The praised content of BC and WotlK

[Deleted]

Hello dears,

we all know BC and WotlK are the two praised expansions because of their content. Some say the quality was the best or the content at all. Even though it was the prime time playing World of Warcraft for me, too, I try to reflect the times and got a bit confused.

Why were those expansion the most enjoyable for me?

I really enjoy Legion though and think the content and quantity and quality is fantastic (even though the storytelling on Broken Shores is not that good, but from the view of gameplay the game presents you a lot right now, you are never going to hit a wall and have nothing to do left -> if you feel exhausted it's your personal problem).

But why did I enjoy TBC and WotlK?

Back in TBC I've been a Semi-Hardcore Raider and a Hardcore Raider in WotlK.

In TBC I raided and did some Arena. That's it. Sometimes dailys, but the dailys were not urgently needed so If I only did them If I had enough time to waste. Farming Buff Food and Flasks/Potions. That was whole World of Warcraft in TBC. The quality of raids was good, you still had a progression, that was fantastic as you had to start on your level and had to work through to the good guilds.

WotlK was bascially the same but with more Dailys and easier ways to get Alts equipped with badges vendors. Back then I raided hardcore as mentioned above and it was more time consuming, but in WotlK I had that time. Still beside raiding and dailys I had nothing else to do. Though Wintergrasp was always fun, but on a fix schedule.
The raids beside the worst raid in history with ToC and the first Tier with Naxx revamp/Malygos/Sartharion were probably the best raids in the game so far.
While you could do more with your Alts it ended in Wotlk with the cancer addon Gearscore. Since that day it has been harder to get more "content" for alts.

I am pretty sure right now that I had the most fun in MoP and right now in Legion, but my brain says TBC and WotlK were great. I guess that is a full load of nostalgia. Right now I feel extremely satisfied as I am always able to do something I like. There are so many different aspects I can play this game even though the biggest part is still raiding in two so far really good raids imo.
I want to play my Druid now and Heal? I search for a M+ or random raid, if my mood ist complete lazy I run LFR. I want to do something with my main? I can run BGs, push high M+, do World Quests, make transmog or mount runs.
EDIT: Since 7.2 playing with alts is easy af. With 3 hours ingame time on 110 my freshly leveled hunter has 45 points in his main weapon and a pretty good ILVL to start with.

Still my brain says: WotlK and TBC was great. My eyes say: The quality and quantity of content has never been greater.


What is the reason, what was the actual content of those praised expansions, that they are called the best expansions? It feels like a misfunction between heart and brain.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Fine liking Burning Crusade and Wrath but a thread elaborating your liking of the expansions was not necessary.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia and nostalgia only. Anyone who claims that those expansions were objectively better is delusional.

[Deleted]

Fine liking Burning Crusade and Wrath but a thread elaborating your liking of the expansions was not necessary.

Nah, I want to hear the reasons people really liked those expansion as I am really confused by my own thoughts as it makes absolutely no sense. I wanna see if there are things I forgot (is that even possible if I really enjoyed it?)

[primalmatter]

Tbc had the best difficulty curve of pve content that I have seen to date in a expansion. If you pvped a lot you likely didn't notice it with glad gear though.

Wrath... until ulduar really wasn't all that praised for its content from what I recall. A lot of people disliked the pull everything and aoe dungeons and most of the first tier was naxx.

[Vaelorian]

Wrath... until ulduar really wasn't all that praised for its content from what I recall. A lot of people disliked the pull everything and aoe dungeons and most of the first tier was naxx.

You are correct sir. In fact there was an outrage when halls of reflection came out as it was far too difficult... as if... Well no shit if you were a wrath baby... yeah you damn right that suddenly you required a brain a bit bigger then the peanut you were carrying...

[Najnaj]

Both BC and WOTLK were hated during their time. The people who claim they love them (and vanilla) often did not play during those times.

BC brought wellfare epics which was going to "ruin the game".

WOTLK brought casual raiding which was going to "ruin the game".

The one xpac which was actually much loved during it's time was MOP. I have played since 2005 (active during all xpacks) and MOP is by far my favorite. It combines the narrative focus of WOTLK and diverse (or hard if you wish) group content of BC.

[Deleted]

Both BC and WOTLK were hated during their time. The people who claim they love them (and vanilla) often did not play during those times.

BC brought wellfare epics which was going to "ruin the game".

