Why did people love TBC?

[Arkenaw]

Every zone had a seperate amazing feel to it (well, Blade Edge has an empty feeling but even then..)

-Back then: Ding max level ==>5m Dungeons ==> 5m Heroics ==> 10m Raids ==> 25m Raids T4 ==> 25m Choice of tier progression depending on how good your guild is.

-Now: Ding max level ==> queue up for 1 week (I'l give it 3 weeks max) ==> tada seen all content there is to see

For me TBC had the best content and concepts, but as a fanboy of tbc even I can see that in Wotlk the flexibility was at it's best to allow players to raid in wathever kind of group they wanted and at what pace to wanted to clear things.

Back then if not in a good raiding guild: 5m Dungeons > 5m Heroics (if lucky)/Dailies/PvP/Wipe all day in Kara

Now: 5m Dungeons while leveling > 5m Heroics > LFR/PvP/Pet Battles/Arch/Dailies/Achievements/Transmog Runs etc

[ripponesan]

What I'm more curious about is how it seems that everyone who loved TBC was in guilds that could clear TK/BT/SWP, and so never experienced the soul-crushing that plagued guilds that were stuck in Karazhan for the entire expansion because they couldn't field 25 people or couldn't attune before they left, and only served as stepping stones for people on their way to better guilds. It's kind of hard to see issues when they don't affect you at all.

Good point made. But on the other hand also a bit of a lazy turnaround. I was in exactly that situation. 10 man raid, clearing karazhan and trying to upgrade into a 25 man raid, which well didnt end well. So i got my stuff together, upgraded my gear to the best that was available to me, and learned how to perform better with my char.

Applying here and there, doing a trial raid now and then, getting known on the server as a good DPS, until a 25 man raid noticed me and gave me a chance. While i was thinking i did uberDPS, i saw that i did jackshit once i saw what my raidmates were doing, but i asked for advice where i wasnt sure, and got my performance up to par with my mates. Getting finally some gear helped a lot as well.

I am not telling you that everyone could have done this. Some were missing the dedication for such a thing, some were missing the plan on how to do it, maybe some were even missing the skill or the will to get it. Some were even missing the time to do so.
So yeah that wasnt a solution for ALL OF US, but still if you really wanted to get into BT, there were ways.

And the work didnt stop there. Those raids were not easy, and some even required class stacking for success. Up to a point where we had to cancel raid to SWP if we had not 4 priests but only 3.

I have the feeling that (not for all but for some at least) you had to invest more to get to your goal in the game (whatever that was).
But in the end that made you feel more proud when you finally did it.

[Frozenbeef]

It improved drastically upon vanilla...no idea why they love it now compared with other expansions, probably just can't let go *shrug*

[Severance]

A lot of the nostalgia about TBC comes from how it ended, not how it started.

Hellfire was overcrowded at launch.
Heroics were so hard you needed raid gear to complete them.
To unlock heroics you needed exalted with each dungeon faction for each dungeon key.
To get exalted you needed to grind normals for weeks/months.
If you were a DPS without cc (if you were a hybrid, basically), you had a hard time finding dungeon groups.
Most hybrid DPS still sucked.
Karazan was overtuned and undergeared. At launch, it mostly rewarded blues, not epics.
Nearly every raid was broken in some fashion, the conspiracy theory was that it was artificial blocking by Blizzard because content wasn't finished.
The step from Kara raids to 25 mans destroyed so many guilds.
Attunements created so much difficulty for raid recruiting.
Arena sounded great until people realized it was only great if you were a Resto Druid, Disc Priest, Arms Warrior, Rogue, Lock, or Mage. Hybrids need not apply, again. Holy Paladins were good for season one until people realized you could zerg them to force bubble then kill them.
Quest gear design was all over the place. Great for transmogging now, but everyone looked goofy then.
Most casuals said screw it and pvp'd to gear up. Even raiders used pvp to fill in gear slots. Blizzard didn't like this.
Resilience didn't fix it.
Warriors were still the best tanks for most of the expansion. Paladins didn't shine until the end when they could pull entire dungeons at once. Druid tanks were on a buff/nerf rollercoaster for most of the expansion.
Ret and Prot Paladins got a complete stat revamp twice in the same expansion.

There was a lot to like about TBC. I enjoyed it, even as a casual. But it was still deeply flawed. It fixed some problems from Vanilla, but introduced others. But that's every expansion. People fondly remember Wrath too, and it was the same deal, some good, some bad. There's people who liked Cata too, and one day people will look back on MoP fondly too.

The beauty of nostalgia is that people mostly remember the good, and very little of the bad. But there's something to be said about flaws too. The more effort it takes to get something, the more you'll remember it, even if the memory isn't a good one. A lot of the nostalgia about TBC is that people had fun and made memories despite all of its problems.

[ringpriest]

Getting yourself out of the clownsuit and into some decent looking gear was the best motivator in WoW's history.

[Vultana]

I loved TBC because it really felt like a whole new world when I walked through the portal. I took an entire week off work and spent the entire time questing with guildmates and exploring. My wife loved the new Blood Elf models so we rolled Horde for the first time. By the time they reached 70, we switched over to play them full time and haven't went back. Illidan was an endgame boss who was really interesting an each zone felt like it was leading me to that awesome confrontation... Heroics were challenging AND FUN. The raiding was awesome... I do miss that feeling, but perhaps it is just nastalgia. I do remember looking like a clown a lot on my Prot Pally, lol. Good image OP.

[Nobleshield]

Because the game allowes it. If people can be lazy mofos then they will be. Just as if they game allowes people to be douchebags then people will be.

Perhaps, but as I said in my other post here how many guilds were stuck in Karazhan for all of TBC, for whatever reason? How is that at all possibly better than letting people see the latest and greatest, than to be stuck for the whole expansion in one area? It's already been stated multiple times by Blizzard that the "carrot on the stick" approach doesn't work to improve the playerbase; hardly anyone would just "rise to the occasion" and improve to get to that next level, after a long time of struggling they give up.

[miffy23]

Ye else you were just one of thoose guys that were bad in TBC.
Personally i find that the TBC raiding system was FAR BETTER THEN ANYTHING since then.

I mean doesnt it annoy you people dont have to run dungeons or old raids?...
Fuck man, all the people i know loved the way TBC was setup...
For me it sounds like you just want a easy acces dumbed down game with little to no commitment.

Raiding since wotlk have been utterly shit, exept start of cata and firelands (ragnaros, rest was trash).
Rest is just trash, its easy it aint hard, and wow gets boring so very very fast.

MoP and cata have just been trash expansions...
Alot doesnt feel that way, but all the veterans i talk to. Feels like me.

Only raids to "crush" tbc raids imho was Ulduar. Best raid in wow.

Also im so sick of this rose tinted googles and nostalgia, WHO is to say wich is better.
Imo d2 is better then d3. IM SURE ALOT FEELS OTHERWISE.
But that doesnt change the face that 25 million played d2 and probably most prefers that system over d3.

Oh look, someone insinuating you're a bad if you don't praise TBC and give WoW shit for everything after. How original.
Please get real. Raid difficulty has gone through the roof since TBC, the mechanics are a ton more complex and there have been innovations galore, hard to believe within the constraints of the game design if you want to be precise. TBC raids were incredibly simple and straightforward in comparison, the only thing blocking progress was hard gating and tougher itemization tuning.

The only thing I fondly remember about TBC were the heroic dungeons actually being hard, but this was mostly due to the overly tough itemization tuning than anything else, there were no insane skill checks. Those actually came later with hard modes and then heroic modes, which are legit insane sometimes when done at progress level.

Please stop calling anyone that enjoys current content a "bad" or all the current content "dumbed down". You are either not playing current progress content or simply regurgitating what others flame somewhere else.

If you liked it personally, fine. We all did. Most of us just found later progress raids to be a bit more challenging and enjoyable. The fact that the rest of the content was toned down (heroics, introduction of LFR) just opened up a larger audience to raiding and was a good thing.

People keep going back to how "the raids were so much better". No, they weren't. Maybe you LIKED them better. They were not DESIGNED better. Maybe you liked the look and the feel better. They were not harder or more complex. Exactly the opposite.

[Ettan]

I really liked it difficulty wise, progression didn't just mean clear new content asap you had to progress from the very first raid to the last.
I had no problem with that atall. I still prefer that model over the current one.

On the zones I actually didn't like outland to me it was mediocre compared to some of the vanilla zones and northrend.

For pvp while arenas was rather broken (warriors with stun hammer/stun spec and resto druids in particular).
I found bgs highly entertaining. The pace of pvp felt just right.
Played a warrior, ret paladin (lol) and a bm hunt in tbc and I enjoyed all of them in pvp.
Even the retadin was enjoyable despite being completely useless in 2s and 3s.

