Will I be forced to start in BfA as a new player and how to avoid it?

Guides New/Returning Player Questions & Guides
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Correct me if I’m wrong but from my understanding new players will be forced to level in a new zone to level 10 and after that, to level 50 in BfA. If that’s true… what the hell?
I’m a new player, wanted to try wow for the longest time and while trying out few classes I decided I’m definitely gonna start playing seriously when SL pre-patch or SL itself goes live. The thing is - Main reason why I’m even interested in WoW is the story and lore. My main goal is to go through vanilla race specific zones, vanilla content, and each expansion in order. Aka. I want to experience the story as it is supposed to be experienced. Obviously.
If I’ll have to start in bfa then I’m simply not playing the game. I can’t wrap my head around the idea that someone at blizzard thought this is a good idea. From the perspective on my character or new player I’m going to start in bfa, go through it and then TIME TRAVEL back? Seriously? I have no words for this xD. What with the continuity, the development of the story and all the characters and everything. How am I even supposed to know why BfA started, how am I supposed to care if I don’t know how we got there. Ugh.

Main questions are:
-Will new players be forced to play through BfA?
-What exactly must I do to be considered “veteran” player and have the option to choose where I want to level (because this seems like the best way of doing what I want to do which is playing through the entire story of WoW “chronologically”.) ?

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Yes.

If you have a character that played through the BfA campaign, finished the War Campaign, you will be able to use Chromie Time on alts.

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Do you have a link for a requirement to have finished the War Campaign? That doesn’t seem to me to make any sense as a requirement.

There are two thresholds I’m fuzzy on, and I haven’t seen anything official on either:

  1. What, exactly, entitles you to choose your starting zone on a new character?

I suspect that the answer is that you have levelled a character to 20 before, or to 10 in Shadowlands. That would make sense to me. (Actually, forcing new people into Exile’s Reach doesn’t make sense to me in the first place.) But I don’t know.

  1. What, exactly, entitles you to choose your levelling expansion on a new character?

I suspect that the answer is that you have levelled a character to 120, or to 60 in Shadowlands. (Actually, forcing new people through BfA doesn’t make sense to me either, but Blizzard didn’t consult me.)

Aethirea, you have a 120, so I suspect you will be able to choose both starting zone and levelling expansion for yourself. But I do not know for sure. I just looked again for some kind of official announcement to answer my two questions, and once again came up with nothing.

Anyway, assuming that you can choose an expansion, playing through it “chronologically” gets both easier and harder in Shadowlands.

First, we have to accept that there is no consistent chronological path at all. The current 1-60 content was in fact revamped in Cataclysm, and has been selectively updated since. King Varian Wrynn and Warchief Thrall have variously been there and not.

But with the further segmentation in Shadowlands, you can at least do each segment on its own with consistency. However, each expansion on its own will level a character for you. So if you really want to do all of the story, you would be well advised to make one character per expansion. This will not take much longer than steamrollering through them all on a max level character, and you will end up with 8 levelled charactres for your effort instead of 1, which is a huge bonus. As well as that, you can experience 8 different classes and races!

The most concentrated dose of lore in the game happens on a new character between level 1 and 10. (Except for new players sent to Exile’s Reach, who get a kind of greasy fast-food medley of unidentifiable scraps). So making 8 characters of different races, and running them through their starter zones, is definitely a worthwhile undertaking.

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The idea of making 1 character per expansion sounds great. I’ll probably do it. Thanks!

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You won’t be realy forced, all the quests in all the zones will still be there for you. The quests will just guide you to do BfA leveling zones. After you finish the starting zone you can just go in to the world and do quests you find there. But keep in mind that if you want to finish all zones in chronologicial order you will outlevel each expansion after one zone and then you will be just doing rest of the zones without gaininng any xp.

And this is the main reason for that new leveling that new players are guided to BfA. Many players were confused about the story because they would just do one zone in each expansion and move to another becasue they reached max level for that contnet. So they didn’t realy get the full picture. With new system they get to experience more full picture for one expansion. And the most recent previous expansion is the best one to chosoe there. It has the most recent graphics and the most modern mechanics so it won’t feel outdated. It’s likely they they started because the saw most recent cinematics.

