Why all the Cata hate?

[KonkeroaR]

I don't understand all the hatred towards Cataclysm. I personally loved the heroics and the first 2 tiers of raid content. Was Dragon Soul truly so awful that it ruined the entire expansion for people? Did the world revamp leave a bad taste in player's mouths because it consumed precious content development time?

Cata, as a whole, needed to happen and Azeroth is a better place now because of it. The expansion had a major impact on WoW for the greater good such as: huge steps were taken towards improving the questing experience, flight was introduced in Azeroth, and the design and artwork throughout the world saw great improvements.

What are your thoughts? Why was Cataclysm such a bad expansion in your eyes?

[LiiLoSNK]

IMO it sucked. goblins and worgen were both lack luster, both BGs were just boring copies, the raids weren't fun (firelands was nicedespite the horrible prequests), and honestly it just felt like another same-ol same-ol expansion.

The only thing that felt new about it was the 1-60 leveling experience. That is the only good thing that cata brought.

[Pitseleh]

Cata being bad so future expansions could be better still makes Cata bad.

[Venziir]

Because it was an incoherent mess, with some many loose ends, boring patches and a clear sign that Blizzard had *no idea* regarding their plan for the expansion over all. Sadly WoD is seeming to be WoD 2.0, unless something, drastically, changes in 6.1....

That said - yes - Cata needed to happen, however, like a bandaid that needs to be ripped away; it wasn't pleasant.

[Captainn]

Firelands was created by someone with massive ADD who didn't understand the concept of claustrophobia, Dragon Soul was garbage. Only thing that was redeeming about Cata was Hyjal's music, the variety they offered in zones and how alt friendly it was. The BGs were generic versions of BGs already in the game. Only good raid tier was Tier 11, and that was probably just nostalgia for me (my first raiding tier). Only thing end game offered really for PvE players were alts, I think I had 20ish 85's before it was over...

[Sesto]

Story was terrible. All the high level zones were horrible, except maybe Hyjal, but even that becomes a pain to get through after the first couple times. I can't remember a single heroic that I enjoyed doing. Goblins were a boring race choice, and Worgen were an absolutely terrible one. And Dragon Soul is possibly the worst raid in the entire game.

4.2 and the revamp were nice, but that's about it.

[Littleraven]

Because it was an incoherent mess, with some many loose ends, boring patches and a clear sign that Blizzard had *no idea* regarding their plan for the expansion over all.

That said - yes - Cata needed to happen, however, like a bandaid that needs to be ripped away; it wasn't pleasant.

^This 100%. Everything was all over the place. Way too many story lines went unfinished (Uh Neptulon? Hello?) and the zones were so inconsistent. You can tell most of the work went into the 1-60 and the 80-85 suffered for it. I do honestly feel like most of the hate comes from the year of Dragon Soul though. People were a little upset with Cataclysm at launch but once we got stuck in DS for a year after they said they didn't want another ICC, people just kinda lost it.

For me I didn't hate it but man looking back it was a pretty big mess.

[Eurhetemec]

Cata sucked from the start. Dull zones, dull story, horrible main enemy, intensely visually and conceptually dull PvP zone, an assortment of irritating but unmemorable dungeons with no clear theme, and THE WORST ZONE STORY IN MMORPG HISTORY (Uldum - a crap, moronic, practically scene-for-scene and totally humourless re-enactment of Indiana Jones, with bonus de-protagonization of the PC and weird quasi-racism). Then raids which, whilst new somehow felt like re-hashes, and seemed somewhat random theme/enemy-wise (though I liked a couple of the fights tbh).

Plus on top of that they ruined a lot of the original zones, and made many of them into annoyances to level through.

EDIT - There's something really odd about Cataclysm that made it feel almost like it was form the 1960s or something. I can't put my finger on it, but it wasn't good. Feels like someone really really old (mentally - old not mature, it's not at all mature) came up with the concepts. Horrible.

[SLRRP]

I've been playing since 08 (BC, WOTLK, CATA, MOP, & WOD) and I have by FAR played CATA the least. Yeah, that includes WoD. I leveled, got into heroics, and hated the experience (the leveling was blah as well). When MoP was announced I believed that my experience with WoW was over and I didn't get into MoP until thunder king (discounted price lured me). My faith has been restored but I have no fond memories of Cata, plain and simple.

