Best timeperiod for WoW?

[Vaelorian]

I really agree with you.

When MGT heroic came out and the upgraded badge gear, it instantly made everything in TBC feel like a waste of time. Kind of like WoD how everything but HFC heroic/mythic is a complete waste of time and not even worth the effort of zoning in for.

before that period in TBC, every week was awesome progressing something (t4/t5/t6, profs, normal badge, reps etc) and then boom - brick wall Sunwell with catchup gear because nothing else mattered. Casuals couldn't do sunwell cause it was hard and everything else was a waste of time due to free gear.

True but it wasn't as bad as it is now. Personally I am willing to sacrifice a few things to allow "catch up" (you do want to play with your friends if you are new or coming back or you want to speed level an alt for some reason). Like I do not like the teleport and crossrealm from LFX-tool right? But I like the tool itself. I like that I don't have to spam /trade and stand idle in IF. But I know that if you don't have the game provide you with a group, the process becomes a little more social. Because you pick those people yourself and you probably have had some form (even small) of communication already. But I am willing to let that last aspect go in favour of some convenience.
Flying is considered bad for the game. I agree. Did it kill World PvP? Hell no, that was over already before flying mounts. The incentive to kill people outside in the open world was nullified with the implementation of the new pvp system after vanilla.
But I do consider flying bad (even though I enjoy it) because you rarely see anyone. Seeing and potentially helping another player (or vice versa) would provide with a better social experience. But since the game is so easy, this "helping" situation isn't going to happen anyway.

To come back to the catch up mechanics. I would "allow" the TBC way of things to catch up. Not the current way of things.

[McNeil]

WotLK has been crucified when it was current content and now its considered to be the best time period of WoW. Times have changed...

[Deleted]

WotLK has been crucified when it was current content and now its considered to be the best time period of WoW. Times have changed...

No it wasnt.

At the time there were dissenting voices, yes, but they were very much a minority. There has been a much larger movement of dissent from Cata onwards.

[Daffan]

True but it wasn't as bad as it is now. Personally I am willing to sacrifice a few things to allow "catch up" (you do want to play with your friends if you are new or coming back or you want to speed level an alt for some reason). Like I do not like the teleport and crossrealm from LFX-tool right? But I like the tool itself. I like that I don't have to spam /trade and stand idle in IF. But I know that if you don't have the game provide you with a group, the process becomes a little more social. Because you pick those people yourself and you probably have had some form (even small) of communication already. But I am willing to let that last aspect go in favour of some convenience.
Flying is considered bad for the game. I agree. Did it kill World PvP? Hell no, that was over already before flying mounts. The incentive to kill people outside in the open world was nullified with the implementation of the new pvp system after vanilla.
But I do consider flying bad (even though I enjoy it) because you rarely see anyone. Seeing and potentially helping another player (or vice versa) would provide with a better social experience. But since the game is so easy, this "helping" situation isn't going to happen anyway.

To come back to the catch up mechanics. I would "allow" the TBC way of things to catch up. Not the current way of things.

I don't really mind flying nor the LFG system that much. I think the biggest problem with the LFG system was the systematic nerf of 5 mans at the same time, which basically lasts forever. They made the dungeons so boring, it's a zerg even at launch.

But yeah, the catchup mechanics are ridiculous. Your either raiding heroic/mythic HFC for 3-5 months getting progress then run out of content. Or your sitting around with full set of instant level 700 catchup gear / 705 baleful with nothing to progress because even HFC Normal mode is obsolete (cept for trinkets etc) and everything before that is guaranteed a waste of time.

Like how does that even work. 2/4 difficulties of CURRENT RAID CONTENT are obsolete due to catchup gear. When you run around and inspect people, there is 2 classes of player. 1 With heroic/mythic HFC and 90% of everyone else with 700 baleful/pvp gear - I have never seen anyone with normal HFC stuff. Everything else is a complete waste of time, even if it is incredible content like HM/BRF etc, it's just completely skipped over.

[Deleted]

No it wasnt.

At the time there were dissenting voices, yes, but they were very much a minority. There has been a much larger movement of dissent from Cata onwards.

It was pretty much as he said though. It was pretty apparent that the good ol' days were always Vanilla and TBC because WoTLK was filled with wrathbabies. Easy dungeons, welfare gear, eventual raid nerfs, gearscore, "lfm link achievement" There wasn't a shortage of complaints at the time. I don't really understand how one can state otherwise.

