You can generally focus on the content from a particular expansion, to experience the story surrounding its theme. Most of this has been Blizzards way of bringing the vanilla content up to the standards reached with Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, and you will still experience all the "original lore" storyline in your initial character progression.įor reference, here is a list of expansions, along with their general themes and included "racial backstory". You will likely experience a difference, here, in comparison to the original WoW. The only difference is, you can experience it in a different order, given the ability to freely roam within your characters level restrictions.Įastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, the two major regions from Vanilla WoW, have undergone a massive redesign with the release of Cataclysm. You will still be able to experience the majority of each expansions story. However, the event that precipitated its opening no longer features, and can not be experienced. For example, you can still easily handle the major end-game raid released for vanilla World of Warcraft, Ahn'Qiraj, with only a handful of level 70s. While there is a lot of content, to begin with, you still have access to most of the major events surrounding the World of Warcraft universe.
With most players leaning towards current content, there can be fewer players available to participate in older content, however, due to the level increases with each expansion, you can often find older content a lot easier to handle given fewer players.Īs for if you miss out on any content, no, not really. There is a reliance on being able to play alongside other players, in order to have a chance against completing some of these events. Most end-game content is designed for groups of players, in anything from 5 to 40 man dungeons. Burning Crusade content caters to levels 60-70, Wrath of the Lich King caters to 70-80 and so on.Įach consequent expansion can, in theory, both limit and improve your ability to experience the story line of its predecessors. There is a general "theme", and throughout the release and consequent patches, there are some significant events that take place in terms of storyline.Įach expansion is catered predominantly for players within its respective level group. With each expansion, in the World of Warcraft universe, the level cap of your character increases by 5-10 levels. You can create a separate character to play this content. There is a separate installer/server for this content. Original Eastern Kingdoms and original Kalimdor: Classic (aka Vanilla) (2004).
There is one more bit of content to mention: Whatever you want to do.įor levels 50-60, you'll play in the new Shadowlands (2021) content. You can start any or all of the expansions, switch expansions at any time, switch back. You can play in all of the above content to get to level 50. Corrupted gear is no longer attainable and corruption effects are deactivated. Azerite armor, the Heart of Azeroth, the legendary cloak all seem to still be in the game - expect none of these to be useful in shadowlands.
Weapon artifacts still have stats and can be leveled up, but they no longer have abilities. The legendary ring questline is removed from the game. Also, the legendary cape questline is removed from the game. It is unmodified except for the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, which was destroyed. Thrall is no longer warchief, Garrosh is.
The classic story arc is no longer available on the main servers. This expansion completely replaces the quests and map from the classic version of the game.