Hi, I’ve played the free trial and have been considering getting this game for a long time and I’ve finally decided to go for it. I’m going to have a few months of break from school and was thinking of playing this to fill my time. As a completely new player, I’m not sure if I should just get Shadowlands or just start a subscription and focus on playing the tons of content from previous expansions. After reading guides and info from sites like Wowhead, there seems to be a huge amount of content and I’m afraid I’ll need a lot more time to actually “catch up” and understand before reaching endgame content. Just wondering what advice I could get from the community 
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There’s no particular rush to buy Shadowlands if you’re a new player. As you said, there’s a huge amount of stuff you can do just by starting a subscription, and that’s what you should focus on right now as a new player. You can buy Shadowlands once you get to level 50.
Not really, no.
I’m going to echo what Tureja said, but with one caveat added. Keep in mind that if group content is what you want to do, most people playing the game right now are in Shadowlands end game content. So if you start feeling that the world at lower levels seems a bit empty, that is why. Happy gaming!
Shadowlands does offer the new starting zone, Exile’s Reach, which is designed to ease new players into the game. I haven’t tried it yet myself, but my friend has said it’s very well designed, and very helpful.
This would make the purchase of Shadowlands worthwhile. Unless the new zone is available now in the pre-SL version of the game.
Exile’s Reach is available regardless if you have purchased SL or not. You can even play that if you don’t have game time active on your account.
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There are some games where you are required to finish every past xpac in order and are locked out from the next xpac’s content until you complete the previous Main Story Questline, but Wow is not like that and you can pick and choose how you want to level and jump around. Unless, you’re a first time player. IIRC you have to do the special starting zone and level in the Battle for Azeroth xpac content because the BFA story sets the context for Shadowlands (the stories are very tightly integrated). After your first character you can level any number of different ways.
Leveling to 50 won’t take long and then it will be time for Shadowlands. You don’t have to buy it right away, but you will need to soon. No penalty for delaying your purchase because it just upgrades the account and it doesn’t make you create a new account.
Leveling is fairly quick for a MMORPG. You likely won’t see that many people leveling as people above stated that currently most players are playing endgame Shadowlands (raid, Mythic + Dungeons, PvP).
To fully experience the game and have fun with it, I would recommend finding yourself a guild of like minded people. It makes doing stuff a lot more fun. It’s not as big of a deal while leveling but if you do decide to purchase Shadowlands and get to 60. The level 60 experience is a lot more pleasant with a guild or a group of friends to play content with. Playing solo is ok too but you run into a lot more toxic players who just expect everyone to know everything in game.
Either way, just play it out and have fun with it.
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