Hey guys… I’m tired of beating my head here on just trying to find/start the main story quest for Wrath of Lich King. I’m level 23 Alliance and figured I stop BofA and go with WofLK and so I started it with Chromie. I then took the boat to Northend. Upon arrival, I immediately went on a flight to Dalaran without really exploring the zone where the boat stopped initially. The only quest I see here in Dalaran is for the hemingway guy and the portal to below Dalaran. There are other quests here but theyre grayed out indicating somewhere below but I cant find them. Im so confused. I was looking for a quest marker for Lich King. Is there no story for older expansions? am i supposed to just to random quests here and there?
Welcome to Azeroth!
This idea of a fixed, rigid quest line leading you around the zones and through the story from start to finish as you level was really only introduced last expansion, Shadowlands.
IMO, it is a ghastly mistake which has done great harm to the levelling experience, but that’s what the devs have done. I suepect ego on the part of the story writers - forcing players to pay attention to their bit - but what do I know?
We had the first hints of the idea of an overall storyline leading to the final Big Bad starting in Mists, and it has gotten more pronounced since, becoming downright oppressive in the last two expansions.
In previous expansions. like Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, each zone had its own story, or local stories. Certainly these stories were touched on by the Big Bad theme that was infesting the continent, but they weren’t forced down our throats. In each zone, you get to know the locals, and their backstory and condition.
You are free, within reason and level limits, to choose your own path through the zones.
As Alliance, Chromie sent you to Borean Tundra. At your level, you can also choose to start questing in Howling Fjord instead. Or you could do it after Howling Fjord, maybe when you get flight at 30. It’s a more scenic and atmospheric zone, - and the one above it - Grizzly Hills - has perhaps the best atmosphere in the game. If you go to Valgarde in Howling Fjord, you will find quests waiting for you there as well.
As you work your way through levelling, your path will cross with the Lich King on a few occasions, but you will not have any protracted interaction with him. Mostly, he will dismiss you as not worth his time. And these encounters will be few.
The story of the fall of the Lich King itself is not in the quests, but in the three dungeons in ICC, and in ICC itself. The speed of levelling is MUCH greater than it was in those times. You will probably complete only half or so of Northrend, and by that time,you will be high level enough to walk into and solo those dungeons, and ICC if you want to finish the story.
holy cow what an explanation! clear and to the point. thank you. It makes sense now. On my first character i tried to do the Burning Crusades, and as you said I hit level 60 way too early and didnt come close to finishing all zones. I began one shotting everything and thats not my cup of tea so I dropped it and started this priest now and figured maybe the lich king has a more streamlined story. Im a noob so thanks for breaking it down but I do find it bizarre that there wasnt a main story. I know you say you dont like that. But for a noob it gives a baseline to this massive game. Thank you. I guess ill just start somewhere
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The old players who came up from vanilla were noobs when you had to go looking for your quests wherever you were. Wrath was actually greatly improved because there were just two or three quest hubs in each zone with a selection of small quest chains, culminating in a confrontation with a mini-boss who is the big bad of that zone, and then there were cookie crumb quests leading you to the next quest hub(s) or the next zone.
You want to quest like reading a novel with one main plot thread. Wrath is more like reading a short story collection with a single related setting and milieu.
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crazy concept. i never though WoW would be like this. With all the cutscenes they make with these dramatic events and yet here i am doing fetch quests the entire time. This is my exp so far but ive been doing chromie with burning crusades and now wrath of lich king. I didnt finished burning crusades either since i out leveled the content and it became way too easy. but it seems that this is the authentic way which i respect.
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That’s a very good analogy.
The older way introduces you to the world gradually, making it a Hero’s Journey. You start in a strange place, knowing nothing and nobody. As you help people out (and kill things - lots of killing things! 
) you get to piece together the story of what’s going on, who the local Big Bads are, and that finally leads you to the Real Big Bad who is Bigger than all the other Big Bads.
The newer way rams a telegraphed story straight down your throat - and in the last two expansions
- The story is NOT good. No way, no how. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anybody defend more than tiny parts of the story.
- The story is forced and rigid. It leaves no room for individual choice and flavour.
We could view the evolution of this aberration. I think it started in Mists, vaguely. The story started with an event - Anduin’s shipwreck - which led us into destroying things, despite which the Celestials said to let us stay - bad decision, bad, BAAAAD decision there! - and onwards, but we were never on a short and micromanaged leash.
Warlords built on that, and had a very strong narrative, but again, we were still free to roam about.
Legion and BfA gave us in at least one way more choice, with our selection of starting zones, and while the stories within a zone could be linear, we were again free to choose.
And then came Shadowlands. The disaster. Shadowlands broke story, in so many ways.
There was only one choice of story line for levelling. And we HAD to finish it. It was precisely calibrated to get us to max, provided we never deviated. We were not allowed to pick off all the side-quest in Bastion and do a few dungeons or get our gathering up while gaining XP until we hit max, and were then free.
No. We had to do exactly what the Story people wanted, exactly the way they wanted, in exactly the sequence they laid down.
We were not allowed to max out without finishing our Story “homework”. If we did max out, we weren’t allowed to join Covenants, or start Campaigns or World Quests or Events until we had eaten all our cabbage.
