How to follow the story?

Hello there,

I’m a FFXIV player but being distraught with its terrible combat system and current battle design, I started free trial recently in here. I’ve known WoW since 2004 but never thought to give it a go until now. Previously I used to play Aion the most.

I started on an RP server on the US (I’m from EU) but ping doesn’t bother me as I’m looking forward to a casual gameplay mostly focused on story, gathering and crafting. How do I follow through the story (or MSQ if you will)? I started Dracthyr and followed the quest to Dragon Isles, but I can see other NPCs have also quests seemingly related to main story, so I’m a bit confused.

Is gathering/crafting viable here? I’m also an achievement hunter/completionist.

I heard plugins here are very well welcome and a must in some areas, should I start as soon as possible?

Thank you for your time.

The MSQ NPCs have a different icon for the exclamation mark above their heads. It’s encased in a dark brown shield. Any other quests are side quests. I would recommend doing all the quests you find as the side quests may give you gear and chunks of experience while also fleshing out the different areas you’re brought to by the MSQ. Characters that have a blue mark with a cycle icon around it are repeatable quests which are either daily or weekly.

You are able to do the Dragonflight professions and earlier ones however since you are on a free trial account doing them for profit wont matter since the amount of gold you can earn on a free trial is capped to a very low amount. If you plan on doing professions for transmog then yes I would recommend leveling that stuff up, especially since some professions can make useful gear or mounts for people and they still sell well on the Auction House.

I would look into getting the curseforge application for your PC, it makes plugins pretty simple, just browsing the options they have on there and reading the descriptions of what they offer can help you decide what you’d like for your playstyle. Since you are a completionist I’d recommend BtWQuest, this helps you track what storylines you’ve completed and what you haven’t yet done.

Another thing to add, you will not earn more XP beyond level 20 on a free trial, and you will be shoehorned into dragonflight until you get a level 50 or 60 (not sure if they increased the level requirement) so you will not get access to chromie time to my knowledge essentially gating you from older stuff until you decide to pay the sub.