Back after seven years (maybe) & wondering about a few things

Guides New/Returning Player Questions & Guides
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I played WoW quite a lot quite a few years ago. Raided with my guild during late MoP (I still have fond memories of killing Garrosh on heroic, it felt quite good :innocent:) and left some months into WoD (after the guild had also broken up, more’s the pity).

Now, after seven or so years, I couldn’t resist creating a new free account and see how the game has changed. After 3 or 4 hours of play I am level 13 on a Pandaren shaman (I had chars from all Alliance races and one Horde, but never this class, at least :upside_down_face:, so there is some novelty.

So far the game seems unchanged to a large degree (though is it me or has it become slightly more cartoonish and less immersive?), but a few things make me wonder.

  • I experimentally created two chars from different races and they both started in a story with a lot of videos and plenty of ships. The different starting zones for the various races, are they gone for good? I kinda would’ve enjoyed living some of the different background stories again.
  • From a few guides I read I got the impression that once out of the starting zone, level 10ish, one might be able to quest in basically all zones in the old continents (EK, Kalimdor, Northrend even?) because the mobs would scale, as it were, with my own level. But I didn’t find a starting quest to go somewhere other than Kul Tiras (sp? more ships …) and I confess I don’t recall how to get to a different continent … I think I would be curious about questing in Northrend, something I never quite got round to doing in my earlier spell with the game.
  • I got the impression from my first 13 levels that the game has become dramatically easier. Is that so? When I first played, I died regularly during questing. I vividly recall that my erstwhile main, a human mage, was killed over and over again by a small pack of wolves near that crossroad village just outside Stormwind. Admittedly, a clothie, and I would have to lie to say I particularly enjoyed the experience :grinning:, but it taught me something about effectively using my (few) spells. Now with this here shaman so far I haven’t as much as once come even remotely close to dying. In fact, only once did my health bar drop perceptively, to about 70% or so. At the end of the starting zone I even did a small dungeon with just one other player and never broke a sweat. Truth told, it feels slightly boring … :thinking:
  • I left the game with three well-geared level 100 chars (pre-level squish, obviously) who had quite a number of heirlooms between them. I am still on a free account. Should I return to a sub, would it be worthwhile pursuing getting them back? I understand there is a process. Or would you rather advise I start from scratch because so much has changed?

(On a side note, I am kind of scared of re-subbing for I was, I believe, seriously addicted to WoW back then, which was a reason that, upon returning from a vacation, I simply cancelled my account without once looking back because otherwise I wouldn’t have managed to quit. I might still find it wiser to not return. But still, if you have any comments on my musings, I’d be quite interested. :slight_smile: )

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Welcome back (provisionally!)

The original starting zones are still there.

With Shadowlands, the levels were “squished”, roughly cut in half, and the mechanic of Chromie Time was introduced. This brought A LOT of changes to levelling.

The speed of levelling was increased a lot.

You can level from 10 to 50 nicely with the quests in any expansion. That is, at level 10, you can talk to Chromie outside Stormwind Embassy or Orgrimmar Embassy (it will be on your map) and Chromie will send you to start questing in that expansion. So, for example, you can hit level 10 and ask Chromie to send you to Broken Isles to play through Legion.

While in Chromie Time, all the mobs in all the zones of the expansion you have chosen scale to you. If you are level 33, they will be level 33, or at least somewhere in 32 to 35.

Whatever expansion you level through, when you hit 50, Chromie will recall you and start you on Shadowlands, if you have bought Shadowlands, to complete levelling from 50 to 60.

HOWEVER, if you are a New Player, Chromie will not offer you a choice; you must take the quest to start Battle for Azeroth expansion in Kul Tiras. Also, if you are a New Player, you will not get the choice of starting zone; you will be required to play through the new “tutorial” zone of Exile’s Reach to get to level 10.

It is a great shame you missed levelling your Pandaren naturally. The Wandering Isle is a beautiful starting zone for Pandas.

At level 10, you can get out of the “New Player box” to choose an expansion if you quest in Boralus long enough to do the introduction and meet everyone - Bank, Inn, and so on. Once you have completed all that and ready to start proper questing in Kul Tiras, you can go through the portal back to Stormwind, and Chromie will now talk to you. I don’t think you will get a choice of starting zones for new characters untill you get a character to 50, though … not certain about that.

Mobs in levelling zones have indeed become dramatically easier.

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I think that explains the answers to your questions.

As for what you should do, that is harder, and a matter for you, ofc.

I think it is safe to say that Shadowlands has made WoW non-addictive. Sadly, if the devs were concerned about too many people spending too much time in the game, they certainly fixed that problem.

I have a real-life friend who, like you, was concerned about how much time she was spending in the game in Mists. She played partly through Warlords, and dropped out both because of work commitments and because Warlords was a bit too heavy for her PC. She has come back, but it doesn’t look like she will stay; she barely plays, and is reluctant to log in except to do a round of daily quests with me.

