Best timeperiod for WoW?

[TCGamer]

Wrath or MoP, really.

Anything but Vanilla or TBC.

[Cæli]

The results strangely looks like the subscription number chart.

Wotlk was the best overall. That launch.
Cata on the other hand was bad enough to drag numbers down a lot. Personally I hated it when I realized they added a new world without making the old world accessible. Then the whole game playable by staying in SW, then the disappointing final raid. Having this right after wotlk was a hard challenge for cata anyway. Mop went beyond all expectation and was near perfection pleasure wise.

[Mokenuf]

I love how everyone hated MoP because of pandas and now everyone sees it as a near wrath masterpiece.

[Queen of Hamsters]

MoP, hands down. Have many great memories from WOTLK and Cata, but MoP and especially during 5.2 was when I realized just what the team can do when they put their backs into it.

Doesn't mean I'd want servers locked in that time period. I was there, experienced it, moved on.

- - - Updated - - -

I love how everyone hated MoP because of pandas and now everyone sees it as a near wrath masterpiece.

"Everyone" translating to retards that often didn't even play it and only parroted what they saw negative Nates say...it holds about as much water as "The game is too easy!!"-crowd that have fuck all to show for their big talk, that then turn around and hail Classic as the pinnacle of skillcap requirements...

It succeeded Wrath in my book, from the start, in terms of raw content outside of raids and the whole picture, really. There's a reason for why 14 months of SoO retained players so well. If the expansion leading up to a final patch has been great, a content drought isn't as big of a blow.

[Deleted]

Vanilla -> Tbc -> Mop -> Wotlk -> Cata -> Wod

[Deleted]

Vanilla -> Tbc -> Mop -> Wotlk -> Cata -> Wod

You can go back 12-16 months back in time and you will read that MoP was worst expansion ever... now you see this. :-D towards end of Legion people will say WoD was best expansion we ever had.

[Deleted]

You can go back 12-16 months back in time and you will read that MoP was worst expansion ever... now you see this. :-D towards end of Legion people will say WoD was best expansion we ever had.

I think the ppl who said mop was the worst expansion are the ppl who didnt even play it. Those kids who kept yelling kung fu panda etc. Story and content wise i think mop was very good expansion. Only problems were the second raid tier and shitloads of dailys

[The Stormbringer]

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...

What...? I joined in late Vanilla and I voted for Wrath.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You can go back 12-16 months back in time and you will read that MoP was worst expansion ever... now you see this. :-D towards end of Legion people will say WoD was best expansion we ever had.

Probably not, since WoD was ACTUALLY bad. Just check objectively how much content one offered compared to the other.

[TCGamer]

Vanilla -> Tbc -> Mop -> Wotlk -> Cata -> Wod

Wrath=MoP -> Cata -> Vanilla -> TBC=WoD

[Deleted]

Probably not, since WoD was ACTUALLY bad. Just check objectively how much content one offered compared to the other.

Objectively speaking MoP was much worse than WoD in terms of content. Start content in MoP was "dailies" and thats it, it had few heroics a lot of shit scenario and tones of dailies. WoD had everything plus much more. Mid tier patch for MoP was troll raid and troll ilsand which was a massive TROLL from blizzard and end game was a siege of ogrimmar plus island with coin farm. WoD as final patch had Tannan which is much bigger and HFC which is way better than siege plus tone of different pieces of content to do. WoD had much more content than MoP and after MoP final patch there was 15 months of dry content so similar as here. Just dig out any post from that time and you will see how bad it was.

I'm not saying WoD was brilliant, im saying WoD was much less painful and more fun to play than Mists of Pandaria unless your life goal was to become a paragon of Klaxxii or a Mogu overlord or a Sha of Troll.

[Deleted]

Wrath=MoP -> Cata -> Vanilla -> TBC=WoD

Not trying to disregard your opinion, but would you mind elaborating? TBC and WoD, despite both happening in draenor, aren't very similar in my mind. So to me it makes little sense to mark them as equals.

To me this was about Vanilla vs Burning crusade. I voted vanilla as I think it's the superior version design wise. Now of course burning crusade made many things better, such as class balance. (Which probably still wasn't top notch, but all(?) specs were at least playable) But I liked how vanilla felt compact, the world had a purpose and it felt like a huge world that mattered. This has diminished in all expansions, even in burning crusade, azeroth was the place where caverns of time were.