It just gives a new player who has no idea what they are doing some structure to follow. And then after they level up one character and know more about the game they are encouraged to make an alt to experience other expansions. This provides some amazing replayability feature. You no longer has to follow the exact same path on every alt. You can level like up 10 character via questing to level 50 and each one will do completely different zones.

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My understanding is that you WILL be forced - or, more specifically, SOME people will be forced. I just don’t know exactly who those people will be. At least, people who were forced to start in Exile’s Reach will be forced to level in BfA; I believe this much is confirmed.

I believe also that at least players on new accounts, with no existing characters at all, will be forced into Exile’s Reach and BfA. How many characters, and of what level, allows someone to escape from one or both of those is the open question.

Various guides and articles use vague language like “new players”, “veteran players”, “experienced players”. I suspect the writers don’t know what that means either, and either don’t know enough or didn’t think enough to realise that there are possible differences.

It’s not important to any existing regular player, but it may be important to new players like Aethirea.

I’ve given my guesses about the exact rules above, but they are only guesses until Blizzard clarifies.

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The story in Shadowlands (the whole reason for us finding Shadowlands so to speak) is based on the story in BFA. So for new players to know WHY we are in the Shadowlands, you need to play through the BFA war campaign once.
After that 1 char going through it, you can lvl what ever expantion you want to.

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I just had a thought, I haven’t actually finished all the zones in BfA, will I be forced to do them?

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As I said above, my bet is that you won’t have to go through BfA if you already have a 120.

It makes no sense at all for Blizzard to require more than that, because new players will not be doing Loremaster and the War Campaign in BfA before heading out to Shadowlands - so that requirement would mean a huge burden before any new player could ever choose their expansion.

It may be that the only restriction will be on totally new players who literally have no characters on their account at all, and that Blizzard will force them through the ER->BfA route.

I think that forcing even them through these is a really, really bad idea, but Blizzard seem to have become the home of unaccountably bad ideas. Look at their recent stinker about Covenant abilities disappearing outside of Shadowlands. How did that idea ever survive 10 seconds in a meeting of people familiar with the game? How did the portal move survive long enough to get outside any individual head? How did they decide in Legion to disallow 111 twinks in BfA? How did view distance, or BfA PvP progress, or so many others ever see the light of day? It’s like nobody in there is actually familiar with the game, and they’re all working from some Principles of Game Design textbook from the '90s. The bad, bad ideas go through unless enough people care and scream. Any Blizzard dev should understand the game well enough enough to kill those ideas internally.

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The “new player” term is used loosely and no one really knows what exactly is a set criteria. But everyone has safely concluded that when the SL launches,
If you have a 50 level character (previously 120), you are not treated as a new player. So any new characters you create will have the option to choose the zone they wish to level in.

If you are a returning player, my guess is you wont be forced through BfA either. However that’s just my guess. So its safer to have at least one 120 before SL hits.

If the game thinks you are starting the game for the very first time, it will force you through Exile’s Reach (1-10 levels) and BfA (10-50).

The reason given at the time was that this new player restriction was for people actually “new” to the game. And realizing how pretty sub-par starting zones for most races were not enticing to most new players and then when they would ding closer to the actual current game content, it was more likely that they were directly thrown into it without really having any idea as to how things progressed.

Hence the decision was made to make new players experience the most latest quest designs. So with the introduction of Exile Reach, new players would also be forced through BfA not only because of the storyline to keep up with SL but mainly so they don’t go through quests that are way past their time and really just don’t feel engaging to people in todays time. I basically remember this from one of the interview Ion gave.

I personally like the decision. Main reason being that most of the friends I actually brought to this naturally compare it to other MMO’s they play and they found the
interactive-ness of the quest…quite bland and pretty horrible the further early the expansions go.
So its best the new players experience the best and most latest quest design the game has to offer.

Also just adding this incase you didn’t know, Chromie isn’t a must for experienced players. Experienced players and even new players once they are done reaching max level can choose to level in zones without Chromie as you normally could before.

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Aka - I will be forced. + I really don’t care about being over leveled.

Well as a new player I am A LOT more confused now. Especially because this new system from my perspective looks like Blizzard just openly stated they don’t care about the story/lore.