[Escariot]

Why do you love MoP OP? (I'm assuming you do, since you made this troll bait thread).

Is it because of class homogenization?
Is it because of lol qt le epic meme pandas?
Is it because of dumbing down of the game?
Is it because of ez mode epics (LFR)?
Is it because you get to piss old players off with your stupidity?

Just make your pick already...

[khalltusk]

A lot of the nostalgia about TBC comes from how it ended, not how it started.

Hellfire was overcrowded at launch.
Heroics were so hard you needed raid gear to complete them.
To unlock heroics you needed exalted with each dungeon faction for each dungeon key.
To get exalted you needed to grind normals for weeks/months.
If you were a DPS without cc (if you were a hybrid, basically), you had a hard time finding dungeon groups.
Most hybrid DPS still sucked.
Karazan was overtuned and undergeared. At launch, it mostly rewarded blues, not epics.
Nearly every raid was broken in some fashion, the conspiracy theory was that it was artificial blocking by Blizzard because content wasn't finished.
The step from Kara raids to 25 mans destroyed so many guilds.
Attunements created so much difficulty for raid recruiting.
Arena sounded great until people realized it was only great if you were a Resto Druid, Disc Priest, Arms Warrior, Rogue, Lock, or Mage. Hybrids need not apply, again. Holy Paladins were good for season one until people realized you could zerg them to force bubble then kill them.
Quest gear design was all over the place. Great for transmogging now, but everyone looked goofy then.
Most casuals said screw it and pvp'd to gear up. Even raiders used pvp to fill in gear slots. Blizzard didn't like this.
Resilience didn't fix it.
Warriors were still the best tanks for most of the expansion. Paladins didn't shine until the end when they could pull entire dungeons at once. Druid tanks were on a buff/nerf rollercoaster for most of the expansion.
Ret and Prot Paladins got a complete stat revamp twice in the same expansion.

There was a lot to like about TBC. I enjoyed it, even as a casual. But it was still deeply flawed. It fixed some problems from Vanilla, but introduced others. But that's every expansion. People fondly remember Wrath too, and it was the same deal, some good, some bad. There's people who liked Cata too, and one day people will look back on MoP fondly too.

The beauty of nostalgia is that people mostly remember the good, and very little of the bad. But there's something to be said about flaws too. The more effort it takes to get something, the more you'll remember it, even if the memory isn't a good one. A lot of the nostalgia about TBC is that people had fun and made memories despite all of its problems.

Some major lies here.

Kara had epics dropping on launch certainly in the EU when I played. Heroic keys required revered not exalted reputation as well. Aside that its mostly correct.

[ripponesan]

I think most people would rather be participating in the cool-looking new raid than be told "Sorry, this isn't for you yet" and get sent to the previous raid.

Well life is not about "would rather" if it was i would rather NOT work and still be rich, dont forget sexy and smart.

[Deleted]

Why did people love TBC? Look at this. LOOK AT IT...

OP, please stop acting like a intelectually dishonest twat by picking on one drawback that was even so much bad to begin with. Also current WoW looks nothing like the "proper" picture you linked. What's wrong with you? Are you incapable of processing more than one primary color at a time? Is everything not brown enough for you? Last time I checked WoW was a mystical world of magic and wonder... not a deuchebag sausagefest called CoD.

[melodramocracy]

It's nostalgia. I don't care what anyone else thinks, that's the truth. As a player since vanilla, I have to say that all of you crying bloody murder from the rooftops that any old and inferior expansion/game is better than what's out now to kindly look at the truth and accept that it's just your own preferance and what we have now is superior to the old stuff in every way.

So everyone can have their own opinion, but yours happens to be the correct one? All things newer are better because new? Got it.

I wasn't around for BC, but have experienced enough of it to realize that it would probably would have ranked as my favorite. It is by far the most imaginative and ambitious one they've done, even if it's plain to see now how rough around the edges things were, and how much better certain game elements are.

[Johnkie]

U didnt need exalted with factions to enter heroics, that would kinda ruin the point now wouldnt it? (aka getting epic's from factions before you could enter heroics)... as far as i recall it was revered that was needed.

And heroics was hard to some extent yes, if u knew what you were doing, and could cc once in a while before you pulled IT WAS NO PROBLEM.
Fact of the matter is TBC made you love your character, i never had a need to level an alt, i had 2x 70 though, but just lvl'ed the other to 70 to help friends with arena.
You always had something to do, bg's was fun, raiding was fun, arena was fun, heck even grinding was fun, because of world pvp.