I have a few other gripes with TBC that translate into the rest of the expansions as well, mostly to do with raiding. Although I enjoyed TBC raiding greatly, I had many friends who did not. I think there were two major factors with this.

Firstly there was the jump from 10 man to 25 man raiding. As much as I and a lot of other people loved Karazhan it really shouldn't have been the main raid of T4. TBC needed a raid like Molten Core. An easy, long-ish raid for a big group, at least for 25 people. Without one a lot of guilds found it very hard to progress out of Karazhan, as going forward not only did you need 15 more raiders, but the content was also harder. (Mostly anyway, of course a few bosses were easier than Malchezaar or Nightbane) There was (or is, rather) a thread here about how Blizzard has this group size/difficulty thing backwards, and I think it hit the nail on the head. All in all, I think this is what caused Blizzard to make raid sizes more flexible in Wrath, which, I don't necessarily mind too much, but it is a bit of a shame.

The second problem was attunements. Well, one of them. The Hyjal attunement shared a lot of similar problems as the last thing. It required you to kill Kael'Thas and Lady Vashj, both of whom were massively more difficult than early T6 bosses. While this wasn't a problem in itself, it's natural that the game wants to you defeat the last bosses of T5 before proceeding to T6, but this made recruiting people for T6 progression guilds hell. Nobody who was looking for a T6 progression guild had the attunement, and getting it for the new guys was balls. You couldn't just take a guild pug on an off night and go do it. It required a proper raid and it slowed the progression a lot. Nobody cared about the other attunements, nobody minded clearing some dungeons before going to Karazhan or killing Gruul and Nightbane before SSC, some pugs looking for free epics from loot reaver might have minded Tempest keep attunement, but honestly, fuck them for picking on the one easy boss of the raid. I do believe that it was the Hyjal attunement that turned Blizzard so off on the idea for the future. A shame to be sure.

Oh and something about flying mounts and Shattrat portals. I didn't really mind, but I can see them harming the game in the bigger picture. Also TBC invented dailies, which is not good. So shame on it.

[Golden Yak]

I remember Wrath most fondly, there's where I really started to get seriously into raiding (first expansion I managed to finish every raid in!). Haven't ever really hit a point where I didn't enjoy playing, there have been times when I just don't play as much because I've done everything. Looking forwards to Legion a whole bunch though.

[Deleted]

Wrath, easily.

[wiggletard]

I was priveledged to have played the game since the original title. There are bits of each I liked. I put BC on top. Followed closely by Vanilla and MoP. BC had a great story and much to occupy time with. It was just right for me. The game encouraged group play as much as solo play.

I find it odd wrath is so popular these days. Most of us very much disliked wrath during its retail period. But the dungeons and raids were very good(I hated the outdoor experience a great deal).

[Theoris]

MoP was pretty good, but I personally had more fun in Wrath.

[TCGamer]

Not trying to disregard your opinion, but would you mind elaborating? TBC and WoD, despite both happening in draenor, aren't very similar in my mind. So to me it makes little sense to mark them as equals.

To me this was about Vanilla vs Burning crusade. I voted vanilla as I think it's the superior version design wise. Now of course burning crusade made many things better, such as class balance. (Which probably still wasn't top notch, but all(?) specs were at least playable) But I liked how vanilla felt compact, the world had a purpose and it felt like a huge world that mattered. This has diminished in all expansions, even in burning crusade, azeroth was the place where caverns of time were.

I have a few other gripes with TBC that translate into the rest of the expansions as well, mostly to do with raiding. Although I enjoyed TBC raiding greatly, I had many friends who did not. I think there were two major factors with this.

Firstly there was the jump from 10 man to 25 man raiding. As much as I and a lot of other people loved Karazhan it really shouldn't have been the main raid of T4. TBC needed a raid like Molten Core. An easy, long-ish raid for a big group, at least for 25 people. Without one a lot of guilds found it very hard to progress out of Karazhan, as going forward not only did you need 15 more raiders, but the content was also harder. (Mostly anyway, of course a few bosses were easier than Malchezaar or Nightbane) There was (or is, rather) a thread here about how Blizzard has this group size/difficulty thing backwards, and I think it hit the nail on the head. All in all, I think this is what caused Blizzard to make raid sizes more flexible in Wrath, which, I don't necessarily mind too much, but it is a bit of a shame.