“Gives a new player a structure to follow” is a weird way of saying “forces new player…”. This system would be fine if a new player could choose to do what devs want you to do (start in bfa). Starting in BfA should be a recommended option for new players. It should not be forced. I wouldn’t be interested in watching the second half of John Wick 3 just to unlock a possibility of watching 1, 2 and the whole 3.

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But WoW lore doesn’t start with Vanilla either (which you can’t play anyway, because of Cataclysm), so you’re already missing out on quite a bit of the story as it is.

The goal of Chromie Time is to allow a character to experience way more of the story, in a more coherent way, than it is possible currently. Right now, if you just want to level, you’ll do 1-2 zones / expansion and move on, and none of it makes sense. With Chromie Time, you’ll do most of the zones of an expansion, and you’ll have a much better idea of that story.

If you want to experience everything, you can still do all the quests, at max level too, in any order you wish. Just level to max first, then go back and do it all. “Level appropriate” doesn’t exist in a game with scaling world.

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Um, no. And yes. It’s complicated.

I’d have to write a book just to properly represent the various viewpoints that I think I understand about this issue.

I can say that a VERY oversimplified explanation is to compare the expansions in modern WoW to books in a series, each of which is written to be understood without reading the previous ones. So not like Game of Thrones or John Wick; more like Discworld or Star Trek. We’re not following one, or three, central characters. There is a whole world of characters, and while faction leaders tend to persist (except Horde Warchiefs, who have a fatality rate that would be notable on the south side of Chicago) one or another tends to be more prominent in each expansion.

The WHOLE story of the Warcraft Universe goes far, far outside WoW, into the novels, and the predecessor games.

The page

gives a view of the story of the Warcraft universe. The whole of WoW takes up just 8 years of a very long history. (A very busy 8 years!)

Tinkspring’s point is that that alternative to reading “one book in the series” is to read the starting chapter of each previous book in the series, which is also not very satisfying.

Some people, like you, come to read the whole story - well, at least thw whole story of the 8 years of WoW - but those are a minority. It can take you months to work your way through ALL the content of ALL previous expansions, and most people don’t want to do that before they catch up with everyone else.

I really don’t think Blizzard will force you, with your 120, through anything, but even if they do, consier that BfA is a book in the series that you will want to read anyhow.

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To know WHY we are in Shadowlands you need to play through BFA. To know WHY we are in BFA you need to play through Legion. And so on…

Yea I’m definitely in a very small minority. I understand most people won’t have the same issue. But my problem is that blizzard could just make everyone happy by presenting all the options to a new player and explaining that starting in BfA is in their opinion best for new player experience. But they shouldn’t force a new player to do anything.

I appreciate your response, you go into detail and it’s helpful, but the thing is even if I consider BfA as a book in the series, I still want to read the book that has the earliest events to know all the context for the book that comes after, and I want to go through the entire series like that.

And ofc I understand the Warcraft Universe is much bigger than WoW. But even tho, some parts of the whole Warcraft Universe (like any given WoW expansion) might not be directly linked with some other piece of Warcraft Universe, each piece will still provide context. That’s why I want to go through the game as chronologically as possible. Obviously I can’t really do it because WoW has changed over years but I want to be as close as possible to going through the entire WoW chronologically.

Also, thanks for the timeline link. This made me realize I will probably research more and also try to find Warcraft books in form of audiobooks to listen to them while doing side quests that are not important to the lore.
I really hope I’ll be able to choose the expansion to level through on my main (not yet created) character. If not, I’ll suffer through BfA on some other character without paying any attention to the story or just while listening to audiobooks just to unlock the possibility of choosing the expansion on my new character and then I’ll continue with my original plan.

Again, thanks for your responses Gráinne.

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I agree 100%. But we go to Warcraft with the dev team we have, not the dev team we wish we had. :stuck_out_tongue:

I do see the argument for starting new players in ER. ER is like the tutorial you get in so many modern games. It’s short and fast, and it keeps popping up prompts about what to do next, and I can see why that might have value to a certain type of ADD gamer. On the downside, it has all the flavour of cardboard, which is even more of a contrast when compared to the starting zones, that have the best atmosphere and sense of identity in the game.

