WOTLK without rose-tinted shades

[Zoldor]

Yes, Wrath had flaws, but Wrath was still the best. Especially at the time it was the peak of MMO gaming and the end game was alright. Most of the player base had finally reached a skilled level, compared to Vanilla and BC where the common player was pretty garbage. The Community was at its peak at this time as well and servers were pretty thriving places without cross realm stuff. Until the second iteration of LFD showed up, originally it was server wide only before becoming battle group.

I'm not going to wax on about the questing, because yes, questing is the one thing we can all point to and say, "Yes, it is way better now than ever." A lot of that has to do with the tech at the time and new mmos and RPGs generally creating better quest systems.

Zones, yes you could fly over a lot of stuff, BUT that was because the world was supposed to feel like an epic war was taking place on the entire continent, especially near the epicenters of that evil, Ice Crown and Storm Peaks. So the idea of flying over it was to give you a sense of this never ending battle going on, running through that wouldn't have the same effect.

The story was fairly predictable, but it was supposed to be, this wasn't some new evil showing up or some sneak attack by someone in hiding, it was a guy we've known about and who had been attacking us since WarCraft 3. This was a "Look over there, see that dark spot that is where the bad guys live. It is time to go put an end to this." Story line and it was pretty well handled. With the 5mans leading up to it, the story of the titan discoveries through raids and 5 mans. I found Wrath to really open up the Warcraft universe lore a bit, before that we had only had suggestions to some of that stuff and now we were seeing it and discovering it and the lore was growing.

Old Gods have been middle tiers, it has been a thing. Ulduar is a great raid, was a great raid, never felt shoe horned, and had some badass ground breaking stuff that lead to modern raiding. It also had some great lore discoveries and brought about an entire section of the Keepers, Old Gods, titans etc. To just wave a hand and dismiss it because it was the second tier is well, dismissive.

Crystal Song, like Zul'Darak, did meet with a sad fate. But at the same time Dalaran was over crystal song and we really didn't need to be parked over the war itself, but centrally located. I'm going to stab at there was going to be some tech problems had Crystal song been a thriving hub, as well, with Dal above it. But again, it is sad that both those zones didn't see more.

Overall Wrath is the best expansion for a lot of reasons and some of those have to do with time and tech as much as the content of the game. The growth between Vanilla/BC and Wrath is impressive in all facets of the game: Design, Lore, Community, Raiding, 5 mans, various endgame content, and PvP. Wrath laid the groundwork for the modern era of WoW, which I really love and I've been around since Vanilla never unsubbing. We nit pick expansions a lot, but really the game is still good and Wrath shows the peak of blizzard in the MMO community.

Calling the Wrath the best expansion means more than the sum of its content. Was cata better? Only the questing, everything else in Cata was pretty much copy paste and moved the game very little forward, MoP was much better and moved the game forward. WoD questing was great, some solid raids, but otherwise it was pretty lacking and they know that. I have high hopes for Legion coming very close to Wrath, but we'll see.

Wrath had flaws, but it doesn't stop it from being the best expansion. And there is a lot of outside forces that made that happen, not just the content of Wrath. If Wrath isn't the best which expansion is? And also, the only flaws you found were basically quest based and an empty zone.

Take for instance, Doom and Doom II are revered as some of the best FPS of all time. The reasons aren't the content itself was great, but that they were the first 3d and multiplayer FPS games. They basically created a genre. Wrath is kind of like that, it was the turning point for MMOs and pretty much capped WoW as THE mmo.

[Tawm]

Are you sure you even played during WotLK, OP? Flying was absolutely necessary for the last two, if not three zones. Judging by your follow-up posts, you seem to think flying was a detriment to WotLK in general. The Dungeon Finder tool wasn't introduced in WotLK until more than a year later with 3.3. If you've ever done mythic 5 man content in WoD, then imagine doing that with 12 dungeons on a daily basis on a continent that's more than twice the size of Draenor.

Despite having many (inconvenient) flightpaths, I would've quit within a few weeks without flying.

[Daffan]

WOTLK was cool until ToC and 5man welfare. Then ICC was cool, but the welfare creeping the game at this time made everyone get their first dose of content drought, hence Ruby Sanctum the crapfest.

