u to buy or Thermal Optics(orange'ish targets on blue background) or Infra B&W(white target on dark background). - 3000 currency. Some happy news - once u've bought Optics it'll be available to be equipped on all vehicles that have slot for it.
Next thing u need to buy - Active Protection System(APS). It intercepts incoming RPG grenades. Usually it makes so that u'll have to repair ur vehicle less frequently, but sometimes it rly saves ur life. Tandem grenade hit to the rear side of APC deals 64HP dmg out of 100 of ur HP amount. Without APS first decent player with RPG will be ur last. There are two types of APS. Read specifications carefully and choose one, that more suits u. -7500(-10000) currency.
Next are smoke grenades. Why? Smoke is transparent to Thermal Optics. -1000 currency.
Do not forget to add all the purchased assets to loadouts and u can forget about spending money on vehicles for a while.
ATTENTION! How to change loadouts. Press only the pointer that is to the right from the tab with vehicles name. Pointer transfers u to the vehicle's loadout. Pressing tab with vehicles name erases all ur customization. Customization menu will be reworked, but now it is as it is.
With this all purchases in vehicles and anti-vehicles part of the store are done. There are also turrets, alternate ammo,extra armor etc. If u like vehicles u'll easily find on what u want to spend extra 100-200 thousands of currency. Above are only must have things.
Now what we have?
51000 - (1500 + 3000 + 7500 + 1000) = 39 000 of unused currency.
Now we need to customize our weapons. There are few weapons available from the start.
Weapon handling in WW3 is heavliy affected by what parts/attachments that weapon has. Just look at the picture below. Only as example.
SCAR-H. Rifle with one of the highest recoil. Left one as it is right out of the store. And right one is with long barrel, forehand grip and changed bodyparts. Shooting full-auto 20 rounds. See the difference in recoil and spread? So, I think, there is no objection that some parts simply must be bought. But take into account that in WW3 weapon customization menu is divided into 2 parts - "attachments" and "bodyparts". And only attachments have stats that affect weapon handling. Bodyparts are only visuals. We don't have much money, so now we go only for attachments.
Attention! Some bodyparts are blocking some attachments, so sometimes u need to buy extra handguard to be able to attach the grip u want.
First. Scopes.
There are collimators(1 is unlocked for free) and Holo-sights(x1-x2 magnification). Medium-magnification(x3-x5) scopes. High-magnification(x6-x8) scopes. And special scopes with thermal BW vision and x4 - x8 zoom. ThermalVision scopes have latency of image appearance close to ~0.5 sec so NO, there will be no quickscoping with them. And they have limited range of displaying enemies silhouettes, so there will be no sniperhunting out of 150m range. So choose Special Scopes only if u r sure u want to buy them. Sorry if disappointed u.
Oh, yes. There are also Iron Sights. But almost nobody uses them.
Great job was done by Atway. U can check the scopes in his video. One or two reticles are changed but u'll get an idea.
Choice of the scope u'll be playing with depends on ur playstyle but u need to have at least 3-4 scopes with different magnification. One x2 holo sight.-2400 currency. One medium magnification sight. -3500 currency. One no-magnification sight. -2400 currency. High magnification FFP scope is good enough.
Second. Grips. There is 1 best overall grip - Juno Grip. -3600currency. But! It can't be putted on some weapons, so u need to buy one extra grip. 2nd best grip is Monster grip V2. Or u can look for combo grip+flashlight/laser(flashlight+laser).-(3600~5100) currency And there are bipods. They are incredibly good when u r shooting full-auto while prone. Especially with machineguns.-4800 currency.
Third. Silencers. Silencers, flash-hiders and compensators use the same slot. It's for u to choose buy or not to buy, but I can't run'n'gun without silencers.
Upd.As of now(past 0.6.5 patch) silencers now completely remove muzzle flash. Now they are must-buy thing .
Magazines. There are many magazines in WW3. Starting with 10 rounds mags and ending with 60 rounds for 5.56*45 and 75 rounds for 7.62*39 drum mags. With WW3's CSlike ammopool reloading system drummags are very popular and almost must-have parts.- 4800x2 currency
All above are must-have purchases. Later u'll find ur favorite scopes, rifles etc. but these few things are the set that wouldn't make u feel like the game is from the start limiting u in some aspects of gameplay.
34000 - (2400 + 2400 + 3500 + 3600 + 3600 + 4800 + 4800x2) = 9100. U can buy 1 or 2 more scopes. Or silencer. And that's all. Now u r broke.