I would prefer that new players get a strong suggestion to begin in ER, though, and let those who know what they want start elsewhere.

I do not see the argument for starting anybody in BfA. The purported reason is that the story of BfA leads into Shadowlands … but unless you have played through ALL the story of BfA, including the pre-patch of BfA which is now (mercifully) removed, BfA really doesn’t lead into Shadowlands.

It doesn’t.

The story that leads to Shadowlands … you might say it begins with the Lich King’s raising of Sylvanas, or Sylvanas’ attempt at suicide after the death of the LK, or perhaps (and this is my personal speculation) with Greymane’s foiling of Sylvanas in Stormheim in Legion. It certainly must run through the Horde’s attack on Darkshore and the burning of Teldrassil, and the destruction of Undercity, and Sylvanas’ scheming againstother Horde leaders, and killing of Saurfang and repudiation of the Horde.

AND NEW PLAYERS WILL SEE NONE OF THAT BY LEVELLING THROUGH BFA.

None of it. (Maybe the destruction of UC? I’m not sure if that still starts BfA for new players. But even if it does, it doesn’t explain anything of why there is an Alliance attack there, or why Jaina flies in like Superman in the middle, to the great surprise of all.)

So the argument that new players need BfA to lead into Shadowlands is a lie. It’s complete nonsense.

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Honestly, I completely disagree with this sentiment. Anything after Cata is on the exact same quality level, the exact same type of progression with quest hub > 3-4 quests in one location > another quest hub > another 3-4 quests on one location, etc.

If anything, BFA zones are generally on the weaker side with the exception of Drustvar and Stormwong Valley.

It’s like whenever Blizzard has a good idea, this leveling revamp which could be awesome for new players, they negate most of their hard work by doing a really terrible design choice that could be undone in a whim.

It’s like how they didn’t make Essences account-wide, or the timegating of covenant switching, only worse.

I truly wonder if they get some negative feedback from new players and this will make them change their mind… but by that time it may be too late.

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Just on this side-note, while I agree that Drustvar was a stand-out in BfA’s otherwise dreary levelling exprience, I thought that Stormsong was by far the worst levelling zone in BfA … or Legion, for that matter. They had all the ingredients perfectly lined up, but it never came together. Something to do with timing, or the sequence of the quest lines? I dunno, but I give a straight thumbs down to Stormsong.

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Well, it’s all subjective I guess. As far as the actual quests go, Stormsong really wasn’t anything special, I just like the zone because of the atmosphere. In Drustvar, the quests themselves were genuinely fun and engaging.

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I contacted blizzard regarding this.
I have a level 46 character on live and hence I was wondering what the requirements are for not having to be forced through BFA on a new re-roll.

If I get my level 46 to level 50 then I can use chromie time on a new character I re-roll. No achievements are required.

Now here it gets interesting. I just logged into my level 46 and I see that chromie time is also available on him despite not being level 50. WHICH IS AWESOME!
I can now re-roll and not level my paladin to 50… before I can experience other content.

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Well, I haven’t really ever tried the Alliance side of the story. But I absolutely loved the Horde side. Voldun was amazing for me, Nazmir had a good plot but I just didnt like the terrain as much and Zul’dazar was terrific too. The Zones and plot went pretty well.

I dont really care about the quest hub, (I do prefer them tho). I was more in lines talking about the flavor and overall feel of the quests. Whether the NPC interacts with us at all, how the objectives are displayed, difficulty of the quests and how easy it is for new users to understand the whole concept.

You’d be surprised how many new players can’t even progress through the most simplest of tasks compared to someone who has played wow before and knows where on the screen they are supposed to look to find more information about the task at hand.

Personally for me, It wasn’t until Legion where WoW’s quests actually felt as sophisticated compared to games like swtor or eso.
(swtor has the best single player campaign experience imo, horrible at everything else tho)

Ofc most of this is all but preference but I never really gave this as much thought until I actually asked two of my friends who are swtor fans to try wow.

So in my eyes I think everything is going nicely. Its probably not great but its not bad.
WoW is mostly known for its end game content, the faster and less painful it is for new players to reach that point, the better for the game.
I highly doubt they will ever revamp the system. Which is what it desperately needs. But this is a good “bypass” to the problems :stuck_out_tongue: