I want to play through all the previous expansions but don't understand how too

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So this is my first real WOW character and I want to play through all of the previous wow expansions on it, I have heard of this thing called chromie time but I do not really understand how it works.

I would like to be able to start at the beginning of the game and play through the story in chronological order on the same character but why do I need the levels scaled down to be able to do this?

I understand that I have to finish BFA to use chromie time but I don’t really want to jump in at BFA and would prefer to play it after I have completed all the previous expansions story lines.

Therefore I would like to know if it’s possible to play through previous expansions without chromie time.

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Welcome to Azeroth!

I do greatly sympathise. When the developers decided to direct newcomers to BfA first, I wasn’t enthusiastic, but I did understand the reasoning. Now, though, having seen so many problems created by it, I have to wish they had done otherwise.

The worst of all the effects, I think, is that you never get a chance to learn about your character’s race’s background in your natural starting zone, but are shopped off to Tutorial Ialand instead.

Anyway.

We are on the 8th expansion now, Shadowlands. So nine complete “games” to play through. More like 10, since the original contains two separate continents.

Making people play through ALL of that to get to the current content would be excessive, so the idea of Chromie Time is that you can choose any ONE of the expansions to play, and that will give you enough experience (XP) to get to Level 50, at which point you can join in the latest expansion Shadowlands.

That idea, stated in that way, still makes a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, we also have scaling, and Chromie Jail for newcomers.

People have reported breaking out of Chromie Jail. Other people have reported failure. I can’t test it, so I don’t know for sure. Here is the stated method:

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:

  • Go to ‘Noob Island’
  • Finish the quests there
  • Fly back to Stormwind
  • 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!
  • Attend the meeting in the keep.
  • Meet Jaina, sail to Kul Tiras, get thrown in jail.
  • Break out, do the Boralus intro quests until you get to the Harbourmaster’s office.
  • Chromie Time should now be visible in your Adventure Journal, accept the quest to meet Chromie.
  • Take the portal back to Stormwind, meet Chromie.
  • 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.

(That’s for Alliance, but substitute Orgrimmar for Stormwind and so on, and the same should be true for Horde.)

I’m copying that from this thread Back after seven years (maybe) & wondering about a few things where I suggested it to a returner who didn’t get it to work. You should at least give it a shot.

However …

Even if that doesn’t work, you can still start the story as you would have at level 1 as a Blood Elf instead of heading off to BfA. If you go to Sunstrider Isle, just north of Eversong Woods in the North of Eastern Kingdoms, you will pick up the quests you would have got as a new Blood Elf, and you can follow the same quest lines though Eversong Woods and Ghostlands and so on as you would traditionally. If you have problems getting there, post again saying so, and I can portal you there.

However …

You will find yourself no longer gaining XP at or very soon after hitting level 30. THIS DOES NOT STOP YOU PLAYING THE STORY. You can continue questing through Easterm Kingdoms and Kalindor as much as you want at level 30. But without Chromie Time, you can’t get synced to the first expansion Outland/The Burning Crusade. So at some point you will have to go to BfA and get to Level 50.

So, either by the skip, if it works for you, or by getting to Level 50, you now have access to Chromie Time.

 

I can’t emphasise enough HOW MUCH BETTER an experience you will have if you MAKE ONE CHARACTER FOR EACH EXPANSION.

If you really want to do all the expansions, the ideal is to make a different class, and a mix of races, try them all, and do one expansion with each. Like, bring a Tauren Paladin to level 10 in the Tauren starting zone, then ask Chromie to send you to Outland to play through TBC. Then Orc Warrior through Wrath, a Troll Mage through Cataclysm, and so on. YOU will still have seen all the zones and the stories, and you will end up with experience of many classes, and a stable of alts you can choose from.

