What was your least favorite expansion?

[CaptainV]

From Most Favorate To Least:

Wrath Of The Lich King: The Golden Years Of Wow

While I feel Wrath did inevitably begin the decline towards its twilight years, I believe it also excelled the heights of wow's immersion. It opened the floodgates to casual players eager to try raiding for the first time, and made it possible for two worlds to bind as one in a flawless transition. It didnt please alot of 1% players from TBC's era who complained it was too easy now, but they did have the challenging content they wanted in the form of optional ulduar hardmodes and later heroic ICC.

Granted, this system only worked majorly in favor of players wanting to actually try raiding and dungeon runs in the first place, which up until this point, had been a purley raiders content. Also adding the world pvp zone made the game feel genuinely fun, huge sieges in Wintergrasp added more immersion to the pvp aspect of the game with community wide raids trying to conquer the fort, it was fun immersion at its best for PvP and probably one of its best times.

Its hard to even find a flaw in WOTLK except a few nooks and crannies one can nitpick at, it tried to please 'everyone' and it did a damn good job of trying.

Plus, who can ever forget that epic Cinematic, or the DK's being announced as a new, rediculasly epic heroic class.


Mists of Pandaria: It Tried to be WOTLK

This was probably my second favorate because it tried to appeal to casuals. After the disasterous 180% switch that blizzard pulled at Cata's launch screwing a majority of the playerbase to make TBC fanboys happy, the game really managed to hit a happy medium where everyone was "okay" with the game. The sad part was however that MoP spelled what id honestly call the "end" of WoW's immersive years ultimatley leading it to a very downward spiral of inevitability where by alot of its content would be almost entirley dependant on instanced content such as LFR. I wasnt entirley a fan of LFR, even as a casual friendly player, but I feel back in MoP it was at least moderaltey challenging compared to WoD.

The new Monk class added an interesting alternative to Rogues for people looking for something more tank/healer friendly, and the Pandaren were a surpisingly well added addition, Pandaria was a well designed concept of a "new" piece of Lore to WoW's universe flawlessly added while being accepted. Turning a fluffy, light hearted race of Panda's into a story of war, destruction, chaos, and death with alot of surpisingly dark and deep moments.

It was probably the second best expansion in terms of character growth for the heroes besides WOTLK too, which allowed them to focus strongly on the war and how it affected both sides.

Vanillia, The Founding Stone to Turn A Generation:

My fonest memories of Vanillia were more that it was a fresh, new game the first MMO I actually invested my time and care into because at the time, most of them just didnt appeal, and they were fairly boring. After trying a pirated version of the game briefly a friend introduced me to, I decided I wanted to try the real thing rather than play illegally primarily because the illegal game was fairly empty and lifeless.

So, I played on a proper Vanilia server, tried my first character an undead warlock, and never looked back. In the earliest years, the talent tree system, the newness of the MMO genre, the aspect of a game I could play at a moderatley casual friendly (but still quite brutally hardcore) end game was new to me, and the challenge while I wasnt entirley fond of it, was okay and at the time, something I was more willing to invest into and try, win or loose.

I cant say I was a fan of Vanillia as heavily as I was the others, but it was something special for its time without a doubt.

The Burning Crusade, Elitist Valley, But Blood Elves!

TBC... wasnt my fondest expansion, most of my time I can even remember investing into it was spent playing in Nagrand world PvP. I wasnt a massive fan of the extremely brutal right wing level of raid demand TBC required of players, and the pvp aspect had become mostly centered around arenas which felt to me like a massive step down from huge war fronts where hundreds of players fight.

TBC basically lobotomized PvP into an e-sport, not someting I liked at all at the time, but the dungeons and raiding had become a raiders thing, so I felt more or less confined to world PvE and limited World PvP, my experience of it, wasnt great.

I did however enjoy the addition of the new blood elf starting race, it was something fresh and new in my mind. I enjoyed the end game zones and at the time outland was enjoyable, the flying was also a nice new addition to which I had wished we could fly in Azeroth.

