did you complete exiles reach already?
If I remember correctly the other content opens up once you’ve reached level 50 the first time. So you could play through the BFA content and then make a new character to experience the older stuff.
There is A LOT of old content though. We’re talking thousands of hours worth. So if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you’ll have plenty to do for a long time. Just take it slow and don’t try and do everything at once–it’s kind of easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content WoW actually has if you consider its entirety.
If you follow the story, and take your time, you’ll learn your class/spec at a natural pace.
Asuremyst Isle followed by Bloodmyst Isle, then Darkshore, then follow the questlines in Kalimdor.
You’ll hit 60 long before you’re finished with those quests, so if you’re bored, you can make the jump to Shadowlands when it prompts you.
However, I personally think if you’re new to the game, it pays to have enough experience of open world questing before jumping into endgame or even dungeon/raid running especially via the group finder because of all the toxicity.
If you join a guild, make sure to be as honest about your new player status, which will weed out the poison people and hopefully you’ll find a group that will nurture and teach you the skills needed for group content.
Story progression in zone/expansion order:
- Kalimdor & Eastern Kingdoms - [World of Warcraft (Vanilla)]
- Outland - [Burning Crusade]
- Northrend - [Wrath of the Lich King]
- [Cataclysm zones are all over Azeroth: Vashj’ir, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, and Twilight Highlands.]
- Pandaria - [Mists of Pandaria]
- Draenor - [Warlords of Draenor]
- Broken Isles - [Legion]
- Kul Tiras & Zandalar - [Battle for Azeroth]
- Shadowlands
It will take you a while to get through it all, and might help you understand the Shadowlands story better. Or you could go read up on the overall story on the internet which will take far less time, not be as fun, and Shadowlands might still be the muddy mess I find it, and I’ve played all of the above.
Still, welcome to Azeroth. Don’t mind the trolls.
If you want to make gold, choose Herbalism & Mining. If you want to make things, go do some reading on WoW professions. Some pair nicely:
- Herbalism & Alchemy
- Tailoring & Enchanting
- Skinning & Leather-working
- Mining & Jewel-crafting
- Mining & Blacksmithing
Remember: If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right. 
3 Likes
Ah okay, I will give classic a try maybe. I was told it was bad boring gameplay and full of mean players.
Classic is an entirely different game that will teach you nothing about the modern game at all.
You will be able to experience stories that are no longer in retail though.
1 Like
It is all those things. And no flying. And none of your progression in Classic comes with you into retail.
Skip Classic for now. There’s zero quality of life improvements and horrible graphics.
And no Draenei.
1 Like
The gameplay is much more boring/simple and tbh there are mean and also nice players in every game. It’s more social and gives you a good background for the beginning of the story. Might be worth checking out but only if you don’t mind old games.
personally i play both but there’s much more fun stuff to do in retail.
2 Likes
Thank you so much for that. Helps a lot.
I’m guessing I’ve missed something. I want to start from early zones and take my time. I don’t have much interest for end game yet. I was unable to choose where I started. I haven’t made a new character after finishing exiles reach so I will try that and see if it will let me start from the beginning. I really don’t want to be thrown into BFA without knowing what’s going on.
After you get to level 10 in exiles reach you are sent to stormwind and from there you can go wherever you want! you just can’t queue for dungeons other than BFA. but if you want to go quest in azure’s you can, you just have to travel there.
1 Like
Okay great I think I’m understanding will try that tomorrow… thank you guys for all the help. I really appreciate it. If anyone else has some tips I’m open! Will check back tomorrow. Have a good night
1 Like
I think the easiest way to get there from stormwind is take a portal to Darnassus (the portals are all in the big tower in Mage Quarter) and then the boat.
No problem.
When you create a new character, pick the choice that’s NOT Exile’s Reach.
Stick with the quests you get from NPCs and stay away from the Hero’s Call Boards. The NPC’s will lead you through the story in the right order.
If an NPC gives you a quest to go to a different zone prior to finishing the zone you’re in, finish your current zone first before proceeding. [You should write down which order you get new zone quests, because you’ll eventually get a lot of them because you’re going to out-level the zones rapidly, and start earning hardly any experience. That’s ok. Just keep going.]
Because of the recent level squish, everything is accelerated to get you to endgame content, so once you’re the right level to proceed, you’ll be prompted to move on. Ignore that, and follow the story.
There are lots of websites that can assist you with that, wowhead being the best.