Unless your thing is to run non-stop dungeons with the new Mythic-Plus dungeon system, there is not much you will want to stay in the game for once you have completed the basic content.

I would suggest, if you have finished the introductions in Boralus, that you go say hi to Chromie, and see if she will send you to one of the expansions you’ve missed. If not, come back here, and we’ll troubleshoot what more you need to do to unlock her. Or finish BfA now that you have started it, and choose another expansion for your next character.

The best way to cover multiple expansions is to level one character per expansion.

There’s a lot of good content in the expansions you’ve missed, and maybe the older ones you never finished as well. And when you hit 50, you can solo the older raids and dungeons. There is now a LOT of life in the free-to-play “Starter Edition” of the game, without buying Shadowlands or paying a sub.

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If you still have your old e-mail address, you should have no problem getting your old account back if you want. Even if you don’t, I am told Blizzard Support are very good at reuniting people with their original accounts if you send them a scan of some ID.

Any gear you have on your original level 100 characters (would be level 40 now) is not important. You will get better gear from questing immediately. But if you have a fondness for the character, and the memories, that I would eventually get my old account back if/when I was ready to come back to Shadowlands.

Please ask again if you have any more questions or need any help!

You will find most game information you might want from

icy-veins.com for how to play your class

wowhead.com for quests and items and such

and of course on YouTube.

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:sunglasses:

Well, at least one good thing hasn’t changed–Gráinne is still here to answer all stupid and not-quite-so-stupid questions. :grin:

Either you’re a far more serious addict than I ever was :sunglasses: or the game can’t be all that bad. :wink:

Actually I didn’t. :upside_down_face: I did the Wandering Isle when I was trying to convince my spouse to play WoW with me. Didn’t fly. :joy: But I’ve seen it, turtle, monasteries, martial arts and all.

Yeah, pity. Feels about as exciting as grinding or farming for rare pets so far. Without the rare pets that is. :expressionless:

Yes fine, thx, I will do that. :slightly_smiling_face:
Back then I did all zones in Kalimdor and EK and Pandaria and Cataclysm (which ended up being my favorite) but only one in Northrend (plenty of dragons and some high spire?) and a couple in Outlands. Was a bit hard to organize back then, keeping within the right level range so you could manage the quests but still get XP for them. But rewarding, in a way. Missed most of the dungeons though because they would have leveled me too fast. :no_mouth:

Though come to think of it, one of my fondest memories is doing UBRS at level with only a tank and a healer (me). Took us a couple of hours and a dozen tries to clear the last room, but what fun. :upside_down_face:

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It’s complicated. I am much less addicted than I was, that’s for sure. I spend far less time in the game or thinking about it. And when I do think about it, I think mostly of how the devs have made it so much worse, and then I get annoyed, and stop. I’ve tried FFXIV , where a lot of people are going these days, and unfortunately I can’t stand the anime artstyle, among other things. Mind you, I’m not keen on the recent art and music in WoW in Shadowlands either, and since the world is mostly what attracts me here, that’s serious.

I won’t impose my conclusions on you, and almost none of them will apply until you get into Shadowlands anyway, but you have already mentioned one of them yourself - scaling. Scaling makes everything weak and monotonous, so there are no little moments of enjoyment at overcoming a tough situation. Every mob is exactly the same difficulty as every other mob, all through levelling.

If you can live with that, there is a lot of great content available in the older expansions, and I think that doing it for free is a great opportunity.

If/when you decide to subscribe, you will also get access to WoW Classic and WoW TBC Classic, which definitely will have a more immersive feel than the current game.

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You aren’t. I have always appreciated your advice, comments, and opinions, and your patience even with lengthy and rather vague ‘questions’ :wink:. In fact, the kind and helpful community on these forums was one of the reasons I enjoyed this game so much during my first stay. :slight_smile:

I went back to Boralus, portaled back to Stormwind, got royally lost in the Sanctum in the Mages Quarter before I found my way out (portals everywhere?), and found Chromie with some difficulty, but she wouldn’t talk to me. :frowning:

(Off topic, are there now free portals between all major cities? I seem to recall people offered good money in Stormwind for mages who would create portals to somewhere. I confess I usually didn’t let them pay me unless they really insisted, for after all it was no trouble for me, but it would mean there can’t have been that many fixed portals back then. :open_mouth: )

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I can’t test this myself, but this is the account I’m relying on

So, yes I can officially state that it IS perfectly possible to use Chromie Time on a brand-new character, even if you don’t have any other level 50s on the account.

