I brand new to the WoW, but not new to MMORPGs. I am familiar a bit with the lore and gameplay as I have had friends who play or have used too. I consider myself more of a lore player versus playing for the raids, dungeons, and powerful characters (don’t get me wrong I’ve done a few dungeons!)
Anywho -
My friend and I are almost done with BFA for the exception of allied race quests. I want to play the old expansions and get more of the story and I’d love to learn more for jewel crafting which can be done, for example, in Pandaria. Do players generally make a new character for each expansion? Or can I take my lvl 50 character and play older expansions?
Do I start these storylines/expansions from Orgimmar? It was pretty seamless to jump right into BFA from there.
I haven’t gotten Shadowlands yet and probably won’t until I know for sure I will stick with the game and play a few more expansions.
Once you have a level 50 that has completed the starting quests for BfA up to the point where you have learned the BfA portals to SW or Org, you can level any other character from 10-60 in any expansion other than Shadowlands and Cataclysm by talking to Chromie in SW or Org. For Cataclysm, you need to be at least level 30 and have flying.
Talking to chromie and picking an expansion to level in will adjust the levels of the mobs and drops in your chosen expansion to scale with you as you level through it.
The other way to level in previous expansions is to just go to the starting are for the expansion and start leveling. Each expansion has its own range of levels that won’t scale with you like they would with Chromie time. You could take your level 50 to older expansions and pretty much one shot everything. People often do this to get the Loremaster title and to farm old dungeons and raids for transmog gear.
For professions, you need to talk to a trainer in each expansion to start learning the recipes offered by that expansion.
If you are not using Chromie time, you can get a breadcrumb quest from the Hero/Warchiefs call boards in SW and Org by paging through the breadcrumbs they offer. You may need to accept a few until the expansion you want comes up. You van then abandon the rest. This method doesn’t work with Chromie time.
People do both. If you’re the sort of person who wants to play a bunch of different characters, either to experience the different classes or to have lots of profession alts, it makes sense to do different expansions on them to keep from getting bored of the same story. On the other hand, some people like to have one character that they use for focusing achievements.
The Hero’s Call/Warchief’s Command board works the same in Chromie time as it does without it. (I also haven’t noticed any significant difference in what you get offered — although it might affect the priority a bit.) The two big things that turning on Chrome Time does is that it causes all expansions to scale to 50 (not just the one you picked) and it sets which dungeons you see in the dungeon finder (which is set by the expansion you picked.)
Since you have a lvl 50 character you can levelup a new character in any expansion you want. Evem if you choose Cataclysm with Chromie Time you start in the OG 1-60 zones. It all takes place on Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor as it all ties into the Cataclysm narritive. Lvl 30-35 you learn flying and can jump into the main Cataclysm storylines. Keep in mind when you hit 50 you get sent back to Org/SW and everything reverts to its lower level bracket. But u can always go back and steamroll everything and pick up where you left off. Youll still be 50 and everything will be 35ish.
You can also just solo everything at 50…flying makes things easier. If you want to learn the story just try to complete the Loremaster achievment on one character. Youll earn a ton of gold, Reputations, opening dailies for more gold., earn transmog gear, toys, mounts, achievments. Plus you learn the stories of the various heros and villians of WOW. Take Herbalism and mining and sell everything.
With your BE I recommend getting you heritage armor. Go do Eversong woods/ghostlands then slap on a silvermoon tabbard and spam-solo dungeons until exalted then you get a nice quest to get your new armor set.