Best way to catch up on the main story?

[Zhard-magtheridon]

Hey all, I’m a returning player having left during a short stint in Cata and I am having a blast in the new DF pre-patch having just leveled my new Orc through Zandalar to 60.

One thing I did notice, as I was doing the short quests for the Dragonflight pre-patch, was that the main Horde characters have a strong familiarity with me the player despite me only just existing and not knowing anything about them.
I know I have definitely missed tons of story, and am looking for the best and most efficient way to enjoy the main story line from the last bunch of expansions as I don’t want to miss out on context in the new expansion.

Is there a convenient way to catchup/experience the history of events from the main storyline in-game, or is it better recommended to find a reliable docu-vid on youtube?
Alternatively is it worth running through the Chromie campaigns and re-experiencing each expansion that way or is that likely to take me a long time?
Appreciate any advice and opinions on this!

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Welcome back!

Ummm. It kinda depends how in-depth you want to get with the story, and how much time you want to spend.

One thing I can say is that Chromie Time is probably not going to be helpful for this purpose. Chromie Time is all about the levelling content of each expansion, while the expansion’s main story happens at max level in that expansion, and is punctuated with the dungeons ands raids of the expansion. Chromie Time is great for alts you want to level all in one expansion, but it cuts out before you really get into the endgame storyline. Chromie Time will give you a good sense of the atmosphere and zones, but not so much of the overarching story.

If you are looking for YouTube expositions, Nobbel87 is the achknowledged expert. Search for “Nobbel 87 The story of …” Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, Legion, Battle for Azeroth, Shadowlands

Another way to follow the story outline is on Wowpedia. I would start with the Timeline:

Timeline

and click out onto the individual elements as you work through.

Wowhead has a series for returning players from different expansions, but it doesn’t go into detail on the stories.

Returning Player Guide - What Changed since Cataclysm

[Zhard-magtheridon]

Thank you so much for this!
This is great, I appreciate you taking time to put these together! I have had a quick glance through and I will definitely be taking time to read through these more and look for the videos you mentioned, as these look to cover everything I kind of had in mind.
I appreciate your point about the Chromie Time, and I do appreciate it is probably better to catchup through overviews than try to replay years+ worth of content!

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

One other thing.

Run the dungeons. Rin the raids.

As a level 60, soon 70, you can easily walk in to the dungeons and raids of lower expansions and solo the place.

The endgame story of each expansion tends to be focused around raids - killing the Big Bad. You don’t just have to read that Garrosh was defeated in his underbround bunker at Siege of Orgrimmar; you can walk in to the entrance of SoO in the Vale and do it for yourself.

Runnng old raids and dungeons also nets you Gold., Armor Appearances, Achievements, Pets adn Mounts, so you may find ir worth doing weekly. You can even run it on multiple difficulties each week for the extra gold and loot.