Hey folks,

I watched Rories stream on friday and it has given me the urge to jump in. I did play when the game first came out but haven't since so I would be starting again. What I want to know is what's the best way to see all of the big story content in the game with a new character?

Will I have to start from lvl 1 or can I pick one of the classes that starts at a higher level?, (That's still a thing right?) Do I need to do every quest or are there certain ones only I need to see. Basically what's the best way to see all the "Must see" content without grinding every quest and zone?

It's also worth pointing out i'll probably be doing this solo and not with friends, though I have no issue with grouping with randoms.

Many thanks.

I jumped back in with Legion! If you didn't pre-order, you wont get a level 100 boost, meaning that yeah, you'll have to start at one. Thankfully the game's 1-60 content is different and better than when you played at original release, so it'll be new to you.

The game will direct you through essential story stuff, and you can skip it if you want (Running dungeons and Battlegrounds to level up instead). Leveling is a lot faster now than back at release.

The best way to experience ALL of the story content is to reach max level, and then go back and do a lot of the old raids. There are definitely some standout quests throughout the 12 years of the game, but I can't think of them off the top of my head except for 'The Missing Diplomat', which unfortunately isn't even in the game anymore.

If you just want to catch up with the story, then I'd read the story on WoWwiki instead, it will save you a lot of time. If you REALLY intend to play through it all in game, then you're in for a long few months.

@random45: Months? Rorie seemed to imply that the levelling process has been streamlined over time.

I'm kind of I the same boat. I was out for a while then came back for Panda Time and started anew with a monk. I only made it to level 80 or so and never actually saw any of the Panda content. I'm trying to decide if I should start there again or just skip to 100 and go back and do it all later.

For what it's worth the levelling experience was great at that time and it's probably even faster now.

@viciousbearmauling: You still get the 100 boost if you buy Legion. I bought it today.

@mister_v:

It's massively streamlined, you won't end up going to most of the zones or dungeons whilst you level. You should also get a free lvl 100 with legion. You'll get a class tutorial if you do the jump to 100.

I've just jumped back in after 2 years and this xpac so far is really great, best levelling the game has had.

Oh, leveling takes a matter of days, even less if you have heirloom gear and spam dungeons. I thought you meant you wanted to experience all of the stories of each zone, in which case, I think a month or two is how long it would take to do that.

@random45: No I don't want to see every zone, I just want to see most of the main story beats. By no means do I want to do every quest.

@mister_v: I've been trying to clear every zone and do all the Horde quests and so far it's taken me about two months, started back in July and only just finished Shadowmoon Valley in Outland. I've also created a Demon Hunter (which I am loving btw) for Legion content but I fully intend to play through all the old expac content with my Shaman and finally get that Doomhammer.

Edit: I'm not sure exactly what the main story is at this point since Cataclysm changed so much of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms to accommodate the expac, I've run into story quests that featured Grommash as Warchief but then a few quests later I'm directed to Warchief Vol'jin and so forth.

From my experience coming back into WoW, you're not missing a whole lot just by reading what happened during Vanillia WoW on WoWwiki like others have mentioned then play through all the expacs from Burning Crusade (which is basically unchanged from how I remembered it). Do all the quests in the zones until they tell you to go to the next zone (avoid any one-off quests that you may encounter outside of settlements) and do the dungeons/raids when they come up. I got pretty over-leveled during my time in Kalimdor because of Archaeology which gives tremendous amounts of exp so I was able to solo dungeons and pretty much make any sort of combat trivial.

Thanks for all the info. I think I'll take the plunge and join the GB EU guild mentioned in that other thread,

One last question. Can I get away without crafting? It seems like it gives decent xp but I can't stand crafting in any mmo, I always find it super tedious. If I do have to pick one what's the least time intensive one?

EDIT: oops one more, I do get all the past expansion if I buy legion right?

@mister_v: You can definitely get away with not crafting if you don't want to. For the lower levels there was a bunch you had to do in terms of farming materials to keep upgrading your skill with the right tier of materials, but once in Warlords there are recipes that don't require you to have a certain skill level and in fact pretty quickly raises the one you have from whatever it is. Therefore it's probably even better to wait until max level before picking up a crafting profession. Can't imagine they changed that drastically for Legion.

You can have up to 2 Professions, the idea being you have 1 for crafting and 1 for gathering the materials needed for said crafting. But there's nothing stopping you from having 2 gathering professions if you don't want to do the whole making of stuff. Skinning and mining are two popular ones when it comes to making some extra money on the side, though I've forgotten if the Auction House prices tanked or not once the materials where easier to get off your base in Warlords.

As for easy crafting, I was always partial to Inscription, as basically any plant within a tier, rare or common, work just as well when you're trying to get the materials to level it up. Plus its nice to have access to have someone that can make all those glyphs for any character (Inscription mainly produces Glyphs, which are items that unlock the ability to modify or enhance a class's abilities. Each class has a very limited amount of slots in which to equip these. Some minor ones are just aesthetic, like changing the look of a druid's water form, others add function, like a mage's ice block not only making you invunerable but also healing you during the duration. Neat stuff, though you could just try to find what you want on the AH.)

