WoW was never better in the last 5 years...

[Pull My Finger]

Cata was good past its 6-month duration but fell hard after

But see, that's another thing. I remember Cataclysm being passionately hated on this forum and there were tons of people who were trying to convince everybody that it was the worst thing to happen to humanity, just like they're doing now with WoD. Thing is: I had a lot of fun in Cata. At some point it started being less so I quit eventually, but that also means: I don't really care how people felt about the last content patch, or whatever. It doesn't influence MY experience with that expansion in any way.

Same goes for WoD to a certain extent. A lot of things about it I found to be really good, and I again, I had my fair share of great fun for a while. I did notice that I quit earier this time around, but again, same thing: for me it was what it was, while I was there. For me, WoD was never this "terrible expansion" everyone keeps pooping their diaper over. It was one that kept me around for a shorter period of time, but nonetheless: what counts is my experience and not some "general consensus" that doesn't even exist. How can there be one? There are only people who'd really like you to accept their opinion as the general concensus.

So all in all, it's an absurd idea to begin with, this "rating" of expansions and deciding on which was "the best" or whatever - a silly thing to obsess over. It's impossible in a continuous, "living" game that people zone in and out of, that offers so many different things to such a huge number of individuals with different playstyles, skill levels, preferences and priorities. But after 12 years of playing this thing, I can tell that this expansion is GOOD, and it's silly for someone to come up and tell me that I can't really say that. At any rate, I can absolutely understand why the OP would say that the game hasn't felt this good for a long time - I do get where that comes from.

Finally, I'm under the impression that the people who have to jump in and remind everyone that it's "too early to tell!" as soon as they see someone having a good time, are the folks that are way too invested in the whole thing for their own good and don't like the idea of others being happy while they're basically always butthurt about something themselves.

[Jaylock]

I do not want to compare the game with the period 2005-2011 because nostalgia plays such a big role, but ever since Cata the game was never this good really.

I think the strongest 3 points are:

- the way returning players are brought back in: never smoother. The game fits you as a new glove. This was a huge problem for returning players over the years.

- this huge and vast number of playing styles are mixed almost perfectly now. The economy is back, to me one of the most intruiging things in on line play (a pity they killed trading and AH's in Diablo 3)...

- the smoothening of avatar play, less buttons and more distinction between specs.

It is great 9/10.

What 3 points did you see that became better ?

I agree with you for the most part. Legion could very well be the new TBC or even top it. So much to do, I log in and I cant even begin to finish everything I want to do in a single night on my main, let alone an alt. Best expansion since TBC. I think we can all agree that Mop was dogshit compared to Legion, and WoD was a good intro into legion.

- - - Updated - - -

I've done almost all the quest lines currently available. That's about 40hrs of playtime in a week(NERDALERT). I'm just now settling into world quests and such but I can already see it as becoming a chore in relatively short order. Rep gains are slow and tedious right now. After world quests and whatever Suramar has to offer, I'm left with dungeons and eventually raids again. the only other thing I have to do now is work on professions.

I feel the 40hrs played so far was well worth the xpac price. But can they keep the content fresh and meaningful?

whats the point of fast grinding rep out in a short time? Im already mostly through honored with all factions just by casually doing world quests and its the first week into the expansion. I don't think Blizzard intended to make reps able to be exalted in the first day the expac opened.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Keep in mind the relevant topic at hand - judging the expansion. I understand your sentiment, but saying 'everyone has their own concept of fun' doesn't address the general consensus of rating an expansion. I agree, everyone does have their own opinion on the matter, but when it comes to a general concensus and a 'fair' judgement on any given expansion, a first impression is simply not enough. There is little value in WoD's first-week impressions compared to how it's viewed in its entirity. Legion isn't going to be fairly judged in the same way until we give it some time, and that's all I was pointing out. I never said nor hinted at anything being a set-in-stone law.

I just said 6 months is a good point to start to get a gauge of where this expansion will go; and even then I pointed out that it's not foolproof considering Cata was good past its 6-month duration but fell hard after. 6 Months is the soonest we can get a solid idea without waiting for the next expansion to get a full retroactive review. We just need time to move away from the 'OMG new content!' bias that everyone has at the beginning of every expansion. Otherwise, your idea of people playing their optimal duration of fun excuses any reason to criticize the expansions for their content delivery or the replay value over a long duration.

Cata was a train wreck from the beginning, and just as you say, it's more about the aggregate opinion than any one individual's. Terrible launch week combined with ridiculously difficult dungeons and raids (and I did them, heroic dungeons and the heroic raiding).

