Best World of Warcraft Expansion?

[leetk1ng]

Really liked WotLK!

* really great atmosphere/music (got me hooked almost immediately)
* good looking zones (Icecrown just looked amazing and eerie place to be)
* great raids (Ulduar by far the best raid ever made along with ICC)

- I really love lore and this expansion told the story so well in some parts (by doing quests etc)

[Lilija]

WoW during this time was a traditional mmoRPG.

RPG Aspects:

-Server Community
-Community-driven Player Reputations
-PvP Server Community Rivalries
-World PvP
-Blacklists
-Reagents
-Talent trees
-Meaningful Professions
-Resistances
-Unique Classes and Abilities
-Faction Class Differences
-Non-linear and Challenging Questing Content
-Group/Elite Quests
-Lore-based Legendary Items
-Hybrid Tax
-Different Types of Healers (Tank, Raid, Off-Heal)
-Niche Roles (Mana Battery/Vampiric Embrace Shadow Priests, Different totem-dropping Shamans, etc)
-Buff Stacking (Imp Stamina Aura, Paladin Auras, Hunter Aura, Elixirs, Flasks, Potions, Quest Items/Turn-In Buffs, Mana Oils, Sharpening Stones, World event Buffs, Mind-Controlling adds in Dungeons or the Open World to use a buff they could give etc, etc, etc)

Oh, it's so cool when people create definitions of things that apply only to them.

There is only one aspect that describes an RPG in computer games - it's character progress. If you have that in game it's a classical RPG. Everything else is a made up definition by people who want to add theory to their subjective views. The things you write about RPG aspects have absolutly nothing to do with a game being an RPG. There are just things that existed in old WoW and some of them were pretty dumb.

Server Community = on some servers completly non existant
Player reputation = far too many people didn't care about it to matter
PvP community = seen much more of it in Cata than in Vanilla or TBC
World PvP = broken concept that most people are not interested in (otherwise it wouldn't have start dying the moment BGs were introduced)
Blacklists = what's that? I really don't know
Regeant = so having your backpack slot occupied by stuff was fun/interesting how?
Talent trees = that had absolutly no meaning since everyone played the ONE AND ONLY PERFECT SPEC anyway; current talents have much more depth and meaning and there is in many cases an encouragement to switch between them on encounter basis
Meaningfull professions = they were the most meaningfull during the time that they gave a performance buff; in early WoW they were nothing more than flavour; They've actually started influencing raiding in later TBC
Resistance = enforced time sink... being forced to gather several gear sets for gimick mechanics ain't fun and doesn't prove you are a good player - only that you have far too much free time :P
Unique Classes and Abilities = well, for me classes feel pretty unique nowadays... they are unique by their playstyle and class mechanics; that's the more natural way to chose your class to play; that should never come from utility and specifici abilties the class brings - that was a bad design
Group/Elite quests = they were mostly something you were forced to ignore and the reward they brought did not justify the time you needed to find a group for them - specially during leveling. They only had a point in areas that gathered a lot of people at the same time. That never happened during leveling. And being boosted thru those by higher level friends was not fun and completly missed the point. I think that with the new custom group cross realm finder those actually have a chance to come back.
Lore-based Legendary items = Vanilla and TBC had a lore? Sorry, didn't notice. First lore oriented Legendary in WoW was Dragonwrath so...
Hybrid tax = was pointless and ment that hybrids shouldn't by any means dps (the buff they brought often wasn't enough to justify their poor performance). Also hybrid tax applied randomly to certain classes - even Blizzard admitted that they didn't treat Warriors as hybrids.
Different types of healers = orienting something around a very specific raid role is bad design as it forces the group to have certain class in order to be able to progress; also it was never really a case
Different niche roles = bad design similar to described above
Buff stacking = once again something that forced you to have specific classes

Those things have absolutly NOTHING to do with a game being an RPG. Some of those were much better past TBC. The others were bad mechanics that should be barried deep in the group and never spoken about.

More ways to show Skill and Technical Ability (Separating yourself from the average player):

Hunters: Had Ranged dead-zones, Rhok'delar Epic Quest chain, Kiting, Mana Management, Hit Caps, Spell Power Abilities, Melee capabilities, Arrows
Rogues: Abilities had Positioning Requirements, Combo Points, Reagents needed for Abilities, Poison Quests/Brewing, Hit Caps, Ranged capabilities
Mages: Rolling Ignites, Kiting, Spell Penetration caps, Hit caps, Reagents needed for Abilities, Shatter Passive in all Specs
Warriors: Stance-dancing, Weapon/Armor requirements for Abilities, Ability Quests, Hit Caps, Quel'Serrar Epic Quest Chain, Threat Generation
Paladins: Spell down-ranking, Mana Management, Hit Caps, Judgments, Reagents needed for Abilities, Quel'Serrar Epic Quest Chain, Threat Generation
Priests: Spell down-ranking, Mana Management, Hit Caps, Reagents needed for Abilities, Spell Penetration Caps, Benediction Epic Quest Chain
Warlocks: Reagents needed for Abilities, Hit Caps, Spell Penetration Caps
Shamans: Spell down-ranking, Mana Management, Hit Caps, Reagents needed for Abilities
Druids: Spell down-ranking, Mana Management, Hit Caps, Reagents needed for Abilities

Regeants make you a better player how?
Spell down-ranking and hit caps make you a better player how?