Casual commenting on things is just meh, i can see TBC have not been so great to casuals, but tbh i couldnt care less about casuals.
TBC was fun, there was good community, and i loved it throughout the whole expansion.
And yeah attunements were a problem for some raiding guilds.

I never had problems with them, we remade guilds / joined new guilds that started up and attunened ourselves from kara up.
Compared to MOP flaws, TBC was genius.
MOP = wellfare epics, no need to enter old raids, retarded legendary quest, retarded pvp, all classes are pretty much alike.
Dungeons useless, raids useless, pvp useless.

Only good thing about mop is the conquest catch up system.

[miffy23]

A lot of the nostalgia about TBC comes from how it ended, not how it started.

Hellfire was overcrowded at launch.
Heroics were so hard you needed raid gear to complete them.
To unlock heroics you needed exalted with each dungeon faction for each dungeon key.
To get exalted you needed to grind normals for weeks/months.
If you were a DPS without cc (if you were a hybrid, basically), you had a hard time finding dungeon groups.
Most hybrid DPS still sucked.
Karazan was overtuned and undergeared. At launch, it mostly rewarded blues, not epics.
Nearly every raid was broken in some fashion, the conspiracy theory was that it was artificial blocking by Blizzard because content wasn't finished.
The step from Kara raids to 25 mans destroyed so many guilds.
Attunements created so much difficulty for raid recruiting.
Arena sounded great until people realized it was only great if you were a Resto Druid, Disc Priest, Arms Warrior, Rogue, Lock, or Mage. Hybrids need not apply, again. Holy Paladins were good for season one until people realized you could zerg them to force bubble then kill them.
Quest gear design was all over the place. Great for transmogging now, but everyone looked goofy then.
Most casuals said screw it and pvp'd to gear up. Even raiders used pvp to fill in gear slots. Blizzard didn't like this.
Resilience didn't fix it.
Warriors were still the best tanks for most of the expansion. Paladins didn't shine until the end when they could pull entire dungeons at once. Druid tanks were on a buff/nerf rollercoaster for most of the expansion.
Ret and Prot Paladins got a complete stat revamp twice in the same expansion.

There was a lot to like about TBC. I enjoyed it, even as a casual. But it was still deeply flawed. It fixed some problems from Vanilla, but introduced others. But that's every expansion. People fondly remember Wrath too, and it was the same deal, some good, some bad. There's people who liked Cata too, and one day people will look back on MoP fondly too.

The beauty of nostalgia is that people mostly remember the good, and very little of the bad. But there's something to be said about flaws too. The more effort it takes to get something, the more you'll remember it, even if the memory isn't a good one. A lot of the nostalgia about TBC is that people had fun and made memories despite all of its problems.

Aside from some minor inaccuracies, a thousand times this.

[zaneosak]

1. Raiding was amazing and the scale was grand. Every raid was challenging and felt like you were entering a giant stronghold of the enemy. Fighting large amounts of trash and progressing thru the zone.
2. There was almost always something to do. If you weren't a hardcore SWP Raider Heroic dungeons served a purpose for a long time, heroics last a week right now when you level a new toon and even when your main hit 90.
3. Timing - timing is everything.... we spent all that time on Azeroth and then we get to see a new fresh world, this only happens on the first expansion. After that it loses its touch every time you see a new place.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia, and the fact the game was still new to most people.

imo it was a terrible expansion, only reason i enjoyed it was because WoW was still new to me, if TBC released today i would want a refund on my purchase.

Ofcourse a 2007 game would not sell well in 2013? Derp Duh much? What people miss and fail to spell out correctly were not features but core design. The core design was: "You can be casual, but dont expect everything to be tailored for you. Your 15$ entitle you to game access... not winning in the game".

[hrugner]

Honestly?

Karazahn, I'd list this many times as I love the place
Sunwell
Sporelings
Mag'har orcs
Nagrand
Naaru
Ogrila (the weird smart ogres, not the dailies; I wish they'd kept the plump cheak ogres from beta)
attunement quests
crafted blacksmith weapons
shock paladin was at it's best
leveling experience
feral changes, finally being able to tank as a bear properly
arenas siphoning the pvp leechers out of raids.

good guild, good freinds

As an aside: Nostalgia haters should go study cognition.

[Woceip]

Cuz it was fun. Then. Now? Not so much. No going back.