[Demithio]

WOTLK was cool until ToC and 5man welfare. Then ICC was cool, but the welfare creeping the game at this time made everyone get their first dose of content drought, hence Ruby Sanctum the crapfest.

Wrath started very good. I'd say the first half was good. They did start doing the welfare thing during the last half or so with other watering down of the game. Overall, leaps and bounds over the mindless, overly simplified, slop we have today.

[FobManX]

1) Most of the quests in zones like Grizzly Hills, Fjord, Borean, and Sholazar were completely disconnected from the main story, which would have been fine as standalone plot arcs had they not been, for the most part, boring and anticlimactic, not to mention cliche. Just for comparison, every single new zone in Cataclysm, for example, absolutely blew all of Northrend out of the water when it came to plot and aesthetics.

Northrend wasn't just about the Scourge/Lich King though, there was history to it relating to the Titans which is addressed in Scholazar and Storm Peaks(there was also that quest chain in Scholazar where you fought like zillions of Scourge on top of that giant Titan thingy). Every other zone was related to the Lich King/Scourge. Howling Fjord was related to the Vyrkul who had a history with the Lich King if you remember that flashback quest. I think only Grizzly Hills was somewhat disconnected, honestly I kinda forget that zone.

2) The two top level zones were almost completely identical in aesthetics with very few visual variations throughout. This was consistent with the lore of the zones, but failed to make them any less of an eye-sore after a few months of seeing more of the same every single day.

I mean yeah, its Northrend, its supposed to be a mostly snow filled zone. But you still had a lot of other areas that weren't like this earlier, like Scholazar, Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills etc.

3) Crystalsong, arguably the most beautiful zone in the Northrend, had virtually zero content. Now I'm not sure where exactly I saw this, but I read somewhere that it was supposed to be a thriving questing zone like all the others but Blizz decided to cut content before release, possibly due to lack of resources (WOD flashbacks anyone?).

Ill give you this one. They made a whole zone and had nothing in it. Such a waste.

4) Yogg'saron was squeezed in seemingly out of nowhere, and met a highly unimpressive and unimportant end for something that is apparently the root of (almost) all evil on Azeroth.

Wasn't really out of nowhere. Its explained in the quests how much Titan influence there is in Northrend(Freya in Scholazar, Thorim/Hodir in Storm Peaks). Yogg is also the Old God of Death which fits in with the Scourge undead theme. As far as unimpressive end, I don't know I thought that fight was awesome. Hard and fun batle.

5) Flying was available at lvl 77, allowing players to fly over all of the seemingly looming, menacing threats in Icecrown and Stormpeaks, taking away much of the "darkness" and "danger" behind them.

IIRC you could actually get attacked while flying in certain parts of Icecrown, and the way the zones were designed you pretty much had to fly to access certain quest/quest areas.

6) The entire expansion was pretty predictable, from start to finish, in that we knew we would eventually get to and kill Arthas. No plot twists aside from Wrathgate, which again didn't impact the overall story though.

Isn't that every WoW expac though? How many times do we really get plot twists in WoW? I mean that's the fantasy genre in a nutshell: big bad villain, lets go on an epic quest to defeat them.

[derpkitteh]

It's even better when you compare it to legion now. WoD was an absolute failure and a horrible excuse for an expansion. unfortunately it looks as if they about to sink even lower with legion.

from everything i've seen of legion thus far, it seems to be a sort of return to form. at least getting back to cataclysm or mists in goodness.

[McNeil]

WotLK is the best expansion. Thats not to say it was perfect though, but it did a lot more things right than the other expansions. I found the PvE experiences to be some of the best, I very much enjoyed the visuals and aesthetics of most 5-man dungeons and the epic feels they got. As for raids, Ulduar and ICC are my favorite raids of the game. I even enjoyed Naxx as I never got to see it before. I didn't mind ToC tier as it was just an extra major patch to keep players busy, its kinda like other filler patches like 5.1 and 5.3 but with a new small raid.

All the zones look beautiful and are rich in quests, though Borean Tundra is the weakest zone. And WC3 veterans finally got to see the conclusion of the Frozen Throne, getting to fight the character they've controlled for so long in the campaigns.

