I don't think Cataclysm was as bad as we think.

[Deleted]

I thought cata started fantastically and then went slowly down hill, I actually really loved the first tier, enjoyed firelands, but then it fizzled out a horrible death with DS for me, and that's how I remember it. Shame really.

The difficulty was perfect in the first tier of Cata. I still can't get my head around how badly they fucked up the overall quality of the game so fast the next tier.

[anaxie]

Also people saying the Pre patch to cata was bad. Remember the pre patch gave us the doomsday cult shit and elemental invasions the 4 elemental bosses to que for AND THE ENTIRE 1-60 REVAMP so if you like the story you had a month to.... see the 1-60 story buildup that lead directly into cata and the aftermath of Lich King.

IMO a fantastic pre expansion patch in every way.

Wrath was okay scourge invasions n zombie stuff that got removed after a week from crybabies

Do you expect to turn into a zombie all the time tho? Lol no it won't happen again.

What you should be upset about is shit like the MoP Pre patch. HURR HURR Theramore

WoD prepatch is supposed to be the invasion through blasted lands / swamp yes?

[Wilian]

Also people saying the Pre patch to cata was bad. Remember the pre patch gave us the doomsday cult shit and elemental invasions the 4 elemental bosses to que for AND THE ENTIRE 1-60 REVAMP so if you like the story you had a month to.... see the 1-60 story buildup that lead directly into cata and the aftermath of Lich King.

The pre-patch "storytelling" and event to Cata was laughable at best and properly set the tone for a joke that most of the Cata story content was. Seriously, modern-like caricatyre world end cults and faire like gatherings right outside the cities?

[Celarent]

The expansion was extremely damaging to my guild, and the cause of a lot of unnecessary stress, but Blizzard got several successes out of it.

Cataclysm's failures all seem traceable to using select subforums on battle.net as a primary focus group. "Too easy!" "Tanks should fight for aggro!" "Arthas was everywhere!" "10-man groups are treated unfairly!" All heeded, all since reversed.

[nekobaka]

That is because players do not care about the overall health (read: profitability) of the game. They care about what they find fun. People that post on forums tend to be more toward the type of player that enjoys difficulty. So that is why they liked T11,T12 and the cata 5 mans. They were the right mix of hard and fun, at least for people with a decent level of skill.

For the record I loved T11,T12, and cata 5 mans. DS was kinda meh, and LFR should die a horrible death.

Which is really the case even for those who claim to represent the majority. They only care about what they find fun. LFR has failed to the be holy grail of keeping players engaged for many months like prior thought. Five mans and casual raiders which early MoP ignored with five man players thought of being irrelevant are now seeing focus coming back to them while Blizzard thought casual raiders would have been happy in LFR which turned out wrong.

MoP still saw losses with those so called "fixes". There was many other reasons behind losses and it wasnt just difficulty and even Blizzard has come out to say it. In the end though if someone wants to base the arguments off of net subscription numbers which is really the only data we have then the majority stayed in the game with only a minority leaving, but I guess ignoring player turn over is a popular thing just as believing all the losses came from one factor an individual hated.

[BGDominate]

I was actually just thinking about this.

Cataclysm had one of the best stories and the most potential to be awesome. It started out pretty sick but as others have said it started to go downhill as soon as DS came out. All in all it was a cool raid, but the way Blizzard went about it ruined everything cool about it for me.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

For me.. the story of Cata was a story of Blizzard trying to get maximum effect by spending the least amount. The company really became one of those true corporate demons. They aren't an EA or anything but they did take a few pages from their book. The reduction in staff, scraping of raids, and a whole content patch based on rehashed content were just a fact of that reality. I have no doubts that Blizzard was planning to shift its eggs into the 'Titan' basket and it didn't work out for whatever reason we will likely never know. But that failure more or less took place in Cata, and still haunts WoW to this day sadly. After that failure hit them in the face they knee jerked and released suck of a raid in Dragonsoul.

