pretty new player
I want to play all the old expanions from beginning in one character .I don’t want to level more than one char to play the whole expanions (I already know about turning off xp)
after a huge search , I have some questions
1- what is difference between playing the expansions using chromie time and warchiefs ? and which is better ?
2-should i start chronologically ? or from Cata then tbc ?
Heya,
Welcome to the game 
Answers to your questions are below, but I left some personal insights at the end as well, just in case 
The main difference that chromie time makes is that it stretches content out to the full level range of 10-50, rather than each expansion’s zone’s respective level range.
Without chromie time, the zone’s level ranges are as follows:
As you can see, most zones have an upper limit, beyond which mobs don’t scale anymore without chromie time, so the main difference is that it stretches the mobs beyond the limit to scale up to level 50.
*Keep in mind that scaling does not apply to the lower limit, so even in Chromie time, the 5 separate Cata zones only start scaling from level 30 (although they will be stretched up to level 50)
In regards to what is “better” that’s difficult to answer since chromie and warboards aren’t the same thing. Chromie time doesn’t add or remove content, but just changes scaling. Generally speaking, chromie time makes it easier to prevent expansion hopping, but it sounds like you will freeze exp gains and efficiency isn’t your main goal, so you can choose either one. Chromie time helps in pushing relevant warboard quests of the expansion you selected to your character, and while the system is really confusing, outside of chromie time you have to really know where to pick up breadcrumbs, so it could be difficult to find the right starting quest for each expansion’s storyline.
IMPORTANT: Chormie time becomes unavailable once you reach level 50, as it is mostly a leveling tool. This won’t change much,(since again, Chromie doesn’t remove or add content) but just know that once you dinged 50, chromie time won’t be an option anymore.
That is also mostly up to you. Chronology across expansions isn’t a huge issue in earlier expansions and most of the main storylines are looked at separately (only in the past 3-4 expansions did they weave main storylines together into an overarching narrative).
If you want to go in the correct chronological order, it would be TBC-WOTLK-Cata (including overhauled vanilla zones), but know that you can also go with overhauled vanilla zones first, then TBC-WOTLK-Cata. There might be a few zone quests that could reference small thigs from earlier expansions, but that really shouldn’t be too disruptive or cause you to feel completely lost.
Personal recommendation: Alright, now that we covered this, I want to share my insights as to why I don’t think doing everything on one character is a good idea 
Please don’t get me wrong, this is totally your decision, and either way works, but the overhauled leveling process and level squish caused leveling to put you at level 50 much (much) before completing an expansion’s zone and main story quest. This means that even if you stick to one expansion you’ll be done with leveling much sooner than the content of the expansion, so you will spend a lot of time on a single character that isn’t progressing in their power.
It is much more enjoyable to go with one character per expansion. It doesn’t only provide variety for your playstyle and invite you try out different characters and talent builds, but gives you a big roster of leveled characters to pick from at the end (about 7 characters) so you can see which one you like best, and bring that one into the new expansion and latest endgame content.
Most questing achievements for each expansion are account wide, so your account will have questing/exploration achievements and meta-achievements unlocked at the end, even though you do their parts on different characters.
One last point is also related to the level squish. Freezing exp might cause a strange experience, since the level squish caused for your core abilities and passives to be spread out between 10-50. This means, that if you intend to level freeze before level 50 (for the sake of argument, let’s say 30) you might end up with a character with an incomplete moveset/skillset/talent setup, making them feel not rounded to play. The solution to this is just leveling to 50 and then doing all expansions ont hat character at 50, but that brings us to the point above that you’ll spend a lot (like a lot, I can’t stress this enough) of time playing a character without progression/growth in their powerlevel.
Alright, that’s it from me. Again, the choice is totally yours, and you’re offered a good bit of flexibility, I just thought I’d share some insights here as well, since there really isn’t any mechanical advantage to do everything on one character (like other MMOs tend to offer).
Hope that helps, and sorry for the wall of text here
The important thing is: however you choose to play, have fun!
I’d just like to add that when Kerrosh says “a lot” he isn’t exaggerating. I’ve done some of the Loremaster achievements but it’s a huge timesink. I used Chromie time to level a char through Outland thinking that I could get most of Outland Loremaster done that way, piece by piece, maybe with one alt per each expansion.
But I found that there was IIRC at least one zone that I barely touched and another that had several quest lines that I couldn’t complete as there were group quests that couldn’t be solo’ed on a fully loomed character ( I could do most of the recommended 3-person quests but not the 5-person), and finding others to group with in old content is very hit and miss.
In the end I outlevelled the zone, and came back at a higher level to finish that expansion.
So, I think the above suggestion to use a separate char for each expansion is a good one, but in the end it’s your choice, the main thing is to know about the pros and cons so you minimise any cause for later regret. I can see why you might want to do everything on a single character, there’s a sort of “neatness” about it. (edit: typos)
Two very excellent answers above!
I, too, can see why you want to do everything on one character. Doing all quests on one character is called “Loremaster”, and I did that myself in the old days before Chromie Time. Like you, it was something I very specifically wanted to do, as an honourable project.
I wish the game still made sense that way, It was a consistent, coherent body of work on one character that had integrity.
Account-Wide achievements, scaling, and Chromie Time have changed the game, so that it doesn’t really make sense any longer, and that’s a loss.
I have done it, so I understand. You haven’t seen it yet, so you don’t understand.