Class is much more important than race, BTW. If you don’t fancy the aesthetics of some Horde races, and you want to stay Blood Elf, you could make a Blood Elf mage instead. Or you could see it from the Alliance side, though if you do, I suggest you make your Alliance characters on the realm Silvermoon rather than Draenor. Draenor is a Horde realm; Silvermoon is the Alliance equivalent.

And here are my two essential sites for beginners to reference:

  • www.wowhead.com for any qustions about items, quests, instances, maps
  • www.icy-veins.com/classes for anything about how to play your class and spec. The guides are for max-level characters, but you can use as much as is available at your level.

 

I’m sure you must have follow-up questions. Please ask!

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WOW! What a fantastic reply thank you very much, that answered a lot of my questions, had to read through it twice because this is all very new to me.

  1. I would like to clarify one point . So if I am correct if I get this character to level 50 then I unlock the ability to play through my races starting zone on new accounts until I reach level 10 at which point I activate chrome time and level through my chosen expansions story to level 50? At which point I would be content.

  2. Is it not possible to play through previous expansions without chromie time? And if it is what benefit would chromie time provide to me?

  3. Are you reset back to level 1 with every expansion and if so how would I reset myself back to level 1 to for example play Mists of Pandaria after I have finished Cataclysm. Following this point is chromie time only able to be used once per character until you are level 50 at which point you have to play the current expansion?

  4. And lastly I saw your suggestion of making one character per expansion and I understand why you recommend this, however, would this not be a detriment to my main character as I would be sharing achievements and experience and gear across 9 characters instead of 1?

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Good questions!

Correct.

Ummm. It is. I think.

You can definitely level through Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to 30 on any character without going near Chromie.

At some level - I’m not sure what, but I can check - 30? maybe sooner - you should be able to go through the Dark Portal to Outland and play the Burning Crusade without going to Chromie. And then, with that same character at some other level - 35? - you can catch the boat to Northrend and play through Wrath. And so on.

I believe all that is still possible, though I’m not quite sure of the level gates.

However, if you do that, after you enter Outland, you will reach the level for Wrath LONG before you finish all of the Outland content. Remember, each expansion now gives all the XP needed to get from 10 to 50, so if you go to Outland at 30, you will barely have seen the first zone before you are ready to go to Wrath at 35.

So you will barely see any of the content as you level. Technically, that works, but you did say you want to see all of the expansions.

Chromie time syncs your level and XP with the content, prevents you from outlevelling it. (And when you outlevel it, you stop gaining XP, so it becomes a waste.)

No. Your level is NEVER reset. It never changes, except to tick up by one when you get enough XP to reach the next level.

At any level from 10-49, onve your account has unlocked Chromie Time, you can talk to Chromie and change which expansion you are synced to. So you could start in Wrath at level 10, then at level 15, having done one zone in Wrath, you could go back to Chromie and ask to be sent to Pandaria instead.

When in Chromie Time, all the mobs in your designated expansion will have their levels synced to yours. So if a Level 11 and a Level 44 partied up and went to Pandaria together in Chromie Time, the Level 11 would see Pandaria mobs in the range Level 10-12, and the Level 44 would see the same move as Level 43-45.

At level 50, the instant you ding, you are rudely interrupted and told you will be teleported back to Chromie. Your Chromie Time is over at that point.

First of all, why do you think you know what your main character would be after trying out 8 of them? :stuck_out_tongue: One of the great benefits is learning how other classes play, and maybe changing your mind about what you want!

You do share achievements anyway. The achievements system is account wide, so when you get an achievement on one, you get it on all.

Gear is not account wide, but different classes can’t use the same gear anyway. Mages wear cloth, Rogues leather. Rogues can’t use Staves, and Intellect is of no use to them. Like that. And there is more than plenty gear. You throw away gear while levelling when you get a better piece, and you get these upgrades frequently. Levelling gear is just not a consideration.