1 thing u need to know. Battle Points that u r receiving for killing and performing actions in WW3 convert to in-game currency with 40% ratio. The more effecient u r on the battlefield - the richer u r when match ends. Many times I've seen squads with squadleader that were attacking/defending CPs without orders. That's a big mistake. Just look at the picture.
When u r squadmember u can earn 50 points for kill and 100 for dmg dealt. AND if u r executing squadleader's order u additionaly receive 100 bonus points for each kill. Squadleader for performing a kill in ordered area receives 100 bonus points too.
When u r squadmember and u r capturing/recapturing Control Point for completing the task u receive 150 bonus points and squadleader receives 100 bonus points for each squadmember in area of order. SquadLeader doesn't receive bonus points for capturing CPs by himself.
When u r squadleader and ur squadmembers kill someone in ordered area u receive 200 bonus points per kill.
And even more. All the actions like healing/resupplying ur Squadmates give u x2 amount of experience. For example healing teammate with First Aid Kit(syringe) gives u 33BP, the same action when u do it to squadmate gives u 66BP. TEAMWORK IS REWARDED.
Or if someone asked for healing/ammo, if u give it to them not long after the request u'll receive 25BP for doing/being good.
It's heavily dependant on SquadLeader, how much experience points u'll earn while playing, so don't hesitate to ask him for orders and don't forget, that if he do not react to ur request for 1min - u'll be the next SL.(The king is dead, long live the king!). If u will be bad SL too, u'll be demoted too. If u don't want to ask SL for orders or don't want to follow orders u can always create ur own squad with blackjack and hookers. There is 1 hint. Squadleader has 5 sec spawntime, while for squadmembers it is 10 secs.
Summarizing, if SquadLeader is at least decent, he can increase ur overall score by x1.3-1.5. The better u execute orders - the faster u'll buy the guns, camo, moduls, strikes u like. Think about it.

There is no "best choice" if we are talking about Video Settings as there is too high variety in PC configs. U just need to know, that this game is CPU dependant so sometimes it can be bottlenecking ur performance. So, the only way u have to choose ur best Video Settings is to spend some time in Settings Menu. U don't need any extra programms as all the needed tools are in game.
First, u go to GamePlay - Advanced settings and at the bottom u'll see FPS Counter tab. Toggle it On and go to Video Settings. There is little thing - even when u r in menu FPS Counter shows current FPS as if u r playing the match. So, when u r changing ur Video Settings in menu ur FPS digits are changing accordingly. U just need to keep in mind that usually:
Medium in-game FPS ~ in-menu FPS/2.
Lowest in-game FPS ~ in-menu FPS/4.
And then u can go changing ur Video Settings.
This is how looks FPS counter when changing settings in-menu.
But again, keep in mind that picture u'll be seeing on ur screen is affected the most by these few parts:
Effects, Shadows and PostProccessing.
Will u see customized camo or not is decided by Effects part. If u want to see camo - Effects must be no less than Medium.
Shadows. Currently with Shadows on Low u don't have dynamic shadows. Sometimes it's a little disadvantageous, BUT!, for PCs with low and medium rigs turning Shadows Low can bring u up to 15-20 percents FPS increase. So, u better spend some time comparing Low and Medium Shadows and only then decide, what's more to ur liking. And 1 more thing. When u turn Shadows High and "higher":p u'll see that there is fogey effect added. That's why I never played with Shadows higher than Medium. But that's again for u to decide.
PostProcessing. It can't be explained in a text with few words. At least with my vocabulary. All I can say it's like it adds some kind of dispersed light with soft shadows appearing here and there. And the picture starts to look more "real". Just compare Low and Medium settings. But keep in mind, that PostProccessing when Shadows are Medium and higher requires AntiAliasing to be non less than High or all ur shadows will look "grainy" with many easily distinguishable dots. So, AA is a must-have? It's again for u to decide. Because again there is 1 BUT - AA is supposed to smoothen the picture but in the same time it makes it kinda soapy, so on long ranges small details are lost and picture isn't that sharp(talk about Sharpen settings). As I've said previously, if u play a little with Sharpen stripe with disabled AA, then, I think, u'll find settings that will satisfy u.

All-ultra, Sharpen 100.


All-ultra, Sharpen 10.


All-ultra, No Anti-Aliasing, Sharpen 10.


All-ultra, No Anti-Aliasing, Sharpen 50.


All-Ultra, No Anti-Aliasing, Sharpen 100.


And finally, that is how game looks with Draw Distance Ultra, (Effects; Ligthing, Shadows; PostProcessing) Medium and Sharpen 20 everything else Low.

Draw Distance Ultra, Meshes High (Effects; Ligthing; PostProcessing) Medium and Sharpen 20 everything else Low. These are my current Video Settings.

U can see the difference, but there is nothing that will allow to say that game on low-medium looks like "krap"... I'm using these last 2.
And lastly. Go to Video Setting - Basic, find Brightness stripe and make it 60+. Otherwise dark corners will be too dark. I'm playing with 65.
With this u'll spend a little more time(up to an hour) customizing ur game. Luckily with Audio no such a problems exists.
Upd. With introduction of 0.7patch if u go to VideoSettings and press F button the background would became transparent and u'll see how all the changes affect the picture in real-time. With enabled FPS counter u can choose the settings that would be satisfying both aesthetic- and performance-wise and do it much more faster.
It's seems that in new version there we will not see this rly useful feature. At least in Alpha test there was no. Improved version, my azz.
UPD2 Patch 0.8.7.1 times. After playing all these years I think I have found more or less suitable way to fix the problem with Anti-Aliasing and it blurring the picture. U need to set ur in-game resolution 1 step above ur real resolution. For me it's 1920*1080 instead of my 1600*900. And works almost as good as A-A on Medium-High. Play with Sharpen ofc to adjust it to ur liking. And of course u need to have some extra performance to do it. U can set resolution 1 step below if u have weak rig, but u'll need to see and decide is the pic worsening worth it or not.

