I played some back when WotLK was just coming out. I never reached end game content. I think I leveled a character to around 45 and I quit playing. I’m trying WoW out again and I am just confused. I’m leveling a Pandaren monk, and as soon I was out of the Pandaren beginning area, I have no idea where to go, there’s so much stuff in Ogrimmar, what on earth are Timelines? Is there some recommended way to experience the story? Do I even need to bother buying the War Within until I’ve stuck around to level 70? There’s just a lot going on it seems and I’m kinda lost, but I like all the races and stuff that aren’t available in Classic. If there’s a Youtube video or article somewhere that explains this stuff or if someone can just help orient me a bit I would be very appreciative.
Welcome back!
I get it. I really do. It is maximally unintuitive.
Back in your day, you levelled to 60 in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, then travelled to Outland to quest 60-70, and finally did 70-80 in Northrend.
Chromie Time changed all that.
The problem is that there are too many expansions. We now have the base game - what was originally levels 1 to 60 - plus TEN expansions. Not a lot of people want to work their way through the base game plus ten expansions before they get to end game.
So the devs created Chromie Time, aka Timelines, one for each expansion.
Everybody starts at level 1, in their home starting zone or in Exile’s Reach, and gets to level 10 there.
At level 10, you go to Orgrimmar or Stormwind and meet Chromie. In Org, she is in front of the Orgrimmar Embassy, which will be on your map.
You talk to Chromie and decide which Timeline - that is, Expansion - you want to level in. She gives you a starting quest and puts you into a phase where the mobs in that expansion scale to you. So, when you go there, all the mobs will be the same level as you at all times, plus or minus one.
So, at level 10, you can go to Dragonflight, the Dragon Isles, where mobs should be level 60-70, but they will all appear as level 10 to you, and you can do all the quests and dungeons at your own level.
And they have tuned the experience gains so that if you quest around the expansion/timeline, it will get you from level 10 to level 70, with plenty of XP left over.
So, your intended journey to max level is
- Level 1-10: Exile’s Reach or Race Starting Zone.
- See Chromie and choose an expansion
- Level 10-70 quest through that expansion
- Level 70-80 Current Expansion The War Within
It MAY be that when you enter Org at 10 you get a quest that sends you to Dragonflight without talking to Chromie. Usually that works, and you don’t have to make a choice. Dragonflight is generally a good choice of expansion for a beginner or returner anyway, not least because the quests quickly lead you to learn Dragonriding, now called Skyriding, and a free flying mount.
If you do specifically want to level in another expansion, you can go back to Chromie at any time and change your choice.
- LEVELLING IS VASTLY FASTER THAN YOU REMEMBER.
The world record for levelling normally is around 5 hours now. (There is one race that can level even faster with This One Weird Trick …)
You won’t do anything like that, of course, but it does make it easy to raise alts. You can make characters of all different races and classes, and send each one to a different expansion, if you like.
If I were you, I’d just play using game time. I would not buy the current expansion The War Within until I got to at least one character to 70 and was sure I wanted to pay for it. You can do everything up to level 70 without it, but nearly all group content and nearly all players are at level 80, so buy it when you’re ready.
Here is a huge video guide to everything. It’s massively long, but broken up into short 1-2 minute chapters so that you can skip quickly to the part you’re interested in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnzdeoSMkvM
PLEASE do ask again if you have any qiestions about anything!
Beautiful, this is super helpful. Thanks so much.
I quit around the same time as you did. I just now got back into it and decided to play WoW classic: Cataclysm because it leaves off where I quit. I had maxed 80s when I quit now I can explore the cataclysm content and move forward from there. I hear that Vanilla is way different than what WoW use to be.
Perhaps you should try out classic and work your way back into the game.
No, and I’d recommend that you don’t. I’m a veteran of this game and I can’t even muster the desire to play this game anymore. I only return for events, and even those are beginning to be not worth it. A lot of people feel that way. It’s not the same game that it once was.
I quit around the same time, and started with Cata Classic. I was just as overwhelmed as OP when i loaded up retail wow.
Honestly though, i don’t see Classic as the gateway to retail. Theres just too many differences. Aside from my once a month log in to spend my Trader’s Tender, i doubt ill ever bring my old toons out of Org and go exploring retail. Its just too damn overwhelming.
I think you’re right about that. It’s too far away. Too many changes.
I was just asking myself where the point is that WoW was still recognizable.
I can’t pin down a Singularity, a point at which/after which the game became incomprehensible, unrecognizable.
You could go back to Flying, or the planned Raid path in TBC. Or the LFD in Wrath. Or the Spec changes in Cata. Or the LFR opening up a view of Raids, and weakening Guilds.
What you might think of as layers of the game peeled off at different times, in different expansions.
But I’m pretty sure it was still the same game in Mists. And maybe you could still say so in WoD and Legion, despite the devs indulging their MSQ-envy. Somewhere in there is when it went off the rails, and started adding different track.
But after that, it had turned the corner, and was completely out of sight of the original game by BfA.
I don’t think “overwhelming” is the right word. When you’re used to it, you can ignore so much that doesn’t matter - and there IS so much that doesn’t matter. 
So much … clutter. Calling Marie Kondo! 
I wouldn’t call it “overwhelming”. I’d call it “alien”. I’ve been here through the changes - I was croaking in the pan as the water warmed. - so they’re not jarring to me. But I can remember how it was, and see how it is, and understand that both the letter and the spirit are very different.
You CAN learn to be comfortable in the new game. You may or may not ultimately like it, but you CAN learn to understand it and operate in it. Many people do…