In Vanilla and TBC opertaint your class was the easiest thing on earth. The game was much more demanding at personal level. Nowadays, if you want to progress the hardest raids nowadays, you as a player need to be top notch with class mechanics knowledge which is much more complex than before (theorycrafting was born in late TBC), be able to react to various class mechanics without thinking about them and still react to boss mechanics which are also much more complex than anything in Vanilla and TBC.

There was more nuance, complexity

No

individualism

No

and flavor to the game then

Subjective

Furthermore, Server Communities were thriving

Played thru whole Vanilla and TBC and well... I must have missed the thriving community. My server had none. The only community that mattered were guilds and that pretty much matters still if you want to achieve anything in WoW.

[D3athsting]

Quoted for Truth.

WoW during this time was a traditional mmoRPG.

RPG Aspects:

-Server Community
-Community-driven Player Reputations
-PvP Server Community Rivalries
-World PvP
-Blacklists
-Reagents
-Talent trees
-Meaningful Professions
-Resistances
-Unique Classes and Abilities
-Faction Class Differences
-Non-linear and Challenging Questing Content
-Group/Elite Quests
-Lore-based Legendary Items
-Hybrid Tax
-Different Types of Healers (Tank, Raid, Off-Heal)
-Niche Roles (Mana Battery/Vampiric Embrace Shadow Priests, Different totem-dropping Shamans, etc)
-Buff Stacking (Imp Stamina Aura, Paladin Auras, Hunter Aura, Elixirs, Flasks, Potions, Quest Items/Turn-In Buffs, Mana Oils, Sharpening Stones, World event Buffs, Mind-Controlling adds in Dungeons or the Open World to use a buff they could give etc, etc, etc)

No instant teleport to dungeons, yes it took ages for allies under lv40 to get to scarlet monastery but it greatly contributed to immersion, avoiding horde npcs along the path also contributed to immersion, talking with you party while getting to dungeon also contributed to immersion...
Speaking about server community i can clearly remember ppl from different guilds sitting around a campfire in IF and talking (with /say) about raiding, classes, specs or some random game-related stuff and anyone could join the discussion and say what he had to say... has anyone ever noticed how many empty rooms and houses are there in IF that serve for no purpose but rp and immersion?
Today we see mmorpgs where you can't sit on a chair or simply walk instead of running, can we label those games as RPG?
Keep in mind i'm not a goldshire guy...

[Lilija]

You expect something that is not a part of a computer game. RPG in computer game is NOTHING more than progressing a character. Period!

Now the roleplay element is created by the players themselves. I would like to enlighten you that you require nothing more than your imagination, pen and paper and some dice in order to roleplay. In fact the imagination itself is enough. If you expect the game to give you the roleplay element... you are doing it wrong.

Immersion? MoP is the most immersive WoW period ever. WoD seems to be going even in better direction. What is immersion in game? It's when it's story driven and makes you actually invested into what happens around you. Vanilla and TBC wasn't doint that. It's WotLK that started really to tell the story that made sense. Cata and MoP were just an improvement of that aspect.

And you do realize that the core mechanics of an mmorpg which is farming (in one way of another) in order to progress your character in a multiplayer environemnt is the complete opposite of immersive? The only part of WoW that has the potential of being immersive are quests which is something you do for a very short time compared to the rest of time you spend in game. Rest is farming the same things all over again that respawn week over week (or on shorter basis when it comes to mobs).

Anyway, however you look at immersion, don't tell me the game had more immersion than nowadays cause it's completly wrong. The game did absolutly nothing to encorage immersion. You could go thru the whole game and not know what the hell is happening around you in Azeroth (most people did it that way). Now the story is throw at your face! There is no way you can not notice it even if you don't care about it. And things that are happening actually create some complete story instead of being thrown all around the world with no reason what so ever.

Don't get me wrong. Vanilla and TBC had a story but it was so poorly presented that it hurt.

[Deleted]

I put Wrath down as the best because i experienced more/all of it.
TBC was amazing but i bought it late into it's cycle - still before any news of wotlk mind. In fact, i remember going to Game with the gf at the time and the guy behind the till was like "Make sure he doesn't play it too much or he will", i remember thinking he was a pompous ass hat, though he was right haha!

Back on topic, i voted Wrath as i only got as far as curator in Kara before Wrath was announced :P

[tj119]

BC, because it was the first really i never got as excited to play WoW as i did the day BC released.

[Elyssia]

BC best xpack, Ulduar best raid.

[Selah]

I think this is a question better suited for the end of WoD when we have new content and haven't been sitting on SoO for a year.

[threads]

Wotlk >>>>>>>>>Cata=MoP

Didn't play for bc. MoP was better than cata until SoO.