Best Era/Expansion of WoW?

[melodramocracy]

I am genuinely surprised that BC is so close to Wrath. Wrath was ridiculously well done. Every single class is less fun to play since Wrath.

You don't play a hunter, do you?

My brief take on things:

Vanilla: Was what it was. Lots of promise, lots of rough edges.
BC: Strove to be something great, and there's definitely the most imagination and attention to detail here as far as environments go.
Wrath: Pinnacle of xpac-spanning storytelling in this game so far. Cohesive and very well done.
Cata: Again strove for greatness, but missed the mark... did a few things right, and a lot of things wrong.
MoP: Far better than Cata, but might be trying a bit too much to appeal to *everyone*

While none of these expansions were blemish-free, I'd call Wrath the winner, with BC a close second.

[Kissme]

Wrath - great story, great lore, great visuals in armor, monsters, and scenery. Epic centerpiece of questing (Wrathgate/Undercity), best raid in the game, plenty of accessibility for players while still maintaining HCore exclusive content (Firefighter, ICC 25H). Fun dungeons, reps weren't grindy, fun boss mechanics.

Overall, it was the best expansion and the subscriptions proved it.

You could also argue that TBC was the best because it had the greatest subscription growth and thus was attracting players faster than they were departing by a much larger margin than any other time in WoW. Wrath may have peaked in terms of total subs, but it also had much lower growth than Vanilla or TBC and thus you could say that it was inferior to those products as the rate of new sub acquisition in comparison to sub departure had a much worse ratio.

Using subsciptions to prove quality is flawed - subscriptions only show commercial and financial success. Backstreet Boys have sold roughly 40 million copies of Millenium world wide so far to place 10th on the all time album sales list. The Beatles don't have an album in the top 10. Does this mean the Backstreet Boys are better artists than the Beatles? Is Millenium a better album than Sgt Pepper? To add even more perspective - The Bodyguard and Saturday Night Fever soundtracks are also in the top 10. Raw sales numbers does not a work of art make. You can use subscription numbers the same way you can use album sales - they prove something was popular, they don't necessarily prove it was good (another case in point Diablo 3 - average game, nothing special, yet huge sales numbers - mostly based on the reputation of the previous Diablo games).

[Kantoro]

You don't play a hunter, do you?

Hunter is my main, but I play everything. Priority based dps is god awful and the worst thing I can think of of the top of my head that has been introduced to WoW. I can give you reasons but its a 5 paragraph statement and I don't care that much. Oh making encounters harder by making healing suck is a close second.

Staring at your buttons and waiting for procs <<<<<< enjoying the scenery, watching the ground for bad stuff and paying attention to the fight.

[Toxigen]

TBC by far for me: raging hard-on when I discovered how badass it was to be a raiding shadowpriest.

Group 5 caster DPS 4tw - top 5 U.S. through all of T5, T6, and Sunwell according to WWS.

Oh, and did I mention M'uru? Still my favorite boss fight.

[Xetes]

Vanilla - hit level 60 about a week before BC came out. Leveling was the worst of all releases.

BC - spend the whole time ganking.

Wrath brought a little darkness to the game. The Death Knight as a class was/is bad ass. Shadowmourne and Val'Anyr were awesome legendaries. Ulduar and ICC were a blast.

Cata - spent the whole time PVP'ing. Loved the new RBG system - thank you blizz.

MOP - Where to begin. Pandas are stupid. Reputation grinds are stupid. PVP vendor placement is stupid. Sha is laggy (on Tichondrius). PVP feels like more of the same, but that seems to be true in most releases. Oddly back to PVE with this release but I like the World PVP element.

[Morbownz]

I read the title and immediately expected to see pages full of people reply with BC. I agree BC was really good (I enjoyed every expansion including Vanilla) but I enjoyed my time the most in Wrath. Probably b/c I was more involved in raiding and I had a larger sample of friends who played regularly.

A good point that gets overlooked so many times about which expansion they enjoyed the most, exactly what you were doing and who with.


Anyway...I don't think it was TBC or Wotlk or w/e... I know it was Vanilla, and because I am cooler and my opinion is more important I think we can all agree that Vanilla was the best, now we can lock this thread, because I have spoken.

[Pancaspe]

For me it is MOP, without question

[Frank Garrett]

TBC cuz it brings back memories than all other expansionsd
and it was the expansion when i started playing wow.
Cata and MOP are just meh, Wotlk was ok

[Xilurm]

Awesome how TBC is that high, even though many people in here didn't play it and therefore vote for Wotlk. TBC:1 - Other epansions: 0

Erm well don't you think that people played WotLK and not TBC because umm well it was more awesome otherwise they wouldn't hear about it therefore they wouldn't be interested in playing the game in the first place? Hm?