Was Cata terrible? No. It started off REALLY strong. But cuts and more cuts petered it out into a junk pile. I more then most wish I could delete those if's. But they are here to stay. For that reason Cata will go down as the expansion things started to slide towards the abyss.

[Dakara]

Cata was a mixed bag for me. Loved parts, hated others... but that's been every expansion really.

[Karreck]

I personally think Cata's problem was that Blizzard split it's development to both revamping old world and creating new content. Not to say that the revamp was bad, in fact, I think it was fantastic and greatly needed. But new content suffered as a result. They really front loaded the expansion, which happens with every expansion honestly, but compared to Wrath and TBC, Cata started to peter out much quicker and in a more pronounced way than previous expansions. I think Blizzard was counting on people leveling new alts and thought that would balance out the lack of endgame content. For some, it worked. For others, namely the most vocal players, it didn't. Dragon Soul being rather disappointing as a raid didn't help either.

[Kralljin]

I'd Dare say Vashjir, Hyjal, Deepholme, Highlands, and Uldum are FAR better then the bland Pandaran continent.

I can only agree on Vashj'ir.

Vashj'ir had a totally out of the box storyline with those visions of the past and that you actually are there for a totally different reason, i mean this zone really made you feel like you were on your own except for a few survivors.

Secondly, your ass got saved a few times by npcs, lastly you technically failed your goal in stopping the Naga.

But the other zones? Business as usual, especially Hyjal, the hero arrives takes out an entire army by himself, yeah i get we're the heroes but this is so overused for high level zones.

Uldum was a pathetic Indiana jones ripoff with Nazi and armies of humans with guns and Pickelhaube(n), as a reminder, Al'akir was supposed to be the main threat in Uldum, did it feel like one? Certainly not.

I can only recommend every person who praises a certain addon, may it be BC / Wotlk / Cata to use google and find those massive QQ threads over said expansion when they were current.

[Tziva]

I don't think there is a collective "we" in this case.

Lots of people were dissatisfied with Cataclysm on some level, but I don't think it's accurate to assume everyone thinks it was bad.

Personally, Cataclysm was a mixed bag for me.

On the positive side, it brought a lot of great features. Reforging, transmog, robust guild support, old world flying. It revamped the old world which was -- despite wistful nostalgia for the things I things I like that are now gone -- much needed and a huge improvement from a leveling/questing point of view. It gave us two cool new starting zones, two cool races, and it gave us new race/class combos.

On the negative side, the problem was not that the quality was bad, or the content was bad, just that there was not enough to do end-game and I found myself without enough things to do. Occasional boredom isn't the most awful thing objectively, but considering this is a game where people log in to be entertained, it is certainly not a good thing.

I think Cataclysm was the weakest expansion to date for that reason. Was it bad? Nah. In fact, I thought much of the content (save for Dragonsoul, which was disappointing) that did exist was good - just too limited. And did I have fun? Absolutely. But while the features are awesome, but they don't replace content. Even if that is one weak thing against a variety of positive things it is, unfortunately that one thing is the most important component of a game: things to do.

[Kelathos]

Cata was the reason I did not sub nor buy Mists until SoO.

It was bad for my 25man guilds, so it was bad for me.

[Grogo]

I liked the the first 4, liked BC the best. MOP made me cancel.

[Schmiitty]

While I think that lore-wise, WotLK was the best exp as it pretty much closed the book on the events of W3, I believe Cata was the best expansion in terms of content and developement. From the changing of the world to the epic music and content in the Mount Hyjal questing, there was never a dull moment with that game.

[Deadite]

Compared to MoP it was a triumph but still utter shit as an expansion.

[Osmeric]

Compared to MoP it was a triumph

You're making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS?

[Deadite]

You're making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS?

You may want to read a bit further on in the sentence. You know the bit you purposely left out...

[Osmeric]

You may want to read a bit further on in the sentence. You know the bit you purposely left out...

/whoooooosh

[Deadite]

/whoooooosh

You seem pretty much in the die hard fan camp. Your attempt at humor is lost on me.

[skatblast]

I had alot of fun pvping in cata.... as for PvE..... no it was just a complete failure compared to wotlk