Loading screen

This article lists all of the loading screens found in World of Warcraft and its expansions over its history.

Music
Each login screen featured a variation of a 10-minute long piece of orchestrated score that features a medley of other music pieces that are heard throughout the game, with the beginning of the piece setting the main tone for the expansion. The theme for Cataclysm was called "The Shattering" by Russell Brower. Mists of Pandaria had a Chinese-like remix of The Shattering that replaced most of the hard drum beats with wind chimes.

In interviews in the past, Russell Brower has discussed how he likes to keep the original idea of the login music (the theming and key elements) and build on it with each new expansion. There's an expectation of hearing a certain style of music that says to people that they're logging in to World of Warcraft. It evokes emotions in many people and so he's said he doesn't want to take that away but instead, enhance and add to it with each of the expansions. If you sit and listen to the whole thing, you'll find that you've ended up on a journey of sorts through World of Warcraft history. It tells you about where you've been and where you are now or are going to depending on where you are in your gameplay.

Login screen trivia

 * When information the players need to know about game service comes up, a "Breaking News" panel opens up in the upper left side of the screen.
 * Warlords of Draenor marked the third login screen out of eight to feature the Dark Portal, making it the most common theme so far. The second most common is tied between dragons, featured in both the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm screens, and Icecrown Citadel, featured in the login screens for Wrath of the Lich King and Shadowlands.
 * The Wrath of the Lich King screen opened with the frost wyrm, Sindragosa flying into the frame, flapping her wings, landing with a thud, and emitting an infamously powerful roar, all repeating at a set interval. That often irritated players who were trying to log in quietly, to the point "roaring dragon screen" complaints were rumored to have influenced the randomized and much quieter roar of a different dragon in the next expansion's loading screen.
 * The widescreen support has been available since Vanilla, but was set on by default since Wrath of the Lich King.
 * The Cataclysm login screen is so far the only one that displayed a still-image while the rest of the game files finish downloading.
 * The vanilla login screen was used as a placeholder for the beta and alpha of the following expansions: Cataclysm, Warlords of Draenor, Legion.
 * During the Warlords of Draenor alpha and beta test before patch 6.0.2, the vanilla login screen was used but heavily modified. The same heavily modified version was used during Legion until the last alpha patch for 7.0.3.
 * Four login screens showcased things which spent most of the expansion damaged or destroyed: the two main towers of the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind City (Cata), the Twin Monoliths in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms (MoP), the (WoD), and the Ruins of Lordaeron (BfA).
 * You could also include the rest of Stormwind City as it is actively being damaged on the login screen - however it still stays operational during the expansion.
 * Wrath of the Lich King was the only one that used a different color for the buttons other than red. Shadowlands updated the buttons to a newer high definition.

The total time that each login screen was used is listed here. Note that originally the loading screen would be determined by the expansions installed on the user's computer, but this was changed during Wrath of the Lich King so that all players see the current login screen regardless of which expansions they own.

World screen trivia

 * For the first time in an expansion, none of the Outland or Azeroth continents had their loading screens changed for Mists of Pandaria. Only the expansion logo (to reflect the change of current expansion) was changed for the EK and Kalimdor continents, while Outland and Northrend still retains the expansion logos that those areas were introduced in. Before, all loading screens to these continents got significant changes for each expansion.
 * Legion has the same loading screens for Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms as Warlords of Draenor, but with the WoD logo replaced with the classic WoW logo.

The Burning Crusade
 Caverns of Time loading screen.jpg|Escape from Durnholde Keep (5) / Opening the Dark Portal (5) / Battle for Mount Hyjal (25), Caverns of Time, Tanaris Mount Hyjal loading screen.jpg|Old Battle for Mount Hyjal loading screen