From title, I’m a very new player to wow so forgive me if this question is very common or annoying
I’ve tried looking up how the expansions fall in to place along the story, short answer I get is they don’t, and I’m very confused as to how they can be played and when? there’s no “follow the carrot on a stick” approach to the story, do you just have the freedom to choose what quests you want to play and don’t want to play? and is there something that tells me “this zone is this expansion, this is that” etc…
I’m not a completionist so I’m not worried about completing every quest of the base game and stuff, I’d just like to play through the main story and expansions as it’s my first play-through of WoW.
It is confusing. And with Shadowlands, they are changing things again, though they hope it will remove some of the confusion. Mmmmm … maybe.
Level 1-60 is Vanilla, aka the original World of Warcraft. Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.
The continent of Outland is The Burning Crusade expansion. It used to be level 60-70. Now it spreads over 60-80.
The Continent of Northrend is Wrath of the Lich King expansion. It used to be level 70-80[*]. Now it spreads over 60-80.
Four specific zones - Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Twilight Highlands - are the Cataclysm expansion. It used to be level 80-85. Now it spreads over 80-90.
The continent of Pandaria is the Mists of Pandaria expansion. It used to be level 85-90. Now it spreads over 80-90.
The continent of Draenor is the Warlords of Draenor expansion. It is and was 90-100.
The continent of Broken Isles is the Legion expansion. It is and was 100-110.
I just spotted your deliberate mistake in number 3, Gráinne.
Also it’s not worth doing each expansion fully, as you can’t play through them all as at the end of each expansion were raids where loads of players got together and killed story bosses. You will also out-level some of the zones before you do them all.
The only way to do Vanilla is now with Classic but you can’t move on to TBC, or step 2 above with it. Yet.
No one does end of expansion raids at the right level as they are old, sometimes very old content. Once you level 15 levels or so above them you can go back and solo them.