[Afrospinach]

best raid ever. no trash.

I thought the encounters were quality as well. Very challenging and fun.

[Armourboy]

from everything i've seen of legion thus far, it seems to be a sort of return to form. at least getting back to cataclysm or mists in goodness.

Lets pray to god its a lot better than Cata. MoP amounts of content, raids, without the Asian flair ( not that I minded at the time but I got tired of it) sounds pretty good to me. Honestly if they can deliver on the talk they are talking I think Legion has the chance to be up there with Wrath and TBC in most peoples minds. MoP should be, but far too many people can't get by the aesthetics.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrath started very good. I'd say the first half was good. They did start doing the welfare thing during the last half or so with other watering down of the game. Overall, leaps and bounds over the mindless, overly simplified, slop we have today.

Welfare epics started in TBC with easy arena gear and the badge vendors. People just like to remove that from their brain because it taints that oh so mighty image of it.

[derpkitteh]

Lets pray to god its a lot better than Cata. MoP amounts of content, raids, without the Asian flair ( not that I minded at the time but I got tired of it) sounds pretty good to me. Honestly if they can deliver on the talk they are talking I think Legion has the chance to be up there with Wrath and TBC in most peoples minds. MoP should be, but far too many people can't get by the aesthetics.

eh, people hate on cata, but it was the last expansion in which we got post-expansion dungeons added. it was miles better than WoD in every shape and form, at the very least.

[NorthWay]

WotLK was the last expansion that didn't majorly stroke enough peoples fur the wrong way. IMNSHO.
Since then there have been too many things people have not been willing to overlook and forgive.

[Hctaz]

haha lol, indeed pretty similar arguments. although i think most people have similar opinion on the matter. As i said, most of the op's arguments i never knew even existed before reading this thread.

its as if your house was in a ruin, broken windows, falling roof, no water/electricity, but the thing you complained about was the color of the walls.

Makes sense. I think the people who stop and understand the full story of WotLK (I played for the entire expansion and leveled up SO. MANY. ALTS LOL) you see that it was actually done really well.

[solarfallz]

My opinion on Wrath:
10/10 zone design and questing
6/10 raid design (first tier absolute garbage, second tier good, third tier bland, and last tier decent)
3/10 ability/class design (and PVP as a direct result)

Also, heirlooms were a mistake.

[Shedeo]

*snip*

Didn't mean the number of zones, I meant the general feel and appearance of the zones. Grizzly Hills, Storm Peaks, Howling Fjord, and Sholazar beat... Well, maybe Dread Wastes and Kun-Lai?

Arthas > Garrosh. There's no two ways about it. He had more presence throughout the zones, and was created to be a bad guy, rather than arguably turned into a bad guy to appease people that didn't like him. He was heavily tied into the lore at almost every turn, and you learned a lot about him playing through the quests. Granted, you can learn about Garrosh by playing through Nagrand, but most people I knew that were new to the game, even during Wrath, couldn't have told you who he (Garrosh) was.

Both armor sets you linked are hideous. Also, Cryptstalker's from Vanilla.

I'll give you that Pandaria had smooth quest transitioning, but the story in Wrath was better. We can argue this til we're blue in the face, because it's completely subjective. The lore and tales told in Northrend, as opposed to those in Pandaria, are of a completely different breed... Most of the time. Pandaria has a lot about learning about the natives' lifestyle, which is fine, but Northrend is a brutal landscape where, around every corner, there is lurking something that wants to kill you. There's an absolutely massive war going on, for the fate of the entire world, not just for that of one continent. That's the sort of stories that I prefer my high level characters going through.

It's really only the mantid, and maybe the yaungol, who remain important. Even the pandaren are pretty much completely pushed to the side during the last two patches, save for very specific characters. The pandaren, hozen, and jinyu as races aren't really prevalent or important. At that point, it was all about the orcs and the trolls. Also, I like the pandaren. They're a perfect fit and, were they playable, I'd totally rock a tuskarr.

I'll say that dungeons were handled better in Wrath, but that Pandaria also brought with it something I wish they had continued as group content- scenarios. However, dungeons are still way better, especially the ICC dungeons (or at least Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection).