WOTLK brought casual raiding which was going to "ruin the game".

The one xpac which was actually much loved during it's time was MOP. I have played since 2005 (active during all xpacks) and MOP is by far my favorite. It combines the narrative focus of WOTLK and diverse (or hard if you wish) group content of BC.

I think the same that MoP was glorious. I feel something else. That is wierd af. I just started realising that when I read in another thread where someone claimed TBC had the best quality of content. Took me some minutes to realise in feel the same but think different.

I never had these feelings for Vanilla and was pretty sure the Vanilla fanboys are lead by nostaliga. Now I realise I'm probably the same nostalgic guy.

[Deleted]

What stood out in BC for me was the continuing sense of community as LFG wasn't present, even though I also like how LFG turned out now because it makes it easier for alts.

The other thing that stood out was that almost every spec had a niche, sure it was terrible in other areas but people didn't really mind it.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia and nostalgia only. Anyone who claims that those expansions were objectively better is delusional.

sadly something many people cannot understand.
i always chuckle when things come up like "current day classes are so dumbed down, man i wish we still had bc" or "raid bosses back then were alot harder / complex then todays raid bosses"
nostalgia has the power to make people see things how they would have liked them, not how they actually were.

[Deleted]

What stood out in BC for me was the continuing sense of community as LFG wasn't present, even though I also like how LFG turned out now because it makes it easier for alts.

The other thing that stood out was that almost every spec had a niche, sure it was terrible in other areas but people didn't really mind it.

But everytime I think about how special every spec was I instantly remember how unplayable some specs were. Good old Oomkin, Rets, Demo Warlock. And the rotations, holy crap, I was playing Holy Paladin and all I did was spamming FoL. That was....well

And that is what i mean. I remember good parts and see the negative aspects of those. Those are sometimes really overwhelming.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia and nostalgia only. Anyone who claims that those expansions were objectively better is delusional.

PvP were 100% better in tbc and wotlk (it was more fun). PvP in legion is boring as fuck.

[Terahertz]

I didn't necessarily prefer the content of wotlk, I preferred the combat and its pace in PvP. Combat in wrath was very different to the later expansion. It was simple, unforgiving, and there were a lot of ways to outplay your opponent. Combat was a lot less about mashing your buttons and more about windows of opportunity. As the expansions went on, blizzard started straying away of wrath's type of combat of managing your resources and windows of opportunity. In Cataclysm a lot of standard abilities already started doing less damage proportional to HP values and fights already started becoming more about DPS cooldowns and defensive cooldowns. This got worse in MoP with many classes having at least one or two DPS CDs and many ways to stay alive.

I just dislike how "active" and spammy DPS rotations have become. Obviously people prefer this since Blizzard went this route, but I was actually fine with basic abilities being the core of the rotation and only being able to use them every so often due to cooldowns/resource starvation while my auto attacks made up of 30%+ of my damage to make up for the down time. I dislike how on my rogue my Shadowstrike does 200k damage and I can spam it for ages while my Eviscerate does 500k. It doesn't make my Eviscerate feel strong, it just makes my Shadowstrike feel weak.

[Andonais]

I remember when people hated on Wotlk every day during wrath.

[Cosmic Janitor]

[Okay, I went a bit off the rails here, skip to the last part for a synopsis!]

The only decent thing about BC I remember was how the raiding was structured. All of the content was still viable and "current" and you were just as far along as you were. Not 4 difficulties to worry about and burning out on the middle setting before you even reach the higher ones. But that is probably the only thing. I found the story neither memorable nor anything else, it was just a breath of fresh air after vanilla had dragged on for what felt like ages. The few things (yes few!) you could do outside of raids and farming materials was also kinda meh.. Paladins were nice for the Horde, but Blessing of Salvation (?) was no longer the garantee for easy mode raiding (thread was no longer the hardcap for many DPS). But Horde finally had a race that didn't look like ass, that was nice!

The only good thing about WoltK was the story and the ulduar raid. Naxx was fodder, so were the dungeons, Malygos, Trial and Ruby Sanctum were garbage. People only remmeber it fondly because it got worse from there. ICC also went on too long, we had like 5 shadowmourne by the end (after every other melee ass retired I barely got myself the 6th..)

Alot of the effort usually spent on endgame went into revamping the old world, that cost cata content for high level characters dearly. The high level zones also were disjointed and felt strange. The initial shit show that were random dungeons caused some issues too. That DS, the pinnacle of the expansion left such a sour note further colored the overall feeling for it.