Oh how id come to regret that decision.

Cataclysm, The Bait and Switch:

This is where The game REALLY started to go down hill for me and not in a good way. Cataclysm made the mistake of trying to "relive" the glory days which by 2 years had already faded into history, and a majority of new players were enjoying the excess of content that WOTLK offered in general, prefering to do casual friendly stuff with their mates and just, having a good time, having fun, not feeling the pressure to perform on a hard, e-sport level.

But a minority, a small percentage was not content with this decision, they wanted content that appealed "only" to them and at the cost of everyone else.

Blizzard listened, and made a HUGE mistake in doing so.

Because a cataclysmic disasster was soon about to destroy Azeroth, reshape it, allow us to fly in it, and give us "literally nothing" to enjoy out of it. Cataclysm railroaded the leveling experience into a sheeps cattle style of progression where people could only really progress by going down a linear road, it essentially killed the questing experience by making it a railroaded slope of one dimensional choice.

This was an effort to bring more specific story aspects into the game which wasnt necessarily a bad thing, it just didnt work. To add insult to injury, alot of the story was tied behind end game content raiding specific which had now gone back to TBC level silliness of making the content just unnecessarily hard for no reason.

The World PvP zone was laughably bad as it was in the middle of nowhere with no care at all for its presence and nobody really interested in what went on there, plus adding a pve area where nobody even "needed" to PvP to progress was a really dumb idea.

Cataclysm started simplifying the game, and making every bit of content instanced behind one wall or another, then with the introduction of LFR it actually went the opposite way it should have. Rather than giving casuals enough of a challenge to have fun, it made everything a lobby in which loot was handed out like a free candy store and nobody felt incentivised to earn it because there was nothing to earn, LFR made that clear enough by making all content redundant.

Goblins and Worgen added "something" in terms of racial divercity to the world, and immersion, but the damage was done, Cataclysm left a scar on the world too deep for anyone to truly forget it.

So what could possibly be worse than Cataclysm as a nostalgia evoking piece of crap that just honestly was the worst decision Blizzard ever, made?


Warlords of Draenor, And Why You Should Never Listen To Raiders or Elitists

Why the hell blizzard made this mistake not once but TWICE is beyond me, but what was even worse is that the entire EXPANSION was a giant shlong shaped like TBC being waved in your face and screaming "HEY REMEMBER HOW RAIDING WAS GOOD WELL NOW EVERYTHING IS RAIDING YOU CAN STOP COMPLAINING."

Okay, flame over, lets be more analytical and honest about why WoD actually was terrible with more than just the fact that its end game is horrid.

WoD, took away everything that remained of WoW, it has literally killed the game, even if Legion saves it, the damage is done now, leaving a massive scar where Cataclysm only left a bruised cut.

Cataclysm hurt the game, without a doubt it went too far to pander to a minority of hardcores so that many casuals would be kicked in the nads and pushed away for their gloria to shine once more. WoD took this a step even further than it needed to be screaming the word Nostalgia Train in your ear until it became obnoxious.

But it also took away so much content from the game that you didnt even need to play anymore. The Garrison missions and Garrison more or less made every bit of content so instanced at this point even world pve was pointless because the game only let you do it once per day, and everything else was raiding, literally, everything, else.

Not only that but adding insult to injury, aside from farming Ashran for PvP gear you were locked by a lootdrop system so downright brutal and luck based with "NO" catchup mechanic at all, that the early raiding was just, garbage.

It was literally "eitehr your gonna get the gear you need, or you wont".

In which case, if you didnt, you'd spend the next several months ragingly trying your best to get a single loot drop to gear up your character only to find its stats werent useful to your spec, which increased the bluster of anger.

Not only this, but you might aswell never roll melee DPS in this expansion because literally every raid boss "hates" melee DPS, forcing mechanics on them to the point that it was blatantly obvious someone with a hell of a grudge against Melee just said "screw you, this mechanic kills you".