And then we get to the end. You enjoyed MoP more. I enjoyed Wrath more. As much of this is completely up to personal preference, there's no way to state that one was simply better than the other using facts. Because it's all opinions.

[Lumineus]

1) Most of the quests in zones like Grizzly Hills, Fjord, Borean, and Sholazar were completely disconnected from the main story, which would have been fine as standalone plot arcs had they not been, for the most part, boring and anticlimactic, not to mention cliche. Just for comparison, every single new zone in Cataclysm, for example, absolutely blew all of Northrend out of the water when it came to plot and aesthetics.

This is highly subjective. For me, Cataclysm zones were boring railshooters that I loathed to repeat on my alts, yet was forced to do 90% of the quests in Deepholm, probably the most dull-looking zone since Netherstorm. Speaking of clichés, Harrison Jones and the Temple of Uldum? Seriously?

2) The two top level zones were almost completely identical in aesthetics with very few visual variations throughout. This was consistent with the lore of the zones, but failed to make them any less of an eye-sore after a few months of seeing more of the same every single day.

Frozen Mordor = Mount Olympus. Ooooo kay. If you say so.

3) Crystalsong, arguably the most beautiful zone in the Northrend, had virtually zero content

Server tech at the time couldn't sustain Dalaran and a fully-populated questing zone simultaneously. Same reason Azjol-Nerub was reduced to two dungeons.

4) Yogg'saron was squeezed in seemingly out of nowhere

Did you quest at all in Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, and Storm Peaks?

5) Flying was available at lvl 77, allowing players to fly over all of the seemingly looming, menacing threats in Icecrown and Stormpeaks, taking away much of the "darkness" and "danger" behind them.

/violin

Also, WHAT wandering, looming threats in Storm Peaks?

6) The entire expansion was pretty predictable, from start to finish

Make up your mind. Ulduar was out of left field, or it was totally predictable?

[DeltrusDisc]

I really enjoyed cata. I thought it was well done until the last tier.

You are practically the only person I've ever seen say that. =X

[porgig]

Wrath truly was the best expansion.

Let me sum up three raid tiers in a row for you: "who sent down the keeper?", "who started it?", and "who turned off the buff?".

[endersblade]

I had the most fun in game during WotLK and thats why I think its the best expansion.

This. Wrath was the first time I really focused enough to 'git gud' and enjoy the multiplayer content. Those three instances that dropped epics they released during Wrath were so fucking amazing for me. It was really the first time I had seen legit purples, rather than BoEs from the AH. Even after I got all the gear I needed from them, I continued to run them over and over again on every class I could. Sure, the one where Arthas is chasing you sucks if your party sucks, but I still enjoyed it. I never cared about the story. Yeah, Arthas is the final bad guy, everybody knew that. No surprise. I'm sure the raid was fun back then, but I never did it until 90. I farmed up the tokens to get the vendor sets on all 12 of my chars, I farmed up all of their off-spec gear too. I haven't done that since Cata.

This of course carried over into Cata. The Time-traveling instances we did were fucking amazing. It has pissed me off so much that Blizzard stopped doing this.

[jon234]

I enjoyed wrath for what it was. I raided Nax, OS, EoE ( what a joke of a tier ), as soon as ulduar came around thats when I fell in love with the titan lore, algalon and all of them. Ulduar was by far one of the most ascetically pleasing raids ive been in in a long time ( Vezax can suck a fat one ), the Algalon fight was enjoyable as well, and being able to enjoy the environments on top of that was something I truly enjoyed. the quests in Northrend were fine the first time around and something that doing it once I enjoyed as I got the story and enjoyed it but doing it on a bunch of alts I got bored of it quickly. but having filler raid content like they did with ruby sanctum was by far the smartest thing they did in wrath and was one of the main reasons I probably enjoyed wrath, was because there was stuff to do during the wait from ICC to cata.

[DeltrusDisc]

Wrath truly was the best expansion.

Let me sum up three raid tiers in a row for you: "who sent down the keeper?", "who started it?", and "who turned off the buff?".

In a row? You must be forgetting ToC has to fit in between two of those.