So I wish you all luck and enjoyment in your discovery of Azeroth, but I give you a few pieces of advice:
CHOOSE YOUR REALM VERY CAREFULLY. I say this to all Newcomers. Blizzard mark certain realms as being for New Players. These are not special realms for New Players. They are regular realms, that Blizzard hope will not provide an actively bad experience for new players, regardless of the playstyle or faction they choose.
These will never be the best realms for you to choose.
You are posting as a Blood Elf from Silvermoon. Blood Elf on Silvermoon is a VERY VERY BAD choice. Consider starting again on another realm.
I would like to thank you all guys for all this information
I really appreciated.
that was random choice just to try the game I’m thinking about Draenor or you can recommend for me one
I decided to follow Kerrosh’s advice as the account is wide achievements and since I’ll be lost if I go to the old zones myself, so I guess I’m gonna achieve loremaster by leveling multi chars
I just wanted to focus on one character, play the story in order, and explore most of the world, I also wanted to have scale leveling
When you get to a high level , everything is one shoot and don’t care about death, it won’t be that fun
But obviously the level system is very fast even if I go to the old zones by myself without chromie time I think I’ll get to a high level in a short time as well
Yup, Draenor is what I chose for my own Horde characters. Very bad for Alliance, very good for Horde. It does get crowded for a week or two at patch and expansion launches, but considering the rest of the time, I can’t argue with Draenor for Horde.
I’m glad to hear you’re choosing multiple characters. One character will get from level 10 to level 50 in any one expansion, so trying to do it all on one character really doesn’t work any more. I suggest you try multiple races and multiple classes, perhaps including Alliance races (which you might want to create on Silvermoon rather than Draenor).
You will level equally fast with or without Chromie Time, but the original zones are limited to level 30, so you will definitely need to do Chromie Time and other expansions.
A 1-char person here. I hate alts and I love my main, so I was kinda forced to play good share of content in “outlevel” mode (panda-BFA).
Had I known about the feature back then, my personal choice would have been to LOCK THE LEVEL one level before the “expansion\zone cap” hits me. Not that it’s a perfect choice, but at the very least I could have played the dungeons the way they were meant to be. E.g. you play BC - you “pause” at 29. As you progress to the further zones, you unfreeze the xp and get some more levels, then freeze again. There’s a special NPC for that in SW\OG.
It’s either this or outleveling EVERYTHING very-very-very fast. And once you hit 50 - you’re locked to SL content forever. Technically you still can play the old content, in a “legacy” mode (everything dies really-really fast), but you’ll only get SL content on your dungeon-finder, and events like timewalk are going to send you there, even if you never touched prologue (which is auto-accepted each time you enter the capitol).
Also, have in mind that outleveled chars often get all of the expansion content “in a bundle”. Like you may get send to the raid which can only make sense if you had played all of the previous expansion content. BfA was exceptionally terrible. Not only they had millions of systems-upon-systems and resources-to-get-more-resources, I had to wowhead quests all the time, so that events from 8.3 do not begin in 8.0 for me. Legion also had same problem for me, it was really hard to play the story so that it makes any chronological sense.
TLDR - If I were you, I’d have used the xp-freeze feature. Else - be ready for outleveling stuff and all that comes with it.
I have a similar question. I was gonna make a fresh topic but its somewhat relevant to this.
I want to level 2 characters from my alts to do the 2 other covenant stories I havent done on my 2 mains. All my alts are 25 (the old 60) that I leveleed in the Cata revamp. I’d like to put them both through the Legion artifact stuff, though not necessarily do the whole of Legion (well maybe on 1 of them). The other I want to put through either MoP or WoD. Maybe even do one with each and then go to Legion once theyre able. Im not too bothered about doing the full MoP or WoD storylines either.
So how does that work with Chromie time? Or are they prohibted from that anyway as theyre 25? Any advice on how best to do this?
You’re fine. No problem.
All good for characters below 50, and you can change your timeline/expansion at any time.
Talk to Chromie outside Stormwind Embassy. Ask for Legion.
Do the Legion intro on both to get the artefacts and the Dalaran Hearthstone.
Then when you don’t want to do any more Legion, go back to Chromie and ask her to change your timeline to MoP or WoD or whatever expansion you actually want to level in.
So what happens if I Chromie to MoP at 25. Do I stay 25 and join the campaign part way with quests under a certain level grey? Or do the intro quests scale up to me?
Level is irrelevant to quests in Chromie Time.
You can go at level 10 to Pandaria, and start at the beginning. You can go at level 40, and start at the beginning.
Each new character below 50 starts whatever expansion Chromie sends them to at the beginning.
Each expansion is intended to get any character from 10 to 50.
Quests scale.
Ah, yeh, I get it. Found out the hard way lol
Started on MoP but will probably jump over to Legion part way just to get the legendaries. Just gotta remember to do that before 50.
I guess at that point you have no choice about doing BfA. Would be nice to be able to hit 60 in Legion before I go to SL and not have to do it in BfA.
Why do you think you have to go to BfA?
When you hit 50, however you get to 50, you will go to Shadowlands.
New players, true new players, are forced into BfA at level 10, though they can get out of it after a few quests, but there is no compulsion on YOU to go there.
Never mind, Im getting muddled. I swear I read that all characters get funneled through BfA. And that was 50-60. Cos I forgot max is 60. And we started SL at 50. Im old, my memory aint what it was.
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