Best timeperiod for WoW?

[anaxie]

What content was lacking in Cataclysm? I never understood this complaint. The game was in a perfect place 4.0-4.2. Also what drought? As lame as dragon soul was it only lasted eight months

[Gimlix]

WOTLK was by far the golden days, 12.5 subscribers, content everyone was able to enjoy rather htan a single percentage.

Theres really nothing else for it.

WoW never got 12.5M. 12M max.
And no WOTLK wasnt its prime if you say it like subscribers mattered. WOTLK had a decline too before cata came out, cata made it go back to 12M.
WOTLK was actually going back to 11M according statics.

[Daffan]

TBC:

Always had content to do. Professions were awesome. Heroics were awesome. Seriously, no matter where you were on the chain of progression, you always basically had a new raid or new boss to beat each week, it was incredible. Getting items actually felt good. No stupid Insane level catchup mechanics until Sunwell full unlock (they were kinda stupid)

Cons of TBC: no flexible, casuals had hard time getting 25 for Gruul's etc - therefore stuck in Kara and endless complaints on forums (legit complaints, tbc was too hardcore for casuals requiring 25)

tbc style progression + flexible/crossrealm/etc = gold

[hulkgor]

TBC by a large margin. Vanilla after.

- - - Updated - - -

WOTLK was by far the golden days, 12.5 subscribers, content everyone was able to enjoy rather htan a single percentage.

Theres really nothing else for it.

One could also say that WOTLK was the beginning of the decline, with subs decreasing non-stop since wotlk. And its high 'highs' were due to a very successful TBC into a WOTLK where you'd face Arthas.

[Akka]

The best time period for WoW objectively, would be Classic to Wrath mid-TBC. That is the "Golden Age" of World of Warcraft. It's the only era where Blizzard focused more on making a great game for Warcraft fans than about making money. Everything after has been more about money than anything else, hence why it's been inferior.

Cata destroyed the original world and started the mass-streamlining, Pandaria was a renaissance of sorts but still inferior to the Golden Age, and WoD was hot garbage.

Do I think Legion can surpass the "Golden Age"? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Not unless all the other original players come back, and the entire philosophy governing the game is reverted to the original superior philosophy.

Fixed the small error you made

WotLK is now super-popular because of the big turn-over from veterans (who left in droves in disgust of the dumbing down of the game) to the "wrath babies" (the expression doesn't exist for nothing) who are now most probably the majority of the playerbase, but at the time it was considered a very shitty expansion (because of said dumbing down, ruining 5-man, destroying progression and community, starting the trend of adding difficulty modes and gear inflation, etc.). Basically all the bad design concepts which are ruining WoW today started in late TBC/WotLK, when the "original philosophy" (as you quote it) was replaced with the frenzy of "accessibility and QoL".

[Deleted]

WOTLK was by far the golden days, 12.5 subscribers, content everyone was able to enjoy rather htan a single percentage.

Theres really nothing else for it.

One thing one must realise is that the causality of "max subscriptions" is not directly related to "best expansion" or "glory days".
Rather, the differentiated curve is what tells the truth. In short, WotLK was when the increase in subscriptions stopped and began to decline. Why this decline occurred, there are many arguments. Some of the direct arguments are that the causality of decline in subscriptions are the content WotLK offered versus earlier instalments. One can presume that the majority of new subscribers came through friends and if friends quit, so does the new players invited by friends.

The true analysis lies, not in the total number of subscribers, though, but rather on the length of subscriptions pr unique account. You can try and gain a picture of when most "accounts" where recycled with new ones or if most accounts have been active since vanilla. This is where the truth lies and it is information that only Blizzard has. Because, say, most vanilla accounts were active until WotLK, but then through marketing, WotLK gathered a huge spike in new accounts, however at the same time, they lost a huge chunk of vanilla accounts. This then in turn means that a fundamental change in game design of WoW made them lose a lot but the increase in fame gave them more subscriptions so that the total number of subscribers were unchanged or increasing until a point where it declined.

[Akka]

TBC:

Always had content to do. Professions were awesome. Heroics were awesome. Seriously, no matter where you were on the chain of progression, you always basically had a new raid or new boss to beat each week, it was incredible. Getting items actually felt good. No stupid Insane level catchup mechanics until Sunwell full unlock (they were kinda stupid)

Cons of TBC: no flexible, casuals had hard time getting 25 for Gruul's etc - therefore stuck in Kara and endless complaints on forums (legit complaints, tbc was too hardcore for casuals requiring 25)

tbc style progression + flexible/crossrealm/etc = gold

Remove the stupid arena gear and add tiered badges (like early WotLK, only good idea they had in it and they scraped it quickly...), which both participated in making content obsolete (though much less than the ilvl bonanza of today) and I fully agree.

