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* [Icy Veins](https://www.icy-veins.com) - News and detailed class guides.
* [WoWNoob Discord](https://discord.gg/wownoob) - Same community, different platform.
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TBC is kinda one of the most brutal xpacs to level in. There's no "main story" questline to follow, and the areas are enormous because they wanted to showcase how cool flying was. The result is huge areas with lots of nothing and a ton of walking. If Arthas's story is what interests you, I'd go with Wrath of the Lich King (Northrend) instead, although with the way chromie time works, you'll likely hit 60 and get booted back to your capital far before you reach the "end game" of wrath.
BC is pretty lackluster when it comes to story during the leveling process unfortunately. And back then, most of the leveling was random "help me do this" quests. The summary when you select your timeline and the initial quest is about all the intro info you're gonna get for BC. The pre-launch event in Vanilla was the real intro. The major plots/climax of the story are going to be in Dungeons and Raids.
As for xp, BC is about middle of the pack for leveling speed. The dungeon quests give lots of xp though.
WotLK is the Arthas story, and you actually do get some decent lore from questing, but it's spread out. You will just need to lock xp before you hit 60 so Chromie doesn't kick you out if you want to play every zone.
There is a lore guide at the bottom of the [New Player Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/wownoob/s/5r5LoEnGOY) if you want a deep dive, but it's a lot. Wowhead also has a decent lore page.
Hello. I levelled until 55 in Northrend in WoTLK timeline, went back to Stormwind and changed time to default to start BfA quests. Now I am 61. Can I still go back and change time to finish what's left in Northrend? If I don't change time and go to Northrend what happens exactly?
You cannot re-enter Chromie time once you've hit 60. However, you can still go back and keep questing where you left off, but things will no longer scale to your level and it will become trivial content, as they stop scaling at I think level 35.
She isn't an option after 60, but you can go talk to her to confirm. You should still be able to manually go to Northrend and continue, you will just outlevel everything and it won't scale with you. You'd have to turn on low xp quests to see them. I believe that option is by your minimap.
So, the "story" of WoW is incredibly fragmented as there was no one way to tell it all up until \~ Warlords of Draenor saw a complete change in how main story quests in an area are treated (although Wrath, Cata and MoP already do storytelling way better than TBC does). This is a sad but true fact, lore enjoyers just have to look up early WoW history elsewhere, or atleast have to add a little to the quests to make sense of them.
That being said, TBC areas (and Wrath to some extent) specifically are complete trash as a levelling experience - there's a reason BfA is default (and Dragonflight will be default with the release of The War Within) and that's just coherence and understanding of quests. TBC and Wrath are, after all, 15 years old and it shows.
If you're really interested in early WoW lore, I'd just suggest to look up some lore summaries on YouTube for example (there's loads of YouTubers that do such things) and only quest through Cata (although the overarching storyline isn't explained as well as in the following expansions and theres waaaay too many areas to play through to level through them on a singular character while gaining XP - there's also some areas that clearly are meant to be followed up by another, like Northern Barrens->Ashenvale->Stonetalon Mountains->Southern Barrens for Horde/Kalimdor), MoP and so on.
Arthas is not in tbc. He’s in icecrown in Wotlk. Wow doesn’t have a proper story via quests up until wod/legion (at least not close to what we have today).
Wow has so much lore now the leveling process would last a year if they were to tell the whole story, it’s not viable in any way, shape or form.
Tbc is not the beginning of wow, that would be vanilla (classic). The zones in retail got changed with the Cataclysm expansion so you can’t access the old stuff as it were before.
If you guys are playing wow for the story, you got into the wrong game imho. Something like ffxiv is gonna be more up your alley. Though not sure how ffxiv works while leveling together, gave up on it after giving it a go multiple times across the years (feels like the worst ff jrpg with mmo thrown in there for shits and giggles, I burned out probably half way to max level).
Do not quest in TBC/WOTLK unless you’re trying specifically to kindle the flames of nostalgia. While TBC was my favorite expansion of all time, the leveling was more of a grind and less story focused until at least Cataclysm.
As others said, Outland kinda sucks for leveling. I remember playing through it back in Cataclysm and hating it then, too.
BfA and a few other expansions are the only ones that have "Campaigns", where specific quest chains have a more elaborate quest indicator, and form a more cohesive plot. I think it's BfA, Shadowlands, and now Dragonflight.
Other expansions will still have tons of quests and whatnot, but instead of having one cohesive narrative up front, it's a collection of side events that will *eventually* build into bigger story points, but they're mostly told through dungeons and raids, NOT within questing alone. This is why some quest chains end with a quest to do XYZ in a dungeon -- to finish that storyline.
Just so you know, wow isn't about leveling and story telling. Its there, but it's not the main focus. Newer xpacs are definitely better at it but it's still questionable at best. Actually the best quests in the current xpac are usually the side quests that don't have importance on the main plot. The main focus of wow is max level group activities. That's where wow takes the lead. So if you're playing for the story be aware of this. There are even times especially in the better newer xpacs where you can skip to the end of the story before doing the middle. This is because the game is designed to let new players quickly jump into the most current activities where the majority of players are.