Experience (XP) is something else. The whole point of Chromie time was to reduce the total amount of time taken from 10 to 50, so there is an excess of XP available. If you play through all the quests in all the expansions, you will have more than enough XP to raise 9 characters to 50. If you play only one through all of th eexpansions, 90% of that XP will simply go to waste because you will be playing a character that has already outlevelled the content. (And it is boring playing an overlevelled character anyhow because everything dies of fright just from seeing you! :rofl: )

If you are confident that you are a Rogue, the Whole Rogue, and Nothing But a Rogue, then you could level it to 50, exit Chromie Time, and play through the other expansions killing everything with a deadly stare - but I think you will not find that satisfying.

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Thank you for another great reply, I understand the system now and I plan to play this character to level 50 and then create a new character per expansion.

One question I do have is what if I reach level 50 before I have finished the story or I am not finished exploring the zone, can I not go back, can I not complete the story. I assume I could go back with chromie time off and as I would be in a level 50 ish zone I wouldn’t be overpowered to the point it is no longer fun, but can I continue the quests in that area with chromie time off?

And also is the only requirement to unlock chromie time to have a level 50 character? In other words, I wouldn’t have to play and spoil BFA on this character until I have played the previous expansions.

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When you reach level 50, whether you do that by Chromie Time/BfA or by hopscoching your way through the expansions, you are now God-level powerful in all expansions below BfA. You can travel anywhere in those expansions. You can walk into the entrances of 5-man dungeons, and blow away all the elites and bosses inside. You can even walk into 25-man raids and treat bosses there like early trash.

So, when you reach 50, you can certainly finish any business you have left that you want to finish. You can complete the story, It will be very easy. Not very satisfying, but very easy.

Yes. As I said before, it may - or may not - be that you can unlock it by doing the entry questline of BfA, but the intended way is to hit Level 50 with one character, which is the point at which both Chromie Time is available to all your Level 10 characters.

Oh. Two more resources for you:

 

Wowpedia. Start here:

Wowpedia is like an encyclopedia of story for the whole Warcraft Universe, both the game, and the previous games, and the books.

 

Video: Warcraft Beginner’s Guide

An absolutely MASSIVE video, but broken into very short chapters with Timestamps below, that covers everything a beginner might want to know about playing, from Bags to Travel to Addons.

The one thing it doesn’t explain is Chromie Time and the current levels scheme after the change at the start of Shadowlands, since it was made just before Chromie Time was introduced.

As always, ask again if you have any more questions!

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That’s answered all of my questions now though I’m sure I’ll have more. Thank you very much.

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Come back any time! :smiley:

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I’m new as well and have been so confused with the concept of playing through the storyline in order and how it works, this has helped a lot!!

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One more tip I’d like to share, if you’d like to complete an expansions story without all the content becoming boringly easy as you reach level 50, you should level up to level 49, and then visit an NPC in Orgrimmar (Horde) or Stormwind (Alliance) which locks your XP progress. This way you can stay on level 49 and thus stay in Chromie time while you finish an expansion.

For Alliance, this NPC is Behsten which can be found in Stormwind Keep: https://www.wowhead.com/npc=35365/behsten
For Horde, the NPC is Slahtz and can be found in the valley of Wisdom:
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=35364/slahtz

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Cheers, just going through bfa then I’ll be giving it a go

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But how do the achievements of 1000/2000/3000 completed quests and zone exploration work? Are they shared between characters on the same account? Or should you try to complete maximum content with a single character?

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I just answered this in your other thread! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’d do that at level 47 actually as otherwise it will break chromie-time every time you get to Stormwind. Game tries to force you into the Shadowlands starting at 48.

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By breaking Chromie-time do you mean you are out as if you are leveling your very first character. I’ve read somewhere about this issue but I thought it breaks if try to change to a different expansion.

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“Breaking out of Chromie Jail” as I described it would/should allow your first character to talk to Chromie and choose any expansion, the way second and subsequent alts would.

But I don’t know that it works, and there is no way for me to test it. I’ve only read the accounts of peope who did.

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