One thing one must realise is that the causality of "max subscriptions" is not directly related to "best expansion" or "glory days".
Rather, the differentiated curve is what tells the truth. In short, WotLK was when the increase in subscriptions stopped and began to decline. Why this decline occurred, there are many arguments. Some of the direct arguments are that the causality of decline in subscriptions are the content WotLK offered versus earlier instalments. One can presume that the majority of new subscribers came through friends and if friends quit, so does the new players invited by friends.

The true analysis lies, not in the total number of subscribers, though, but rather on the length of subscriptions pr unique account. You can try and gain a picture of when most "accounts" where recycled with new ones or if most accounts have been active since vanilla. This is where the truth lies and it is information that only Blizzard has. Because, say, most vanilla accounts were active until WotLK, but then through marketing, WotLK gathered a huge spike in new accounts, however at the same time, they lost a huge chunk of vanilla accounts. This then in turn means that a fundamental change in game design of WoW made them lose a lot but the increase in fame gave them more subscriptions so that the total number of subscribers were unchanged or increasing until a point where it declined.

Bingo. Kinda the same point I made just above

[Frozenbeef]

Mop and TBC for obvious reasons.

MOp felt a decent expansion and was only held back by it's long content lul full of orcs, tbc introduced features which vanilla drastically needed such as better questing/ dailies and arena.

[Aeula]

Vanilla: Too hard, full of clutter and grindy. Interesting questlines and class quests, but the rest of questing sucked.

TBC: After the exp nerf of 2.3 levelling got a lot more interesting, end game was pretty solid, could have done with more daily hubs on a bigger scale than Quel'danas

WotLK: Very little to do if you didn't like dungeons or raiding. Bad expansion for me. Levelling vastly improved though

Cata: Much needed quest rework, though still not modern. Even for it's time. Terrible start, but got interesting with the firelands daily hub and 4.3, which was the best part of the expansion for me.

MoP: Best expansion. Rep grind and gated gear sucked for the first two months, but once 5.1 fixed most of the issues it quickly became the best expansion thus far. Tons of end game, finally did some serious raiding and always had something to do... at least until 5.3, but 5.4 gave me some stuff to do too, though timeless isle was shallow after a few hours.

WoD: Best questing experience to date, very close to modern MMOs. Complete lack of endgame made the entire expansion corrode into a steaming pile of shite though.

So...MoP was the best time period.

Can't comment on Legion since I'm not in alpha.

[Yemkela]

MoP for me. The music and atmosphere completely immersed me, pet battling was such an in-depth minigame that focused on collecting while it still had a compelling endgame with the Celestial Tournament. I loved the sandbox style of all the islands, though the Dino island could have had a little more going on. Scenarios were cool too, it's a shame those didn't carry on. WoD feels like such a paint-by-numbers expansion compared to it. I have high hopes for Legion though and I think it will give MoP a run for its money. It seems like the devs have learned a lot from their mistakes.

[SteveRocks]

I've been playing since the end of Vanilla so I don't have a full view of the original, but for me it's a toss-up between WoTLK and MoP.

WotLK because that is when I started getting into serious raiding with a consistent group of guild-mates. Mostly fun-times nostalgia. Plus the zones, story, and raids were great. MoP because there was so much to do. Such as challenge modes and getting endless proving ground titles which was a welcome challenge to an otherwise pretty casual game.

[Bapestar]

Wrath and BC. MoP was good but nowhere near the others.

[cirdanx]

Well, i enjoyed vanilla and tbc the most. Always had something to do, my friendslist was full with people actually playing and not standing around. There was a community and progress was slow but meaningful. So that gets my vote.

Legion? Will likely end up like WoD, that´s my guess at last.

[Violetti]

Wrath and MoP

[FobManX]

BC for challenging and stimulating gameplay, WOTLK for simplification and quality of life increases.

[MakeMeLaugh]

2 = so many?

Well, considering it's about WoD...

Exactly my point lol. Anything above 0 for WoD is too much.

[Chain Chungus]

Wrath just barely loses out to TBC for me, due to Wrath's evolution of the speed-run, aoe-tank dungeons as well as its bland, skull-obsessed gear designs (aside from a handful of high-end raid models, of course).

[Namalia]

MoP & Wrath.

Worst:
TBC & Classic.

[Caughtfire]

Vanilla > TBC > Wrath >> > Mop > Cata > Wod

How are people even voting for Legion?

[Deleted]

Wrath drought was terrible even with Ruby Sanctum. TBC was the first and final expansion where all the content mattered till the end with a decent spread of patches throughout it. Imo Wrath only had Ulduar going for it which only lasted 3months, made irrelevant by arguably one of the worst raids. Wrath introduced the best raiding system with its unlockable hardmodes and then also destroyed it by implementing the burnout system(separate 10/25 ID's) now you could raid twice as much and gear up much faster. It also led to main+alt gear funneling for even faster progression and burnouts. Combine that with a 1year 'drought' and I don't see how Wotlk can be praised at all.