[Buu]

BIG surprise... Cataclysm is loathed. Yes, although 1-60 was amazing, I could never forget the crappy math of Heroics, the free pass to game the system, forcing strangers to carry your undergeared character, and the raids that punished the least error in an unavoidable domino effect.

[Xilurm]

BIG surprise... Cataclysm is loathed. Yes, although 1-60 was amazing, I could never forget the crappy math of Heroics, the free pass to game the system, forcing strangers to carry your undergeared character, and the raids that punished the least error in an unavoidable domino effect.

You're whining because it was too fucking hard? Last time I heard everyone hated Wrath cause it was too easy.

What the hell?

[Molyneux]

When is this thread going to stop being made?

[Destruktion]

Since I started during TBC, naturally I have a nostalgia hard-on for that xpac. My favorite period however spans TBC and WotLK up until Ulduar. As another poster pointed out, post-Ulduar there were too many QoL improvements which all but eliminated the organic adventurous and treacherous spirit of the game. I think it would've been best for Blizzard to make the game they wanted to make instead of pandering to specific demographics and having knee-jerk reactions to subscription numbers.

[Xilurm]

When is this thread going to stop being made?

When you stop telling lies to the gamers and make a good Fable game.

*seewhatididthere?*

[Deleted]

To my wotlk, an epic story, the novel modified map system based missions, intense raid dungeons, and as final enemy, Arthas

[zimzum2523]

I Really enjoyed wrath, Made a ton of ingame friends I think 10 ad 25 man lock outs helped a lot with that because I got to do a guild run and also pug and meet new people

[Deleted]

I'm amused that WotlK has gained such a great Reputation over the Years. I remember reading the Forums filled with WotlK-hate back then. Still, i voted for WotlK, because for me it was a great Time. Yeah, i like it nice and easy. Don't want to get a headache from playing with People and i never liked the Style of BC. MoP is just too fresh for me, but as far as i can tell, i really really enjoy it.

[traen]

BIG surprise... Cataclysm is loathed. Yes, although 1-60 was amazing, I could never forget the crappy math of Heroics, the free pass to game the system, forcing strangers to carry your undergeared character, and the raids that punished the least error in an unavoidable domino effect.

All characters were undergeared in the beginning of the expansion. And we did clear dungeons and no one carried us. If you are carried, it means that you are just bad player.

Both cata and mop were very close in means of difficulty. Some of the bosses were harder in cata, some bosses are harder in mop. 10 man Heroic difficulty was slightly overtuned before nerfs, but I guess you did not care about it much at that time.

I guess you started in late wotlk/early cata. You was total noob with no experience and everything was hard for you.
3 years passed, and you finally learned on your mistakes how to not stand in fire. And now you feel that the game became easier.
But in reality nothing changed. The game difficulty stays on the same level and even slightly increases.

[Adynos]

I didn't play much vanilla so don't have much insight into it. I only started playing about a month or 2 before TBC came out. I loved TBC though. So for me it would have to be...

TBC
Wrath
MOP (So far)
Vanilla
Cataclysm


My ratings are probably a bit off because I take into consideration not just the content, but how much I enjoyed it meaning the social aspect of the game that I had with my friends influenced my ratings.

I find all the comments I am seeing about wrath being amazing so funny. Oh how the tables have turned. I remember when Wrath was despised and loathed by just about everyone due to the "wrath babies" that it brought to the game who wanted everything handed to them and didn't know mechanics or care to learn them because everything was just handed to them. Now it is a contender for the top xpac? Some funny stuff there!

Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed Wrath because I had a great time with friends during that xpac, I just think it is funny how the overall consensus of Wrath has apparently done a complete 180.

[Orby]

I am very surprised so many people voted WotLK over TBC. Especially considering the whining that went on over how awful raiding and easy epics were on that expansion... TBC really balanced that out pretty well making it less grindy than classic but also making raids mean something and heroic dungeons were actually hard! The only thing I hated about TBC were the zones, as well as Illidan being killable.

Then again WotLK did have some great lore and great looking zones as well as some of the best music WoW have produced. But on the side of raids it wasn't that great, they murdered the original Naxx, The Icecrown raid was boring as hell, and dont get me started on the Argent Tournament raid. Uldaur was and probably is one of my fave raids of all time though so credit to them on that at least.

Nice to see MoP get some votes, for the same reason I liked WotLK, MoP really has got me back into WoW again even if its only casually this time. The story in MoP is really engaging, also some great looking zones.... and oh my god that inn music is awesome