To be fair, at the time we didn't know what was to come; ie. faceroll leveling, LFD eventually leading to nerfing of perfectly wonderful cata hcs, LFR, easier dungeons, homogenization etc.

[endur]

Wrath, then BC, then Vanilla, then Mists, then Cata, then WoD.

[Mellrod]

Normally I would say there isnt really an objective era that was best over all seeing as they all had their strong points (yes, even WoD had a few pros e.g. raiding, storytelling, etc.). With that being said, WoD was pretty terrible compared to the others. Guess it comes down to preference (these are in order of my favorite to least favorite, not chronological):

1. WotLK - All around excellent. Great social aspect. The great story across all zones because everyone knew/was interested in The Lich King. The continent was massive with large zones. A lot of the progression, although long, had good rewards. Death Knights were fun, but overpopulated. Dungeons were also cool, but very easy. Raiding was awesome, esp. Ulduar & ICC. I loved ToTC & it's dailies. WotLK was the first time I PvPed, and i loved WG. Also, the 3 ending 5mans were amazing. Generally lots of stuff to do, and killing Arthas felt great. Although LFG was introduced here, and that took away some of the feel of old WoW in the future.

2. BC - Still good social aspect, made many friends across many guilds. The new zones were cool, dungeons were fun, and working for stuff like rep, flying, blues & purps, etc. felt great when accomplished. Shattrath was my favorite place in the world.

3. Vanilla - Started in late vanilla, so didn't see much raiding as I was a noob and spent most of my time leveling. Questing was tedious and there were times when i got burned out on trying to level as it felt like a REALLY slow crawl to 60, so that's when I discovered the great social aspect. That's my personal experience, but I do know Vanilla was really fun for open world PvP and raiding (although 40m raids were a huge pain for multiple reasons.)

4. MoP - Chronologically, most folks say golden age ended at WotLK, but in hindsight, MoP is the tail end of a golden era for me. I always dismissed the "kung fu panda & pokemon" complaint because it's rather childish and dismisses everything the xpac brought: Even better storytelling than Cata with a beautiful OST and ornately designed zones, Monks & pet battles were interesting (albeit underrated). Oversaturation with dailies, but each patch was unique and different from the last and so was the way their dailies worked (The farm dailies deserve a mention here). From the episodic story/daily progression of 5.1, to the server-wide progression of 5.2, to the dynamic, one-time event of Battlefield: Barrens w/ it's weekly dailies in 5.3. 5.4. was also unique with the raid being in Orgrimmar of all places, and Timeless Isle being a gateway discovery for Blizzard, as it's technology makes future xpacs much better when it comes to exploration.

Also, Brawler's Guild was cool. Generally, there was a lot to do, and the way they created new lore from a very vague source (i.e. pandaren) and tied it in with already founded lore was a high point, as well as the introduction of new characters and the general buildup to killing Garrosh with a more or less complex story in between. All this being said, the fact that Blizz practically replaced good 5-man dungeons with boring, 3-man scenarios was the worst part of MoP. Felt like LFG-lite.

5. Cata - Despite people labeling it a bad expansion, that's really relative (and probably people forgetting everything but the long ass drought). Seeing that there wasn't a truly bad x-pac yet, cata was just the worst of the best. The pre-launch & shattering patches made everything feel fresh. Seeing the world changed brought back that sense of awe and wonderment from vanilla again. Cata was a huge milestone in storytelling for WoW, and new quests were great. The dungeons were solid (even better before the nerf), the new races were cool, new zones were good (uldum is my least favorite. I also enjoyed vashj'ir believe it or not). Firelands was my favorite patch and the new way dailies worked there was fun imo. Only really bad parts of Cata were ZA/ZG, DS raid, the nerf of all the dungeons to be WotLK easy again, and the long drought. Also LFR, a more or less problematic feature which was introduced in Cata. Archaeology could've also been better if they didn't get rid of Path of The Titans, which the profession was designed to depend on.


