Hello, I am completely new to WoW. I decided to give WoW a try (currently using free trial) and wanted to experience the storyline and lore.
I am a story-driven person and really love long storylines. I have played GW2, ESO, and FFXIV and I love their storylines. I wanted to know if WoW (all expansions altogether) offers a similar length of storylines like those MMOs I had played.
Thanks!
WoW does not have an overarching and defined storyline the way that FFXIV does (no idea about GW2 or ESO from that perspective, having never played either).
Instead, WoW has expansion and zone-based stories, where the expansion story (after the Vanilla 1-60 zones) is a sort of general plot “this is why we’re in this particular region” punctuated by major plot points in the form of raid cutscenes (at the end of each raid, and occasionally at the beginning or middle).
Each individual zone often has one or more hub-based storylines (for example, the Westfall zone in the Eastern Kingdoms has a CSI-style plotline that takes you all over the zone).
Globally speaking, there is very little continuation between the plots of each expansion, with the storyline wrapping up entirely at the end of each expansion, and a new storyline taking us to the next region in the following expansion. There are occasionally world-changing events which carry over (e.g. the Cataclysm changed a number of zones in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, and those zones remained changed afterwards), but for the most part what you do in one expansion has no impact on any content going forward.
If you’re interested in WoW lore, you might want to check out Youtube. There are a few content creators who specialize in compiling and explaining the lore released in various formats (in-game, novels, comics, etc.). The best of these, historically has been a guy called Nobbel87, and he’s been doing it since pretty much the beginning, so you might want to check his channel out.
Thank you for a detailed information you have provided. Will check out Youtube later for lore.
I am wondering, does our “character” have its own storyline or is it something we have to come up ourselves?
In regards to length, WoW has more story/lore than those other games due to time since launch. This game has tons more content than the other games. You have choices which zones you go to while leveling. Alts can go through different zones.
Keep in mind your currently in zones from 2004 with outdated graphics and sounds. The game gets much much better as you level and go through newer content with more skills.
Also, I suggest running some dungeons in the duty finder from 15-20. I think a good idea to level a few classes from 1-20 to see what you like. You can check out the icy veins class guides to see all the skills, talents, rotations, on each class. There are tons of you tube guides as well.
There are also some role play servers if you want to roleplay with others. Go for highest populations.
Thank you. Glad that it offers a lot content. Thanks for the suggestions. Will check those things out.
I ran a google search and I think Emerald Dream and Moonguard are the most popular Alliance role play servers. That said, the top two Alliance server populations are on:
These two will have like 3X more players than the role play ones. If you don’t want to try and role play with other players, I would Definitely go for stormrage even if it says full. You’ll never wait in queues to get in.
For horde, the top two servers are 1. illidan and 2. area 52. I’m on Illidan and love it. End game zones are highly populated.
The shorter, more basic answer is no. The player characters are referred to by NPCs as “champion”, and played as war heroes of a sort - basically soldiers who are sent to participate in conflicts where death is more than likely, on behalf of the King/Warchief, but who have no real power or involvement in the politics involved (as opposed to the extreme political involvement of the player character in FFXIV).
If you want a real story that matters to you for your character, then the RP servers mentioned by Anacrussys are going to be your best bet. Moonguard has a bit of a… reputation for ERP, but I’ve heard positive things about the RP on both Emerald Dream and Wyrmrest Accord.
Population-wise, Stormrage and Sargeras are definitely the top two picks for Alliance as non-RP servers, I’m biased towards Sargeras because it’s my server (but also because Stormrage has a reputation for being more elitist). My main guild there (not BnS), has a very good and active Discord community, and is great for new players and old alike.
Another good choice would be Dalaran, which was classified as a “New Players” (which actually meant it was low population) server during Legion, and therefore has attracted and built a very good community for Alliance players new to the game over the past few years. I believe it’s currently classified as Medium population, which means it has a good number of players.
I’ve played GW2 very extensively, did PoF and HoT xpacks, didn’t do LW1, but have done LW2-4, and the pre-release stuff of the Icebrood saga. And will go back to it once at some point.
WoW doesn’t have a GW2-style personal story. In the original Eastern Kingdom and Kalmindor (level 60 and under) zones, each zone has its own story and while you do sometimes get a breadcrumb to go to a specific place, its very open ended. You can open the Adventure guide and select many possible, level-appropriate areas.
The individual xpacs have their own overarching stories and each zone in them have a smaller story. Sometimes the story is more evident in an xpac and sometimes the older xpac’s don’t age so well and the story isn’t as obvious.