All the audio settings are in Audio Settings. No surprise here. With, again 1 little BUT. Ur character's voiceover is being chosen in soldier's Customization Menu. Right lower corner of the screen. Currently British and American English, German, Polish, Russian and French.
My choice is German's Christian voiceover. I just like how he shouts: Hans, get the flammenwerfeeeer! - or - Bang-bang, Arsсhloch!
All national voiceovers have their unique jokes and taunts.
And in the Audio Settings part itself u can choose what languages will be voiceovers of ur teammates/foes.
It can be "original". Ur teammates will talk languages that they've chosen themselves. I do not recommend to use it. Sound is very important for environmental awareness, so it's better when both team speak their own unique languages, so u'll always know friend or foe is behind dat corner. But plz, be aware, that game is not finished, and sometimes friendly soldiers shout something in the "original" voiceover and sometimes it coincide with enemies voiceover. Devs know about that bug.
And 1 more thing. Turn off or not background music - that's for u to decide. I turned off.

HUD/UI is customizable too and in a wide limits.
Gameplay section of Settings serves for HUD/UI adjustments.

• Gameplay- Common.

What we rly need are:
Game Launguage. Here u choose what language game will use.
HUD Opacity - 100. Always.
And then we go right to the colorful stripes. They are VERY important for ur gameplay. Just press on the stripe and u'll open palette tab where u can choose ur preferred color for that stripe. I must say 1 thing. U can choose any color u want. U r not limited to only red and it's tones for enemies, for example. Enemies can be light-blue and allies can be red. Choose any color u want for any stripe u want. But! The more toxic color u'll choose - the faster will start aching ur eyes and head. So, compromise, compromise.
First stripe - Team. It shows what color all icons of ur allies will be. All means literally all - icons of vehicles, soldiers, dropped packs, quadrocopters and loitering ammo. Even AT mine's icon will be colored with the chosen color. So keep in mind, that the more bright and noticeable will be icon, the more it will differ from all other colors on the battlefield the easier will be ur life. It'll be more likely for u to find dropped kit and more likely u'll not teamkill ur allies with friendly fire(be prepared, it'll happen a lot in the first hours).
2nd stripe. Squad. U can make it the same color as "team" or can give it it's own unique color, but remeber all that's been said about being noticeable.
3rd stripe. SquadLeader. I'm usually running as SL and yellow is already my habitual color. Again it must differ from all other colors.
4th stripe. Enemies. I think there is no need to explain why it must differ from stripes that are all above?
5th stripe. Neutral. This colour have Control Points when match starts. All vacant vehicles have the same colour. Dropped after death weapons also have icons this color. It's not so important as Team color but FYI there was 1 guy in RU-segment that made his Neutral stripe gray-coloured and later was asking wtf is going on and why can't he see the icons of CPs.
Finally 6th stripe. Owner. It's ur color when u r not SquadLeader. Doesn't rly matter what color it will be, as u can see ur color mostly only when u r dropping packs with ammo or when u open map.

• Gameplay - Soldier.

Minimap Scale. How big will be ur minimap that appears when there is friendly UAV in the air.
Minimap Distance. What distance will be shown on minimap.

• Gameplay - Hitmarkers.

What color will be x-markers when u will hit the target. I made infantry armor hits markers white as it allows to easy distinguish armor hits even in real-time action. And then there is no need to start blaming netcode or devs, when u see 3 or 4 white x-marks of armor hits.
Same goes for vehicles. U can easily see that u r damaging optics or APS even on long distances. Especially on long distances. And yes, u not only can damage vehicle's modules - u MUST do it.

• Gameplay - Worldmarkers.

Very important tab.
Any Markers. Enabled - u see 3Dmarkers of CPs, vehicles, SOLDIERS, ammo/medpacks etc. Disabled - u do not see. U like to play lottery deciding friend or foe is in front of u? Turn markers off.))
Names and Distances. Names and distances near soldiers and CPs icons. Help a little not to start friendlyfiring. Better keep them ON.
Opacity. Below 75 = Any Markers are Disabled.:) Always 100.
And finally most important tab. Scale. The higher are digits - the larger are icons on ur screen.
The larger are icons - the less chance of Friendly Fire, but the more clunky is screen with all the rombs, circles etc. I'm running with 55-70.

Now, there is nothing else I have to add. Hope all the mistakes didn't make all the text above unreadable and u are reading these words.:P
Hope it was useful and u'll customize and adjust WW3 menu to ur liking. And, PLZ, remember that WW3 is unforgiving to newcomers.