PUG groups were a nightmare. We had just come out of wrath where heroic queues were faceroll easy. As a tank in full ICC 25 heroic gear I could more or less solo a wrath heroic, doing over 60% of the damage most of the time, and even over 80% sometimes. We then jumped into an expansion where heroic queuing was basically throwing keyboard turners together into mythic level dungeons. I did heroics with my guild, and they were "fine", and anyone who never used the queue system saw no issue with the difficulty level. But if you used the queue system, you were in for massive frustration as more than half of heroic PUGs would just end in disbandment. Those that did make it through did so very slowly and with lots of wipes.

[Beazy]

When legion beta started, the forums looked just like this thread.

"OMFG JESUS CHRIST HAS RISEN!"


But, 3 months into beta:
"/facepalm YOU GUYS DIDNT LEARN SHIT FROM WOD"

[Riistov]

Agreed OP! Loving it so far. I was thinking the same thing the other day, everything so far has just filled me with so much nostalgia. Hoping they keep it up!

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When legion beta started, the forums looked just like this thread.

"OMFG JESUS CHRIST HAS RISEN!"


But, 3 months into beta:
"/facepalm YOU GUYS DIDNT LEARN SHIT FROM WOD"

I was in beta, I don't remember that vibe at all. Well, maybe around here on MMO-C.

[Deleted]

Wouldn't praise Legion yet. WoD was amazing in the first month or so but it quickly became utterly shit.

[Deleted]

^This

Also, for roughly the first month of WoD you had 15-20 servers daily at full capacity. So far, in Legion, the most servers I've seen at full at the same time has been 6.

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That's not surprising at all. 144h? Dude, you are still well with in the "honeymoon" period of your WoW experience.

144h since Legion has started bro, not total. And Servers are not full anymore because they increased the capacity/bought bigger servers.

[Hardkorr]

I think one of the great things about Legion was that it continues established stories instead of having players fart off into bumfucknowhereland. Cata did this too but gutted many, many lore characters in the process. Legion instead kills off the Mary Sues of Cata and brings forwards literally everyone else.

[Christan]

now that the leveling is done for most people, comes the grind...which reminds me of a song from a long time ago...
grind baby grind baby but not the leveling kind, but like playing wow online...something something something...

think he was talking about farming elemental crafting mats? or was that gold farmers song...?

but anyway, current modern wow it has a MUCH more literal meaning lol, Blizz/stay WoW, unlimited grindfest

[Risale]

Only downside: All the people that think WOD can even compare to Legion, and thus using WoD as a "reason for being cautious with your joy"... All the while ignoring FACTS such as:

1. People are not stuck in Garrisons, they're out in the world doing stuff.
2. There's other max level content than raiding.
3. We're already seeing patch 7.1 on the horizon.
4. None of the concerns raised during WoD beta, were raised during Legion Alpha/Beta. It's quite evident that Legion = what they were focusing on. Was is right of them to give us a shoddy expansion? No, but people pretending that Legion can compare to WoD in order to cloud the enjoyment of others are pretty damned blind.

As someone who wasn't starved for content once during WoD (raider, goldmaker, transmogger, pet collector, mount collector), I think... no, I KNOW that Legion is in its own dimension.

I no-life the shit out of Legion atm, and I'm so far from "running out of content to do" as one can come... and I haven't even started on mounts, pets, transmogs or alts.

Ill reply to your points if you don't mind.
1. Thank fuck for that, I see people around me again other then the 19 muppets I raid with.
2. Yup Mythic plus will open up a whole new world for people, not all people like to raid Mythic but maybe with 4 friends they can kick ass in the 5 mans.
3. We have indeed, Kara 2.0 (and we haven't even seen the new bosses just the old ones in the teaser vid) also Suramar will be updated and a mini raid (3 bosses) and maybe later in 7.1 but could be 7.2 Mythic+ version of Kara 2.0 but that will most like be split into 2 instances then (they sorta talked about this at Gamescon).
4. They did drop the ball with WoD big time and being part of early beta for Legion I noticed this even more then most folks but for a a fresh xpac and with the stellar launch that followed a awesome pre-event this says to me that they know they did wrong and will try to not do it again.

At the moment I have leveled 1 toon to max, faming gear and mana for my junkies and AP for myself and unlocking mythic court & arc have kept me rather busy and all I managed to do was level 1 additional toon to 102 but thats about it and I am having a blast.

[callipygoustp]

144h since Legion has started bro, not total. And Servers are not full anymore because they increased the capacity/bought bigger servers.

My bad, thought you were a brand, spanking new, shiny butted(meaning like a new born baby) wow player.

With regards to the capacity: I found the original, or one of the original, blue posts on the server capacity increases - Message from J. Allen Brack
I was aware that they had increased the server capacity shortly after WoD was released but I still recall having queue times on US-Blackrock off and on through the end of the Thanksgiving holiday that year. Granted, the post does mention that they were going to continue tweaking the capacity so maybe the capacity is now 3x what it was pre-WoD launch. I was/am just surprised that so few realms showed full and that there were fewer "high" realms than I used to see. But, realistically, without knowing exactly how much the capacity has been increased, no way I can make a reasonable conclusion based on the realm status page.