The least recommendable profession would probably be Blacksmithing, when it comes to ease of leveling.

Edit: All professions are completely optional, but you get a bit of EXP whenever you mine, skin or gather herbs. Might as well have one of them ready.

I just checked and it seems like the base WoW game indeed includes all expansions up until Legion now.

If I can piggyback off this thread a bit: I'm also thinking about getting back in, but perhaps with different intentions. My main interest is gearing up a bit using the raid finder, then going back an doing all the old content again and seeing the stuff I missed. So my questions:

How are hunters doing? I've always played one and would love to continue doing so, though I'm curious about Demon Hunter.

Will I be able to get through Pandaria and Draenor raids by myself if I know what I'm doing? Even with a couple other people is fine since I intend to get in on the GB guild if I do this.

Does getting to 110 suck? I tried this back in Draenor, but the panda leveling content is terrible. I'll probably just boost to level 100 and do the new stuff.

Does Black Temple still exist? I love that place.

How is the economy? Once I have my gear, will I be able to get gemmed and enchanted out without having to grind a shit ton for gold?

Is there cross-server guild stuff? If possible I'd like to keep all the mounts and shit I have on my old hunter, but It's probably not the biggest deal.

@yi_orange: I've mained a hunter for years. They're fine. MM hunters put out the most damage on long fights, BM is probably still best for leveling (though MM is fine) and survival is now a melee spec that uses polearms. They took traps away from most of the specs and put them into survival.

You'll get through Pandaria and everything before it by yourself pretty much no problem at 110 (everything before Pandaria at 100). Draenor it's too early to say if you'll get through them solo, but if you can't solo them you can pretty much get through any of them with a few friends.

Getting to 110 does not suck, but parts between might. Getting to 60 is kind of enjoyable if you haven't played since Cata since it's reworks and refined. They took what they learned in the expansions that came after TBC and made it better. Getting from 60-70 kind of sucks because most of the content in The Burning Crusade expansion is based on the same very old vanilla style of questing. 70-80 is good, most of the areas of Northrend for Wrath of the Lich King are good, have decent quests and stories. 80-85 is Cata again and is pretty good. 85-90 is Pandaria and it's kind of awful. I recommend that you get through it asap by joining the LFG dungeon finder. Lots of people like to level that way and you'll get a level every 2 to 3 instances. 90-100 is Warlords and that's a pretty good expansion to level through. 100-110 looks like it's the best they've ever been. You can go to any area whenever you want, the quests/mobs/rewards scale to your level and the class hall stuff is enjoyable. The story lines are the best they've been in years and it's all very manageable.

Black Temple is still around. You can even visit it as it was in Draenor before it became the Black Temple, though there's not much there. And its very easy to solo now.

The economy is kind of fucked up, lots of people have lots more money now because of a now removed mechanic they had in Draenor. To give you an idea, there are now vendors who sell cash sink mounts that cost about 2M gold. But you earn plenty of gold anyway and the market is fine, its just a lot of people have a lot more money and plenty of people have tonnes of it.

All mounts, toys and pets are now account bound, so every character gets it. They're kept in "collection tabs" which means they don't take up bag space either. Guilds can be cross-realm if the realms are linked. You'd have to check that for yourself.

@jesus_phish: Thanks, I think I'm gonna give it a go. It'll give me more podcast time too. Though, what are the mods these days? Still bartender, dbm, omen as the essentials?

Just saw the Return to Karazhan patch and I assume that means the old raid is going away. Karazhan was my first raid and remained one of my favorites all the way through the end of Cataclysm. Probably only rivaled by Ulduar. Gotta go say goodbye to that place.

Edit - Aw hell, it's only a preorder that gets the boost. What server is the US Horde guild on?

@yi_orange: I use ElvUI which is a sort of all in one, and DBM is still useful but not as crucial as it once was. They sort of took the elements of DBM and incorporated them into the main game, so now when you fight bosses you get pretty big warnings like "You're affected by X!!" etc.

The Karazhan in the patch is going to be a 5 man instance, the old raid will stay in the game.

It's really fast now, I got to lvl 40 on a new character in 10 hours this weekend.

It's a shame you missed the pre-legion event I was able to level up a level 1 bank alt to level 85 over a weekend with blue gear and some great items. I think most of the versions of the game come with a level 100 boost?

Its a good time to get back in the game lots of people around are and doing the old dungeons and raids to get older gear is fun.

You can get from level 1-100 in a week or less if you just farm instances and from 100-110 you can do in a few days of casual playing. You would also be able to go back and do pretty much all raids from cata/panda and earlier within a day or 2 if you ran through them.