MoP just had a theme many couldn't get behind (obligatory china expansion /sigh) and ended on orcs, orcs, orcs. It had it's moments and the dailies might have burned some out at the beginning, but after that it was okay imho. That they "spoiled" the big bad was also an issue for some and for others it was that we didn't have some coherent narrative to expect (unlike our way to Illidan, Arthas or Death Wing). We just knew Garrosh some-how is the last boss and the way there was obviously cliche at best. That they ended it with a book and alternate universe time travel was just .. urgh.

Then 2 years nothing happened and I couldn't connect to the servers for some reason. I think the wow servers were offline. Yes that has to be it. I only heard whispers of apexis crystal dailies and something about orcs and rule 34, not sure what people were on about.

Then last year finally legion launched.

Frankly, over all that time I think blizzard just fucked with one system or another each expansion. Overall the quality did fluctuate depending on what part of the game you liked and care about. The raids beeing shit is more of issue to some than others. Same with outdoor content, PvP, etc. The times they have fucked with the raid sizes along has probably killed and spawned more guilds and indirectly affected player relationships than any other feature.

[Deleted]

PvP were 100% better in tbc and wotlk (it was more fun). PvP in legion is boring as fuck.

Christmas when I was 5 was 100% better (it was more fun). Christmas now is boring as fuck.

[Matthias]

TBC's "quality" is a bit overrated you could say. Reskinned mobs, PvP sets were just reskins (as they are now), and those praised dungeons were boring hallways filled with an abundant amount of trash. What made it great though was how long that content could last due to TBC's difficulty curve. I mean doing one Heroic dungeon could be your entire play session and you might not even clear the damn thing. That sounds awful to some now, but it created a natural longevity to the game, not this restrictive gating system we have now. Back then you were gated only by the abilities(and time ) of yourself and your friends.

I always say WoTLK is where Blizz shot themselves in the foot from a production stand point. By making dungeons take like 15 minutes, and a guarunteed pug clear as well as making it possible to skip entire raid tiers they had to pump out far more content at a faster rate then before to keep us occupied. Things didn't hit the fan in WoTLK because it's the expansion that started "World of Alts" since it was easy to finish a character for a tier. Therefore you would level another one, and leveling still took awhile back then, so it was a good time sink. But by Cata it blew up in their face.

Both Vanilla and TBC could have lasted another year due to how the game systems were back then, most players still had a lot they could still do.

Overall though people consider WoTLK the best because it made the game even more accessible while retaining the classical MMORPG elements of the game for most of it's run. Then LFG, LFR, Xrealm and so forth shattered it. What I love about Legion is that it's clearly trying to address these issues.

[Wondercrab]

Part of it may be nostalgia and the comparative freshness of the game back then, part of it may be that those expansions were a lot more impressive at the time. There are a lot of games regarded as classics that are objectively worse in many ways than their modern counterparts, but that doesn't change the fact that those games were phenomenal when they first came out, while the modern alternatives may feel samey and unexceptional.

WoW's earlier expansions really felt like they broke new ground with many of their features and additions, expanding and improving the MMO genre as a whole. That same kind of iterative progress is happening a lot less now, and other games (even in other genres) have taken a lot of the elements that made classic WoW great and improved upon them.

Early WoW expansions were very impressive for the era they were developed in, whereas these days most expansions aren't really all that incredible in the grand scheme of things.

[Lady Dragonheart]

In all seriousness, when I boiled it down, I discovered that I didn't like TBC, especially, and some of the things about WotLK as well, very much at all. I remember constantly needed to farm consumables: potions, flasks, food, drink, a variety of small buff items, reagents, and the gold for such items, etc. Time when I wasn't raiding was dreary and boring if I had completed daily hubs. All crafting, dungeon, questing, daily-quest gear I outleveled, easily, because of raiding - therefore had essentially no reason to participate in it. Dailies were exactly the same, every day, without a hint of difference or variance.

All in all, it was what we had at the time, therefore I tolerated it. WoW was the most casual-fun MMO on the market, and still is, which is what keeps me playing. So, for me, it generally gets better and better when I list out what I like and don't like, physically.

[Wildmoon]

What's good about TBC was its difficulty structure. WotLK was more or less the same as the current wow. Not that much different.