Steps are:

  1. Go to ‘Noob Island’
  2. Finish the quests there
  3. Fly back to Stormwind
  4. Take the ‘check out the stuff in Stormwind’ quest, with that Gnome tagging along, who promises to buy you a pint, but never does - last Gnome I’ll ever trust!
  5. Attend the meeting in the keep.
  6. Meet Jaina, sail to Kul Tiras, get thrown in jail.
  7. Break out, do the Boralus intro quests until you get to the Harbourmaster’s office.
  8. Chromie Time should now be visible in your Adventure Journal, accept the quest to meet Chromie.
  9. Take the portal back to Stormwind, meet Chromie.
  10. Select the expansion you wish to travel to and level up in.
    Bingo!

Hope this clears up any confusion, and is helpful to any other new characters wishing to do the same thing.

I’m still uncertain how to run the expansion content on a low level character without Chromie Time, nobody seems to know - but if you do know please feel free to add instructions on this thread.

Now I read it carefully, I never noticed

Chromie Time should now be visible in your Adventure Journal, accept the quest to meet Chromie.

before. Maybe you have to do that before talking to Chromie?

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This seems to be the step I missed. Reckon because I never checked out what an “adventure journal” is. :smiley:

OK, no that wasn’t it either. There is an “adventure guide”, but it just lists content like dungeons and so forth. I randomly collected some quests offered in Stormwind keep, but none had anything to do with Chromie.

I did steps 1 through 7 and 9, but no joy on no. 8.

I also went back to the harbour master in Boralus to check if I had missed picking up a quest, but the only ‘!’ I see is on the wall map in the office and that doesn’t seem to be a quest? :face_with_monocle:

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Sorry, from what you describe, I’m out of ideas.

The ! on the wall map is a quest, though. It opens up questing in the zones there. Try it.

Edit:

I did find this on the US forums:

Once you get the “Come Sail Away”/“Welcome to Zuldazar” achievement, you can just head back to the main city and Chromie should be available on them. As you’re doing the intro, when you get to the quest to check the scouting map, you don’t actually have to select a zone to get quest credit. You can click the map, close the map, and turn in the quest. (Or, you can just abandon the zone starter quest if you do pick it up and don’t want it in your log while you do other expansions.)

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So basically I just missed the point where I could have taken the quest for meeting Chromie?

Well, never mind. I started questing a little around Boralus and even managed to die. There are still those mobs with the silver outline around their level number and they pack quite a punch. :sunglasses:

Doesn’t seem to, nothing happens when I click on the map and it’s empty except for zone outlines.

Maybe I’ll just start a new char and see if I manage to find the way out of the starting zone this time, with the clues I have now.

Though it seems the guides all say you need a level 50+ char to use Chromie on a low-level alt.

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You should be able to continue into BfA, at least, even if you can’t escape the newbie-trap.

What quests do you have in your log?

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I just tracked down the quest I think you are stuck on. Is it A Nation Divided?

See the comments.

Bugged for me as well. I continued clicking the map until it finally worked. (10 + times)

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  • The Perenolde Tiara
  • Hero’s Call: Redridge Mountains
  • The Mission (something with flying to a gunship which sounds awfully familiar)
    all the rest is local Kul Tiras stuff.

Don’t think I’ve taken, seen, or done this quest. But when I’m back in Boralus I’ll click on this map some more. :joy:

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OK, we’re getting somewhere!

See this comment:

https://www.wowhead.com/quest=47189/a-nation-divided#comments:id=2592049

If you don’t have the quest, the map won’t click.

And if you haven’t done the quest then you must have one of the preceding quests in your log, or it must be available to you.

There is also a comment right below it. Check that out.

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Hm, very odd. I believe I’ve done #7 through #14 on the list, and then between all the sanctums I got somewhat lost … :face_with_monocle:

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Accirding to Wowhead’s Quest tracker

the last time you logged in, you had done up to and including Out Like Flynn, so needed to pick up the quest Get Your Bearings from Taelia

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What? Everybody can just look up my progress? Didn’t know that. :astonished:

It’s very odd. I’ve definitely done that (visited all these places). And the next too (shaking the harbor master’s hand and listening to his tale). But I can’t find the quest either in the complete or in the incomplete list … are these really all quests in Boralus?

You know, I feel I’m wasting your time. I guess I’ll just carry on and see where it takes me, and maybe try this again with another new char.

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Do check out the comments. It seems from them as if phasing can cause weird effects in that sequence.

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I am about to start a new char so I can figure out this thing … and now (unlike the first two times) it gives me “choose your starting zone”, either Exiles Reach or Shadowglen (this being a night elf). Now this is vexing. Starting in Shadowglen I suppose I’ll never get to the Chromie quest, will I?

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Great!

You will. No problem. Pick whatever you like!

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To clarify that, you did SOMETHING that revoked your “new player” status. That’s why you can choose a starting zone now.

So you ought to be good with Chromie as well.