6. WoD - Questing was the best in WoW yet, I doubt there isn't one person who played WoD that doesnt know at least some of what's going on in the story. Raiding was fun. Music and graphics are great, and thank goodness for new character models too. Beyond that, WoD is a half-baked expansion (and not because of the lack of races/classes). Felt like they thought "what if we somehow showed players past draenor and it's characters?!" and got so giddy they didn't put anymore thought into an expansion than that, leaving tons of holes in the story, developer cold feet after the second patch.

So much was scrapped, from 3-4 entire zones, to features like the capitals and Trial of The Gladiator. Ashran is shit, 6.1 was awful, Garrisons had potential, but a lot of it was also scrapped (i.e. being able to place your Garrison anywhere, having it as endgame content, being able to set up trade routes w/ neighboring garrisons), and the xpac was cut short, probably due to it turning out bad and so much being scrapped that they didnt have anymore ideas. Tanaan, while passing for content, did not makeup for any of this and got old quick. WoD was just one big empty promise with lack of delivery on almost all fronts. Let's hope Legion redeems Blizzard and saves what's left of WoW.

Edit: Damn, sorry for huge text wall. I won't blame you for skipping it.

[Marmot]

Despite the length of the patch, 5.4 was by far one of the strongest patches. Siege of Orgrimmar was a solid raid. 5.1 was pretty good too, complimented the 5.0 content nicely.

[ShiyoKozuki]

WOTLK was bad. Naxx was cleared within 2 days of the expansion being released.

Ulduar and ICC were great, but that's it. Bad PVP, no real open world content, flying mounts, LFG was added, face roll heroics, catch up mechanics, etc.

WOTLk was the beginning of all of WOW's problems. It's what started all of it. The problem is, everyone has the sheep mentality of "LOL WOTLK IS BEST EXPAC XD!!" and that's what everyone thinks now.

I bet over 50% of the people who voted WOTLK didn't even play WOTLK.

[Deleted]

I really agree with you.

When MGT heroic came out and the upgraded badge gear, it instantly made everything in TBC feel like a waste of time. Kind of like WoD how everything but HFC heroic/mythic is a complete waste of time and not even worth the effort of zoning in for.

before that period in TBC, every week was awesome progressing something (t4/t5/t6, profs, normal badge, reps etc) and then boom - brick wall Sunwell with catchup gear because nothing else mattered. Casuals couldn't do sunwell cause it was hard and everything else was a waste of time due to free gear.

Yeah, I agree as well.

I was quite new then, started in '07 and I felt it too. I didn't really understand what I felt back then but the game did get a lot more boring once it came out.

Now I know why, it was simply because everything else lost its value almost entirely. And all that mattered onwards, was MGT hc loot and some off-pieces from other raids to quickly further progress you into higher level raids.

I was in Kara, Maggy, Gruul, ZA most of my time back then and I loved those raids. But as a newbie, I wasn't really the best player or even very useful but even for me, those raids suddenly turned into the category of wasting my time as well...

Never saw Sunwell until later in Wrath. I enjoyed Wrath thoroughly but the more I think about it, I was really immersed and into the game during the start in BC.

[Rafoel]

Vanilla - never played it but people everywhere say it was great, so I guess it was.

[Roadblock]

Vanilla: 9
At its core an amazing game, lots of rough edges with UI / tech, Role Definition
(support role was a thing but its gameplay was not too engaging and never got the spotlight)
Burning Crusade: 10-
Everything that was good from Vanilla + much better Role Definition, golden age of small group content, amazing gear progression, some bad things near the end
(flying, faster catchup / obsolescence, dailies + the start of repeatable content on short timers but too late to tarnish the expansion)
Wrath of the Lich King: 8
Everything that was bad at the end of BC, fleshed out and gaining a foothold on the game
(shop becoming a thing, catch up gaining momentum, making for disposable content, the first iterations of multiple difficulties and widespread content reuse - same raids multiple sizes etc) but expansion was carried hard by story spanning and intertwining all game modes (from solo to raids), technical innovations, Ulduar + ICC.
Cataclysm: 6-
First half was actually a 7/8 for me, a half-hearted attempt to return to core values but awful implementation of challenge increase, and the second half was panicked back-pedaling that fixed nothing leaving it a hot mess. Rise of the questing on rails experience, along-side the destruction of what was left of the older game design.
MoP: 6
Honest attempt at a steady content pipeline so it gets points for that, on the other hand side-games, mini-games that do not belong in an mmorpg other than as a temporary distraction becoming mainstream content, daily hell, forced timesinks galore that do not feel organic to the world
(there's no suspension of disbelief like "yea I need to become stronger to tackle this challenge so it makes sense to block me until I do" < good way, Vs "here's an egg timer, now fuck off until it rings"), Role definition shot to hell, class and spec identity shot to hell. P2W gaining momentum with bought content skips and in-game advantages. Death of small group content outside of gimmick Challenge Mode that was outside character progression.
WoD: 2
Fuck you Bobby Kotick and Candy Crush Saga. Worst elements from Cata and MoP expanded further with none of their good parts. I hear instanced content was good; didn't manage to get out of the free month myself before feeling like poking my eyes out with a spork.
Could no longer identify with my favorite classes, questing entirely on rails, a bad solo rpg(?) experience, fucking mini-RTS has no place being the centerpiece in my mmo. A disjointed mess of lobbies, menus and side-games with no sense of world or social environment.