[melodramocracy]

Disjointed, unfocused 80-85 zones.
The first of 2 5 level, incremental feeling expansions.
Terrible implementation of chaos orbs.
An entire patch revolving around 2 heroic rehashes that wound up being only ones worth doing (again, seemingly thrown in for no apparent reason).
The introduction of nearly 100% on-rails questing through most zones, making for awful replay value (though some zones did benefit from the rework).
A letdown of a final raid, despite promises of it being the best thing ever. It wasn't even the best raid of the expansion.

I only spent about 4-6 months subscribed in Cata, and even that was a few months too many. Overall the quality simply wasn't up to what I expect from this company.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

It was boring. Elemental-based lore (regardless of genre or subgenre) is boring and insipid. Deathwing was a horribly written, two-dimensional villain with a humanoid model that looks even more retarded than Arthas did (which is a HUGE accomplishment and insult). Cramming 10-levels of leveling into 5-levels of leveling just made it feel like it was long and agonizing to level alts. And all of the raids were equally boring and uninspired.

[Duravian]

Everyone has listed the same pros and cons I might've listed, so I'm just gonna give a point to Cata for the Horde-side Twilight Highlands intro. That moment made me proud to fight with the Kor'kron and our big brown friend.

[DarkMethod]

both BGs were just boring copies

I feel like they have really dropped the ball on their battlegrounds, when compared to everything else. Some of them are just straight up copies of others, or pieced together of 3 of them. AV has needed a proper reboot for a long time, and is a bit of a joke. Tol Barad is a ghost town, and an even bigger joke. Wintergrasp is a ghost town too, and a pale shadow of it's former glory. Ashran keeps people from reaching the honor vendors if it's full (every night), which is kind of bad design. I'm sure some people just hang out in there to hold their spots.

They've done a lot of good with battlegrounds, but they also need a big shakeup. By WoW's standards, the BGs are the area hurting the most.

[Tyrgannus]

Vanilla: 52 Raid Encounters
BC: 54 Raid Encounters
Wrath: 54 Raid Encounters
Cata: 31 Raid Encounters
MoP: 51 Raid Encounters

I can't help but think this is a big reason for a lot of people.

[Thelxi]

Because it sucked. It was probably the best launch ever, tons of content and very very good raids, but then firelands got pushed back because "many people were still progressing on t11" and the incredible cheapness began.

4.1 was the first slap in the face where we got 2 revamped 5man dungeons that dropped useless gear instead of the promised raid tier, and then Dragon Soul was the unarguably cheapest end of expansion raid tier we ever got leaving a very bitter taste to most people.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I enjoyed Cataclysm as well, but I don't have any particular hatred for any expansion, I find the whole of the game very enjoyable.

[Senarx]

Cata had a chance to tell a great story and in my opinion it fell short.

[tru]

why do we need another why all the cata hate thread...
Cata sucked plain and simple it added very little content rehashed reused recycled was the main theme of the xpac.
K so they redid the leveling content reworked classic zones... guess what leveling is such a minor part of the game. you get your levels and you are done for 2+ years
It was just very bland and boring esp. from a lore standpoint.
You basically play thralls story... every freaking thing was about thrall and how HE save the world
Horde favoritism at its highest was a big sour note for a lot of players
5 level cap increase lol
even further emphasized the ability to just sit in a town all day in que

[ThePants999]

Vanilla: 52 Raid Encounters
BC: 54 Raid Encounters
Wrath: 54 Raid Encounters
Cata: 31 Raid Encounters
MoP: 51 Raid Encounters

I can't help but think this is a big reason for a lot of people.

Yeah. I don't want to speak for other people, but for me, it basically boiled down to that.

[Fahrenheit]

This is a big "IF", but "IF" Blizzard would've A) stuck to their guns on difficult heroics, B) finished the Neptulon storyline with the raid they had planned and C) gave us a proper final raid with a proper final boss it would've been great.

The beginning of Cataclysm was in my opinion the golden age of WoW to date. It was also the point when WoW had the most active subs worldwide.