This is why I hate - strong word, but now that I’ve riled myself up, it fits - the current model of levelling storytelling.
im just seeing this post now and thanks for putting it that way. But now Im at a loss on what to do with my plan on doing the older expansions before the new ones. Additionally, the task is so daunting and gets real tedious and Im only halfway through TLK Had the narrative been something crazy (which is what I thought) I would just continue on. But after reading your take, im wondering if I should just make a new chat, do the bofA quest and go from there and not bother with the older ones.
You can choose whatever expansion you like! You do, at least, still have that much freedom.
Questing through any expansion will probably give you about twice as much XP as you need to get from level 10 to level 60.
The devs did this so that people wouldn’t be forced to work through a vast number of quests to catch up with the current game. They REALLY, REALLY want everybody in the current expansion ASAP. It’s a pity in at least one way - there used to be value and life in the levelling zones. It is also hard on new players to hit 70 with so little experience after a rushed levelling. But it does make the current expansion busy, with lots of people.
Most people who play have several characters - called “alts” - on the go at once. And working through an expansion is a great wayto raise another alt to high level.
If I were you, I would have as my main aim to get at least one - maybe two - characters to level 70 before prepatch, in the next 3-4 weeks. That will allow you to do the pre-patch activities.
You can always go back and do previous expansions on future alts.
That’s the approach I would take. As for which expansion, that’s all personal taste, except don’t choose Shadowlands, especially on a character higher than 10.
The overall Story To Date is SOOOO huge that you have no chance of covering it all in a few months. You can use the Warcraft Wiki and especially starting with its Timeline page
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Timeline
to look up story elements and characters.
@grainne Thank you so much. I will do that. I just need some direction and i trust yours. Shadowlands is going to be a part of Chromie correct? Or is it a quest that Pops up to get your attention and asks you to do right away? I will ignore it, i Just want to know what to look out for bc for a new player with all the random quests that pop up and remain on the screen regardless of what timeline ur in… it becomes a mess
Shadowlands is just one of the expansions Chromie offers when you talk to her. It won’t follow you around as a quest begging you to take it. You might have a reason to want to go there some day, but not now.
BTW, talking about all the random quests, you have no concept of how that hits you when you make 70. The number of quests that appear out of nowhere is out of control! 
It’s not a real problem, because you can ignore nearly all of them, but it does make you uneasy when you first see it. 
Thank you! ill do that
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I am essentially having the same same problem as the OP. Part of my problem appears to be I started with classic being very confused. Then there’s this demon varathas or something close to that in the court of sylvanas. Well in cataclysm he goes away and there’s an intro narrative about his betrayal. So this seems to happen somewhere in between classic and cataclysm. So I decided with my exile island undead character to go to chromie and select burning crusade… oh boy. Brill and the undercity is destroyed… but if I start an undead in the starting area it’s in a “cataclysm” state, and you get that narrative.
I noticed my loading screen had cataclysm I think when I chose the undead, but as a blood elf it says burning crusade in my load screen. I’m making some assumptions that means that this area is actually in the state it was at the time of the burning crusade.
I read online that these things start to change when you reach something around level 30… that post was before a recent level nerf. So I’m wondering what that number might be now and so if I should halt my leveling at a certain number?
For all their faults I think that bethesda has one of the best approach’s to quest telling. For the most part it’s a handful of linear story lines that take you all over the place. What I’m seeing of this completely unguided regional is a mess and doesn’t feel as fun to me. It doesn’t feel like there’s any story at all. I guess it’s more like real life in that it’s just people dealing with their own problems but… as someone who was playing and reading warcraft books before wow was launched. Only having all that small regional story feels bad and kind of confusing. It’s hard to even retain in the brain.
I can’t say the new approach is better… but the exile island felt better. SWTOR and ESO felt better.
loading screens are based on the content you’re doing.
Blood Elves were introduced in Burning Crusade.
Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are the original 2 land masses.
Eversong Woods/Silvermoon City/Ghostlands were added with Burning Crusade, and have the Burning Crusade loading screen.
(same as the Draenei stuff on alliance side)
were you not given a quest to head to Outland?
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I was, I was more making the point that although I told chromie I wanted the Burning crusade, part of, or most of the world was still post BfA… and yeah, I was playing around with classic, you definitely can’t go back that far with chromie. Essentially chromie isn’t fully doing what a narrative player would would. Not that, as has been said, there’s much narrative to begin with.
the world stays the same no matter which expansion you choose to level in.
the only differences, are a few quests which will phase specific areas while you’re questing.
Classic only exists in the Classic version of the game.
The original 1-60 content was revamped in Cataclysm.
When it comes to Chromie’s options, Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor content is considered Cataclysm
but it does not stay the same based on which area you choose to start in.
Rumor has that it will change based on your level, but I don’t know what level that is, and would like to. Allegedly it used to be 30, but now that the levels have changed…
in areas which have two versions of the zone, you can switch between by talking to Zidormi.
in Tirisfal Glades, she can be found here:
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oh, it’s also worth noting for people that starting as a death knight will start you next to arthas I’d presume in WoltK.
so is there one of her in each of those zones?
she’s in all of the zones which have quests in two different timelines
Arathi Highlands
Silithus
Blasted Lands
Darkshore
Dustwallow Marsh
Uldum
(and a few others)
She shows on the map as:
Talk to her to select which timeline you want the zone switched to