Goes without saying those are my opinions, I speak only for myself.

I haven't kept up with Legion at all (other than skimming front page news) but I see nothing that tells me the game is about to course-correct.
Looks like a pure fan-service expansion (or overpriced content patch with the way things have been going).
Flashier graphics to cover up for removal of gameplay.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

I think TBC was the overall best expansion, but the timeframe when I personally had the most fun was from the release of Cata to the release of Dragon Soul. The original Cata 5mans are to this day the by faaaaaar best 5man content this game ever had, and T11 is one of the best raid tiers, up there with Ulduar, Kara and BRF.

From a purely raiding perspective, WoD has been the by far best, even if I had two breaks during it (mainly because the game is so old that I feel I have done everything before, even if the never content is of higher quality than the old).

I don't really rate WotLK and MoP. They were nice enough, but nothing special. WotLK was just a more boring version of Cata (t11 and t12 obviously), and I can't really pinpoint anything "wrong with MoP, it just didn't have any magic.

[Faylum1]

Pointless vote since the majority of keyboard warriors that use this forum are Wrath Babies. Which explains why there is so much hatred towards people who want legacy servers and so much trolling against people who talk about the old days. This is like walking into a crèche and asking the children to choose between Barney the Dinosaur and Rolf Harris...

[dwightyo39]

Personally, I thought the icecrown zone (not the raid) was just sort of thrown together.

They made a big deal with the wrath gate. You do a little quest chain for the ebon blade flight path/outpost. Then the next thing is icecrown 5 man dungeons.

They should have had us battle through the army of scourge and multiple gates that fill the rest of the zone.

[shimerra]

Pointless vote since the majority of keyboard warriors that use this forum are Wrath Babies. Which explains why there is so much hatred towards people who want legacy servers and so much trolling against people who talk about the old days. This is like walking into a crèche and asking the children to choose between Barney the Dinosaur and Rolf Harris...

Looks like you sure took the high road. Cries about hatred/trolling towards people who agree with his view point then does exactly what he cries about other people doing to his "approved players". As big of a billy bad ass as you wanna try to be let's not forget that Vanilla WoW was considered the MMO for the mentally challenged babies who couldn't hack it in a real MMO. And 90% of vanilla wasn't hard, it was tedious. Difference.

[dwightyo39]

I'd still have to say vanilla wow was the most fun I ever had with a video game. Not saying TBC and Wotlk weren't good too.

My realm in vanilla (boulderfist) had such an active community for being a lower population server. You actually had worth while drama and rivalries between guilds and factions.

That and a lack of flying/actually having to travel to the entrance of an instance or bg meant people were in the world.

[Deleted]

in WOTLK general consesu of players was that it is the worst expansion ever. I told them that in 3-4 years they will miss WOTLK I think i win. Wotlk was fun up to ICC 3.0.2, 3.1 and 3.2 were superb with extreme good 3.1 (Ulduar). Imho Ulduar set the bar for raids so high that i will not see a better raid until Wow 2.0 probably. Also Wotlk had everything. Naxx which was great just like vanilla but mostly for size and nostalgia reasons and Ulduar who was the best raid ever in this game.

[Deleted]

From looking at this poll.. PLEASE GIVE US WOTLK SERVERS Q_Q

[Deleted]

From looking at this poll.. PLEASE GIVE US WOTLK SERVERS Q_Q

Why would you want to do content you farmed for 2 years again ?