Going into this game totally blind, and I have some questions

TL;DR: You don't need to know the story to enjoy the game, but it's definitely interesting. You get to play all the expansions, everyone fights the same "villains". Enjoy yourself, take your time, enjoy the story, but know that not every tiny detail in it is important haha.

I played Wizard101 back around 2011 so I'll do my best try try and help you understand. The way you progress in this game isn't so much based on story as it is levels. To put it in W101 terms it's kind of like if you were able to reach level 15 (or 20 I can't remember what level it was) while still on Firecat Alley you'd be able to immediately go to Krokotopia because that's where you're gonna get exp intended for your level. With that being said, it's completely up to you to if you want to complete the storylines or not, or completely skip doing quests and just level through dungeoning (which gives a decent amount of experience compared to W101 which is usually just to finish a quest IIRC.)

Now, the way the expansions are is kind of how W101 is in a sense. When you buy the battle chest you unlock all the current expansions (Vanilla, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor) Vanilla has LOTS of zones, and that's where you're going to spend your first 60 levels moving to new zones every 3-5 levels. These have LOTS of quests and you're not expected to do them all. In vanilla each race kind of has it's own "storyline" which is a loose sequence of zones you're intended to level through. The great thing about it though is if you go to another races main city (as long as they're the same faction as you, Horde or Alliance) you can do their questline by picking up quests that will send you to a new zone from a post board called the Hero's Call Board (Alliance) or Warchief's Command Board (Horde). Honestly most people now adays though skip the story and just level through dungeons which you can be teleported to from anywhere in the world, finish, then go back to where you teleported from free of charge.

Once you get to The Burning Crusade however, all the races converge into two storylines, one for each faction. All the Horde will do the same quests in Outland (the world introduced in TBC) and all the Alliance will do the same quests, and that's how it is for all of the expansions.

Because the game is driven in a story-loose way where the idea is you're a wandering adventurer helping out where you can, pretty much everything is a side quest. If you read quest text though you'll easily be able to see "Ah, this is what I was sent into this zone to help with. Where these people send me are part of the main story."

Now, the actual plot of Warcraft gets VERY convoluted compared to what I've seen of W101. The very very very very VERY VERY short version of it is in the beginning these green guys called the Orcs had to flee their planet because some demons were messing with their society. They made a magic portal to come to Azeroth, home of the Humans. (this First War is the basis of the Warcraft movie) The humans beat them after 2 wars, but the Orcs still couldn't go home, so they stayed on Azeroth. They made friends with the Trolls, Tauren, Blood Elves, basically anyone who was sort of an outcast in need of a place to call home. The Alliance, however formed mainly for defense against the Horde. They got the Night Elves, Dwarves, Draenei, Gnomes, and some others. The idea of the Alliance is they want to protect their home and planet. Now, neither is really good or bad. They've both done some awesome things and they've both done some horrible things. I really recommend for a race you choose what you think looks cool rather than what faction it is. Some shit happened with a human prince turning evil and raising an army of zombies, and then we get into the story of World of Warcraft. (Everything I've previously stated happened in the strategy games with the title 'Warcraft' and I highly recommend you play them if you enjoy WoW)

Now in Vanilla your goal as an adventurer was basically to help where you could. You leveled up, made a name for yourself, defeated the Lord of Fire, beat back an evil Old God and his bug army, and beat one of the Lieutenants of the Lich King (that human prince I mentioned earlier). In The Burning Crusade you travel to the ruined home world of the Orcs, defeat some of the demons who now rule it, kill a Night Elf named Illidan (who was actually trying to fight the demons too and the new expansion Legion implies we were wrong to kill him) and kill one of the Lieutenants of Sargeras (who is the leader of the group of demons called the Burning Legion). In Wrath of the Lich King we go to kill the Lich King and defeat another Old God. In the Cataclysm a giant dragon called Deathwing pops up and says he's gonna destroy the world so we make him sit the fuck down. I should also mention Cataclysm completely changed the Vanilla world so what you'll be leveling through is more of "Deathwing fuck up the world, please help us fix our home" sorts of questlines. So in Mists of Pandaria we go to a land called gasp Pandaria completely by chance. While there we kill these beings called Sha (which are the remnants of yet another Old God), and we also have to defeat the Warchief of the Horde because he's doing evil shit for no reason trying to take over the world (yes even the Horde players kill him. His so fucked up they kill their leader). The plot of the current expansion is really confusing, but in short the Horde Warchief we tried to kill escapes and travels back in time to the homeworld of the Orcs, but before the demons drove them away. We follow him and defeat the army he amassed there. That leads to the current expansion. One of the orcs from the past was sent to present day Azeroth by another Lieutenant of Sargeras. This orc, named Gul'Dan, creates a portal that's letting Sargeras and his Burning Legion invade Azeroth. It's gonna be our job to make them all sit the fuck down.

That is literally the shortest, corner cut explanation of the entire story I could do. This guy on YouTube Nobbel does amazing Lore videos that will give you all the specifics you could ever want.

/r/wow Thread