And they added 2-3 other mechanics on the same boss that also killed you, making it pointless to even try.

If one thing WoD will be remembered for, its that it hated Melee with a passion.

Regardless of this rage fest degredation of personal hatred, WoD did have one saving grace and I say that with strained effort. It had a killer soundtrack, awesome cinematics and a cheesy but half-decent plot that ended in the most terrible way possible because the writers were downright lazy.

Plus, it gave us the model overhaul which we can all be thankful for, I guess.

Over all, WoD has shredded the faith of the community to peices, now then, where does that leave Legion?

Moving Outside the Top To Bottom List

Legion, The Wildcard

With what little we know of Legion from Beta footage (spoiler free since this is general) it will be the marmite expansion, people will either like or hate it, with content that may appeal to some, but will completley unappeal to others. Its shaping up to be another MoP just like WOTLK was to TBC and this could be a good thing, but the issue is that with the damage done with WoD, can Legion really restore the faith of the community?

My answer is, I dont know. Warcrafts movie is trying hard to make people care, as is the promotional content but Legion's content doesnt seem entirley that different from WoD with some changes here and there to try and "widen" the appeal from just raiding to "other" things.

However, im not sure a new class, or the overhauls being added to Legion will be enough, really, I think Legion will serve as a test for WoW which we can only really see if it can withstand "after" its launch, not before.

Legion needs strong post launch content, and much more quickly developed with more effort than WoD. WoD's 2 patches were just insulting to the fans and downright bad content, especially when both more or less belonged in the game by launch and were delayed for "reasons".

Thal'dranath looks like it wont be in Legions inital launch which is a very worrying sign, but since TBC people forget, the black temple was meant to be launch content delayed, and blizzard has had a track record of pulling content out to increase the longevity of the game.

Legion.... worries me.... I dont know if this game will survive beyond Legion, but I have alot of doubts.

With the way the game is declining already, I am sadly confident, Legion is the last major expansion wow will ever make, unless they "dare" to pull another TBC clone like Cata/WoD which just... isnt healthy anymore.

Please 1%, stop asking for harder raids, nobody cares but you.

[Wall-Flower]

Wod... Garrisons aren't that fun once you get them leveled up. Missions are boring and I only do missions for gold.

[TheHodedOne]

From Most Favorate To Least:

You nailed it!. I think the game is in it´s final cicle of life, just nees to die properly, Warcraft game universe needs a long, long break, then bring new ideas, new concept, could be WoW 2 or Warcraft 3. Just let the game die Blizzard.

[Deleted]

Wow, I'm kind of impressed by the disparity in the answers lol. Cataclysm was the worst for me, I disliked the huge focus on revamping 1-60 (and the linear questing that came with it), and that there wasn't enough new stuff to do besides raiding and pvp.

I am just neutral towards WoD. Didn't love, but definitely didn't hate.

I would say the same. I have enjoyed all the expansions more or the less.

[Akka]

Cataclysm was a real disaster for the game imo.

Yes, but the funny thing is, people tend to say it was a disaster for completely opposite reasons.
You'll get a bunch of people saying it was a disaster because it catered to hardcore, and another bunch saying it was a disaster because it catered to the casuals

Cata exemplify best how WoW broke its playerbase with WotLK. Most of the (very real) problems in Cata are a direct consequence of the complete fuck-up in design philosophy they started in Wrath. It just took time for it to emerge and be visible to most players.

[OreoLover]

End of BC, mid+end WotLK

Burned out from raiding, hitting college. Didn't get to stay "cutting edge"

[Lotus Victoria]

For me, BC = Cata > Wod .

Wod is the worst, of course, but I dont appreciate neither BC, neither Cata.

WOTLK had the best armors, bosses, and raids for me.

MoP had the best "new" characters, questing and music.

[ItachiZaku]

Cata, I want a big huge massively awesome dragon fight, and I got some head poking out of a cave like some clownshoes shit. I loved the concept of Spine, that was pretty epic idea, but was a bit meh in execution.