Also… if you want to try a different class, be aware:
- Warriors are plate-wearing melée damage, so you’ll probably have great survivability which is fun as long as you like closeup fighting.
Do some research of the other classes. I prefer Hunters (Beast Master spec) because they’re ranged damage wearing mail, so I don’t die as often as my Mage, Priest, and Druid characters. They’re also easy to play when you’re new, but hard to master playing them really well, but super fun when you do because there are lots of active talents to choose from as well as actively controlling your pet (that take multitasking focus skills like physical juggling if you want to be good at it.) Fortunately, you can also choose some good passive skills and let your pet do it’s thing for an easy-mode version. Whichever one is more fun for you is the right one.
Paladins can be fun too, as they have three distinct specs: Tank, DPS, and Healer… I’m just more of a ranged DPS fan, and like turning my pet into my own personal healing-tank. (Spirit Beasts have a heal that can be turned to automatic or off to make it on-demand.)
Druids wear leather, have four specs, and can shapeshift. Best of all worlds.
If you’re having fun as a Warrior, stick to that for now.
But first once you get into the world as a new character, click on the magnifying glass icon on the left side of the round mini-map in the upper right corner of your UI. That will give you a menu. Check the box next to Trivial Quests. You’ll need that activated to see all quests, especially the ones you out-level. Keep it on.
You’re going to get mean players in either Classic or Retail. Sadly, with online anonymity comes keyboard warriors that are jerks to anyone that isn’t up to their (often inflated) standards or whom don’t agree with them. My advice here is to just roll with it, and if anyone gets abusive, right click their name in chat and report them for harassment or language, whichever is appropriate.
You’ll find some very nice people on any server you choose to call home, so just hang in there and don’t let the bad apples ruin your fun in WoW.
2 Likes
I’m completely biased but I’ll recommend playing (frost) mage if you like ranged damage, not because it’s my favorite spec (not only) but because you get lots of slows that help you while leveling, you get around the world faster because you have teleport and it’s a relatively forgiving spec (even if you don’t play it “right” you don’t really get lots of issues while leveling). It does feel very squishy in the beginning but that gets better over time. It’s also never really wrong to play a mage when you get to endgame content because there’s always at least one mage specialization that is really good, so it’s usually easy to get into groups (partly also because you have timewarp, which is a party wide haste buff and really useful). - and since you said you want to dps, it’s also probably a good choice to play a mage cause all three specializations are dps specs (which can also be a downside if you decide you’d like to go back to healing later on and don’t want to level more characters - if that’s very possible for you I’d recommend druid or shaman… I think draenei can only be one of them, forgot which)
Teleport is particularly useful for new players in my opinion because if you’re like I was, you’ll be extremely overwhelmed with how big the world is at some point and you might find yourself in situations where you have no idea how to get back to a bigger city - and it’s really nice to have teleport for that.
There’s other reasons why I’d recommend frost mage as one of the specs that are probably relatively easy for new players, but I’ll leave it at this for now.
Welcome to WoW, hope you’ll have fun 
1 Like
False.
If you see Crug, run up to him and give him a big bear hug.
He likes that.
1 Like
Welcome to WoW, friend!
1: You’ll probably want to start on the island just to expedite your journey into the game. Otherwise, you’ll end up in the old starting zones and they’re pretty outdated.
2: It really depends on what you like to do. In WoW, you can sometimes do all 3 roles on one class, it just depends what class you are or what you specialize in!
If you like mobility, tanking, and physical damage, stick with warrior.
If you like stability, sparkles, tanking, healing, and damage, maybe paladin.
If you like edgy, tanking, and damage, then keel over, I mean, try death knight.
If you like a magical damage and healing, or like Last Airbender, go Shaman.
If you like pets and damage, go hunter.
If you like magic damage, try mage.
If you like healing, damage, and punching, roll monk.
Finally, if you like healing a lot or doing Lovecraftian dps, try priest.
3: Engineering is the most universally fun profession, I think, but it used to be suited mostly to agility classes like hunters, rogues, demon hunters, monks, etc. I’m not sure if that’s still the case. Cooking is also pretty fun and gives you buffs, but they all require patience; do a profession you’re going to get some use out of. Most people do the profession of their armor type and give up.
Hope this helps, if you have any other numbers let us know!
Even though he won’t be able to use Chromie time to start newer zones like Legion or Pandaria, most zones in the game he should be able to just go to and quest.
1 Like