I played World of Warcraft from late 2006 through Castle Nathria in Shadowlands. I am attempting to come back, and wanted to start with a clean slate on an entirely new account. I forgot, however, that Chromie is disabled for new accounts. All new players are forced to level up through the Battle for Azeroth zones & dungeons. This may be okay for some, but I really didn’t enjoy these zones or the expansion as a whole. I have a few questions:
- Why did Blizzard decide to limit a new player’s choices?
- Is there any way around this (Ie. selecting the race’s original starting zone as opposed to Exile’s Reach)?
And a bit off topic, but–
- Is it still possible to play the “retail” version of World of Warcraft as a traditional role-playing game? Should I just bite the bullet and move backwards into Vanilla Era servers?
- Are there any actual social guilds in the current version that don’t push raiding? All I see on the guild recruitment forums are “Seeking (x) for progression.”
If you are a part of one of these guilds or know of one, please link your website or discord. It would be awesome to join a Dad guild where I can relax and socialize. I will make my new character on your realm. My goal is to take my time with the game, do old content, etc.
Thank you in advance. 
They chose BfA as the new player leveling experience when Shadowlands was released since playing through BfA set you up for Shadowlands story-wise. They decided not to change that for Dragonflight. I don’t think Shadowlands would necessarily make a lot of sense for a new player who has none of the back story, so sticking with BfA was probably the better option.
I don’t think there’s any way for a new player to avoid Exile’s Reach on their first character. But once you reach your faction’s capital city in BfA (Boralus or Dazar’Alor) I don’t think there’s anything stopping you from getting on the boat and going back to Stormwind or Orgrimmar. Outside Chromie Time the different areas have the following level caps:
- Vanilla Zones: 10-30
- Burning Crusade Zones: 10-30
- Wrath of the Lich King Zones: 10-30
- Cataclysm Zones: 30-35
- Mists of Pandaria Zones: 10-35
- Warlords of Draenor Zones: 10-40
- Legion Zones: 10-45
- Battle for Azeroth Zones: 10-60
- Shadowlands: 10-60
You might not be able to travel to all of those areas on a new account at level 10 (I’m pretty sure outside Chromie Time you have to be level 48 to get the starter quest for Shadowlands, for example), so you might have to jump from one expansion to the next as you hit the level caps. And you won’t be able to use LFD for anything other than the BfA dungeons.
1 Like
I should add that if it was me, I’d play through the quests in the BfA capital city up to the point where you get shown the map table & are asked to pick a zone to start leveling up in. That should unlock some options in the capital city like the portal room that are convenient & will also help avoid phasing issues if you come back later.