The second problem was attunements. Well, one of them. The Hyjal attunement shared a lot of similar problems as the last thing. It required you to kill Kael'Thas and Lady Vashj, both of whom were massively more difficult than early T6 bosses. While this wasn't a problem in itself, it's natural that the game wants to you defeat the last bosses of T5 before proceeding to T6, but this made recruiting people for T6 progression guilds hell. Nobody who was looking for a T6 progression guild had the attunement, and getting it for the new guys was balls. You couldn't just take a guild pug on an off night and go do it. It required a proper raid and it slowed the progression a lot. Nobody cared about the other attunements, nobody minded clearing some dungeons before going to Karazhan or killing Gruul and Nightbane before SSC, some pugs looking for free epics from loot reaver might have minded Tempest keep attunement, but honestly, fuck them for picking on the one easy boss of the raid. I do believe that it was the Hyjal attunement that turned Blizzard so off on the idea for the future. A shame to be sure.

Oh and something about flying mounts and Shattrat portals. I didn't really mind, but I can see them harming the game in the bigger picture. Also TBC invented dailies, which is not good. So shame on it.

For me, it was more about experience for the "feeder guilds" of TBC. The endgame design benefited the top end guilds of each server, and left most of the player base stuck beneath them. Not because they weren't good enough to proceed further, but because the guilds above them would watch them gear people that were potential recruits for them and they'd snipe people from below them, and the vicious cycle continued all throughout TBC. That's why you had guilds stuck in Kara the entirety of TBC. It sucked. That's why I rate TBC at the same level as WoD.

Wrath & MoP had a lot of stuff for people of all skill levels to do, professions were very relevant, there were rare recipes to go after(Jeeves comes to mind), the stories were good, and those were the times I had the most fun in the game.

[Deleted]

For me, it was more about experience for the "feeder guilds" of TBC. The endgame design benefited the top end guilds of each server, and left most of the player base stuck beneath them. Not because they weren't good enough to proceed further, but because the guilds above them would watch them gear people that were potential recruits for them and they'd snipe people from below them, and the vicious cycle continued all throughout TBC. That's why you had guilds stuck in Kara the entirety of TBC. It sucked.

Yeah. Because the guilds people geared and perhaps progressed with couldn't make it any further they left for guilds that fared better. Kind of a sad "survival of the fittest" scenario and I don't think anyone thinks it was healthy for the game.

Now, perhaps because of this the game moved from the Vanilla/TBC "whole expansion matters" style progress to the "everyone raids the latest content" style. And I personally find it rather tragic. It would have been so easy to prevent too, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

[Gilgameshh]

I was priveledged to have played the game since the original title. There are bits of each I liked. I put BC on top. Followed closely by Vanilla and MoP. BC had a great story and much to occupy time with. It was just right for me. The game encouraged group play as much as solo play.

I find it odd wrath is so popular these days. Most of us very much disliked wrath during its retail period. But the dungeons and raids were very good(I hated the outdoor experience a great deal).

A lot of the people you find on here like Wrath because those who thoroughly enjoyed vanilla/TBC aren't playing anymore, so they don't bother posting. Either that, or it was their first expansion. Some legitimately enjoyed it for the reasons they describe above all others, but you're absolutely right: the shitstorm back in Wrath was how casual the game had become. The derogatory term "Wrath baby" was popular for a long time.

Vanilla and TBC for me are hard to choose between because I absolutely loved 40-man raiding and drawn out grinds. TBC gave us much more end-game content and better PvP + arenas, so yeah it's hard for me to choose between the two.

MoP, on the other hand, I absolutely despised. The game had done a complete 180 in design philosophy (turned into accessibility > content quality) so I'm surprised you enjoyed it nearly as much as vanilla. The PvP was atrocious and I'm not sure how hunters made it out of family alpha, let alone into retail. As someone who played since vanilla, what about MoP did you enjoy so much? Genuinely curious, not trying to pick on you.

[Zarc]

I don't think anything will ever beat Vanilla. Simply because I had never played or heard of or knew what an "MMORPG" was before then. So I had no idea what I was getting in to, and I didn't know where to read all about everything either so I got to experience everything in-game in a whole other fashion. I still remember seeing my first ever Epic mount when some level ?? came riding through Stranglethorn Vale on his Epic Kodo. And I was Alliance back then so I almost crapped my pants at the sight. The leveling alone had me occupied for months. End-game wasn't even on my radar while leveling up. Then when I was finally max-level all of that just blew my mind in a way that it can't ever do again. I also got friends for life in vanilla, something I haven't since as I've kept playing with the same people since. Also I was a teenager at the time so I guess things was just more amazing from that perspective compared to how I look at a game as an adult today.