[lazzy]

I've done almost all the quest lines currently available. That's about 40hrs of playtime in a week(NERDALERT). I'm just now settling into world quests and such but I can already see it as becoming a chore in relatively short order. Rep gains are slow and tedious right now. After world quests and whatever Suramar has to offer, I'm left with dungeons and eventually raids again. the only other thing I have to do now is work on professions.

I feel the 40hrs played so far was well worth the xpac price. But can they keep the content fresh and meaningful?

There aint no way you did every single quest in 40 hours. I'm sorry but you just didn't. I've pretty much speed ran them and i've got a good 80+ hours so far and i've done them all. Just did the Arcway and Court of stars from rep today. Class hall dailies alone took like 50 hours for my demon hunter which progressed my quest lines.

I've got even more time in collecting every quest item in the world and killing all the elites.

You've got WAY more than your money worth you just rushed the content and complain there aint none left.

[Barnabas]

Well yeah OP this type of thing happens when there is content to do. Especially after over a year with really nothing new in the game to do.

[Sapphire35]

Wouldn't praise Legion yet. WoD was amazing in the first month or so but it quickly became utterly shit.

Legion has a different feel to it than WoD did at release. I was bored in the first week of WoD. I could only even level for an hour at a time before I'd wanna go play something else.

With Legion I can't get enough. I wanna play the shit out of my main. I want to level alts and try all the different artifacts but I just don't have time. If I'm not at work or sleeping I'm at my PC playing this damn expansion being super-nerd.

Maybe you're right. Maybe in 2 weeks I'll be bored. But I doubt it.

[dexx]

MoP was better. Legion quests are clunky and dungeons are a pain. Hopefully the raids will be good.

[Averrix]

Wouldn't praise Legion yet. WoD was amazing in the first month or so but it quickly became utterly shit.

WoD became shit because they didn't support it with content. I mean, at one point in WoD, a major content patch included only the selfie cam. SELFIE CAM!!! What shit is that? I doubt they will do anything like that again.

[dusselldorf]

I do not want to rain on the parade and I agree the content is great so far. But remember, we were saying the same at the launch of Warlords (well except about the smooth launch). Let the game breathes. We should have a clearer opinion in a month or two.

Who is this "we?" I *never* complimented Wod. Hated garrisons from the first week. In fact, it doesn't take longer than a week to judge any game. This expansion is truly the best expansion ever. Bank on it.

[BenBos]

now that the leveling is done for most people, comes the grind...which reminds me of a song from a long time ago...
grind baby grind baby but not the leveling kind, but like playing wow online...something something something...

think he was talking about farming elemental crafting mats? or was that gold farmers song...?

but anyway, current modern wow it has a MUCH more literal meaning lol, Blizz/stay WoW, unlimited grindfest

Interesting, but hear this:

"Grind" in present day gaming is a path to success. Grinding for gear or achievements or prestige is what games are all about these days. Even NON MMO's or even boardgames are all about setting long term play records etc through grinding. The internet and "comparing things" created this long term goal.

The question is: how is the feeling of the player to get to these long term grinding goals.

If it is enjoyable you keep playing longer. Simple.

Remember Karazahn : we ALL did that dozens upon dozens of time throughout a complete expansion. Grinding - when done well - can be the bread and butter of gaming.


Now couple this "grind" with a great on line trading system and you have THE success of WoW again.

As a reminder: the deleted trading in D3 made that game a complete DEAD game over the past 2.5 years as grind - without any social aspect - is a way to disaster.

WoD's Garrissons - as they evolved after a few weeks - were indeed awful for mats and trading. In the long run it almost killed WoW...

Happy we are over this stage now...

[blackops2008]

Content wise legion is glorious, but class design wise is atrocious... they butchered some specs because " class fantasy "

WOD content was shit but class design was good.

[Deleted]

I do not want to compare the game with the period 2005-2011 because nostalgia plays such a big role, but ever since Cata the game was never this good really.

I think the strongest 3 points are:

- the way returning players are brought back in: never smoother. The game fits you as a new glove. This was a huge problem for returning players over the years.

- this huge and vast number of playing styles are mixed almost perfectly now. The economy is back, to me one of the most intruiging things in on line play (a pity they killed trading and AH's in Diablo 3)...

- the smoothening of avatar play, less buttons and more distinction between specs.

It is great 9/10.

What 3 points did you see that became better ?

7 month have passed now, we are in March 2017.
This is the worse expansion ever. WTF Blizzard, you suck, there is no content, give us Vanilla server.

Same same....as always lol.
See ya in 7 month or so.