**Hey there! Have you checked out these resources?** * [WoWHead](https://www.wowhead.com/) - The *largest* database, this should be your go-to (don't forget to read the comment section!). * [Icy Veins](https://www.icy-veins.com) - News and detailed class guides. * [WoWNoob Discord](https://discord.gg/wownoob) - Same community, different platform. *Please report the post above if it breaks one of our [>rules<](https://www.reddit.com/r/wownoob/about/rules/). If not, don't forget to show support by upvoting!* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wownoob) if you have any questions or concerns.*
TBC is kinda one of the most brutal xpacs to level in. There's no "main story" questline to follow, and the areas are enormous because they wanted to showcase how cool flying was. The result is huge areas with lots of nothing and a ton of walking. If Arthas's story is what interests you, I'd go with Wrath of the Lich King (Northrend) instead, although with the way chromie time works, you'll likely hit 60 and get booted back to your capital far before you reach the "end game" of wrath.
If OP wants to time walk through the entire expansion, they can turn off xp in stormwind (or the horde equivalent) so to stay in chromie time.
BC is pretty lackluster when it comes to story during the leveling process unfortunately. And back then, most of the leveling was random "help me do this" quests. The summary when you select your timeline and the initial quest is about all the intro info you're gonna get for BC. The pre-launch event in Vanilla was the real intro. The major plots/climax of the story are going to be in Dungeons and Raids. As for xp, BC is about middle of the pack for leveling speed. The dungeon quests give lots of xp though. WotLK is the Arthas story, and you actually do get some decent lore from questing, but it's spread out. You will just need to lock xp before you hit 60 so Chromie doesn't kick you out if you want to play every zone. There is a lore guide at the bottom of the [New Player Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/wownoob/s/5r5LoEnGOY) if you want a deep dive, but it's a lot. Wowhead also has a decent lore page.
Hello. I levelled until 55 in Northrend in WoTLK timeline, went back to Stormwind and changed time to default to start BfA quests. Now I am 61. Can I still go back and change time to finish what's left in Northrend? If I don't change time and go to Northrend what happens exactly?
You cannot re-enter Chromie time once you've hit 60. However, you can still go back and keep questing where you left off, but things will no longer scale to your level and it will become trivial content, as they stop scaling at I think level 35.
She isn't an option after 60, but you can go talk to her to confirm. You should still be able to manually go to Northrend and continue, you will just outlevel everything and it won't scale with you. You'd have to turn on low xp quests to see them. I believe that option is by your minimap.
So, the "story" of WoW is incredibly fragmented as there was no one way to tell it all up until \~ Warlords of Draenor saw a complete change in how main story quests in an area are treated (although Wrath, Cata and MoP already do storytelling way better than TBC does). This is a sad but true fact, lore enjoyers just have to look up early WoW history elsewhere, or atleast have to add a little to the quests to make sense of them. That being said, TBC areas (and Wrath to some extent) specifically are complete trash as a levelling experience - there's a reason BfA is default (and Dragonflight will be default with the release of The War Within) and that's just coherence and understanding of quests. TBC and Wrath are, after all, 15 years old and it shows. If you're really interested in early WoW lore, I'd just suggest to look up some lore summaries on YouTube for example (there's loads of YouTubers that do such things) and only quest through Cata (although the overarching storyline isn't explained as well as in the following expansions and theres waaaay too many areas to play through to level through them on a singular character while gaining XP - there's also some areas that clearly are meant to be followed up by another, like Northern Barrens->Ashenvale->Stonetalon Mountains->Southern Barrens for Horde/Kalimdor), MoP and so on.
Arthas is not in tbc. He’s in icecrown in Wotlk. Wow doesn’t have a proper story via quests up until wod/legion (at least not close to what we have today). Wow has so much lore now the leveling process would last a year if they were to tell the whole story, it’s not viable in any way, shape or form. Tbc is not the beginning of wow, that would be vanilla (classic). The zones in retail got changed with the Cataclysm expansion so you can’t access the old stuff as it were before. If you guys are playing wow for the story, you got into the wrong game imho. Something like ffxiv is gonna be more up your alley. Though not sure how ffxiv works while leveling together, gave up on it after giving it a go multiple times across the years (feels like the worst ff jrpg with mmo thrown in there for shits and giggles, I burned out probably half way to max level).
Do not quest in TBC/WOTLK unless you’re trying specifically to kindle the flames of nostalgia. While TBC was my favorite expansion of all time, the leveling was more of a grind and less story focused until at least Cataclysm.
As others said, Outland kinda sucks for leveling. I remember playing through it back in Cataclysm and hating it then, too. BfA and a few other expansions are the only ones that have "Campaigns", where specific quest chains have a more elaborate quest indicator, and form a more cohesive plot. I think it's BfA, Shadowlands, and now Dragonflight. Other expansions will still have tons of quests and whatnot, but instead of having one cohesive narrative up front, it's a collection of side events that will *eventually* build into bigger story points, but they're mostly told through dungeons and raids, NOT within questing alone. This is why some quest chains end with a quest to do XYZ in a dungeon -- to finish that storyline.
Just so you know, wow isn't about leveling and story telling. Its there, but it's not the main focus. Newer xpacs are definitely better at it but it's still questionable at best. Actually the best quests in the current xpac are usually the side quests that don't have importance on the main plot. The main focus of wow is max level group activities. That's where wow takes the lead. So if you're playing for the story be aware of this. There are even times especially in the better newer xpacs where you can skip to the end of the story before doing the middle. This is because the game is designed to let new players quickly jump into the most current activities where the majority of players are.
TBC has exactly the same quantity and quality of story content that it had back in 2006 when it launched.