If WotLK was released today

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Don't forget ToC, people.

Despite what everyone else thinks, I honestly loved ToC. Straight to the bosses was a nice change of things for raids and the boss fights were pretty awesome. Some of my favorite bosses in that raid.

[Schmeebs]

Don't forget ToC, people.

I prefer to pretend that tier didn't exist.

Whoever designed jousting deserves something indescribably terrible to happen to them.

[Hauntlander]

Despite what everyone else thinks, I honestly loved ToC. Straight to the bosses was a nice change of things for raids and the boss fights were pretty awesome. Some of my favorite bosses in that raid.

Agreed. Trash mobs just always seem like filler to me.

[corebit]

And a year down the line in the next expansion, people will say how awesome the WoD content was.
Forum, forum never changes.

[Deleted]

Yes it was, I remember very clearly.

Yes it was, I distinctly remember complaints during Wrath launch:

Naxx is too easy/rehashed content. Nothing new.

Sarth is too easy, why would anyone do 'optional' hard mode?

Maly is too easy.

That doesn't mean it was taken as a failure.

Especially not the whole expansion. You just listed the first tier of raids. Naxx was rehashed and Maly and Sarth were 1-boss raids. That wasn't nearly all of the expansion.

Ulduar is to this day heralded as the best raid ever, closely followed by Icecrown Citadel. There were tons of good content in Wrath. Wrath back then was criticized for things, as was every expansion, but it was not taken as a failure.

[Wries]

Ahh. Remember when the hard mode items of the previous raid tier didn't get replaced by "raining from the skies" catch-up epics before you entered the next tier? Felt a bit like character progression.

But people hated plenty on WoTLK. That's when it started, you reached end-game faster and faster and felt "done" faster and faster. Granted it wasn't as ridiculous as it is today. We didn't consider how much worse it could get and thus remember WoTLK with fondness by now.

[MyndZero]

Wotlk brought Ulduar, the best raid WoW has ever done in my opinion. It brought ICC, which personally I consider the second best raid, because LK was just that moment of epicness that hasn't been seen since or before.

MMOs back then were a different breed to what they are now. I think if Wotlk was to release now, with all that they've learned, we would probably likely get that scrapped content like the anub'arak zone (or whatever it was called) in a content patch, etc, because that's what the MMO scene has evolved into.

[ls-]

What I wouldn't mind happening now is a couple of 5mans accompanying HFC raid. Sorta ICC style. Dunno, but in WotLK they felt sooo enjoyable, they were adding more depth to raid content, especially halls of reflections.

Although I didn't really like Argent Tournament back then, it was average, but I'd say I enjoyed it a bit more than current garrison thingy...

[Linneth]

Ahh. Remember when the hard mode items of the previous raid tier didn't get replaced by "raining from the skies" catch-up epics before you entered the next tier? Felt a bit like character progression.

But people hated plenty on WoTLK. That's when it started, you reached end-game faster and faster and felt "done" faster and faster. Granted it wasn't as ridiculous as it is today. We didn't consider how much worse it could get and thus remember WoTLK with fondness by now.

I remember being gifted two pieces of tier set almost before setting foot into the raid instead of versatility-infested tryhard epics.

[Demithio]

Ahh. Remember when the hard mode items of the previous raid tier didn't get replaced by "raining from the skies" catch-up epics before you entered the next tier? Felt a bit like character progression.

But people hated plenty on WoTLK. That's when it started, you reached end-game faster and faster and felt "done" faster and faster. Granted it wasn't as ridiculous as it is today. We didn't consider how much worse it could get and thus remember WoTLK with fondness by now.

Agree with this. I recall thinking that the initial content was on the light side raid wise and there were things that could have been done better. However, in retrospect, I would take it any day over what we have now as an overall package. We are in fact seeing just how bad WoW can get / has gotten, and maybe will get even worse from here.

[Dhrizzle]

Naxx is too easy/rehashed content. Nothing new.

Naxx was far too easy, even as a casual group who barely scratched Black Temple we were having to cut raid nights short to leave something for other people to kill.

Sarth is too easy, why would anyone do 'optional' hard mode?

Sarth I remember being quite highly praised with 3D being considered an excellent but optional challenge.

Maly is too easy.

Maly was too tedious, in the time it took to do his encounter you could clear at least a wing of Naxx and then there's the horrible dragon flying bit where your screen was just filled with dozens of wings clipping through each other.

Five-mans were way too easy until the three that came with ICC. Dailies were a semi-afk snooze fest apart from the jousting which started interesting but became tedious after a month or so. The thing is I did all that casual content lots, to get some bonus stuff with my raiding warlock main and to level and gear my warrior tank, but it was pretty much popcorn content, you could consume it endlessly with no real thought into what you were doing.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

People complained to the point that even the rise to 12 million subs was commented as "Just because McDonalds is popular doesn't mean the food isn't shit". LFR apparently killed the game in WotLK and the fact that ICC lasted 12 months. Oh yeah...the increasing buff meant overcasualisation as did Catch up mechanisms.

Today a drop of subscribers is a sign that the game is bad - back then a rise in subscribers meant the game was shit anyhow.

So many people ragged WotLK in the day because in the day it did have problems.

Anyone remember how DBM -- and all the cross-talk between that addon did to raids -- like d/cing the raid itself (it could knock the entire raid offline)?

WotLK wasn't 100% ideal by any stretch. But compared to Cata, it's golden!!

[threads]

...would it be taken as an absolute failure? Just think about it, 1st raiding tier's main raid was a rehashed one from Vanilla, while the other two were small and you almost didn't notice they were there.
3.1 brought just one raid. I can't even imagine how big the outcry would be if 6.2 brought only HFC, without any other content. Yet it was OK back then.
3.2 added a really small raid that was probably the most uninteresting raid ever created (heck, the whole raid happened in one small arena) and an annoying dungeon that was in the same arena + "mounted combat" system (which is terrible, even more terrible than garrison shipyard). The dailies were alright, aside from the vehicle ones, but getting all the things from there was a torment.
3.3 was probably the best WotLK patch, it added a big raid instance and 3 new dungeons, but it was a current tier for 12 months and that was not really nice.

So, my question is, if WotLK came out today, would it be regarded as a "failed expansion"?

the biggest point is that the game made sense. story wasn't a mess. the game was enjoyable and immersive. the content almost doesn't even matter at that point.

[Immunize]

You should consider that WotlK had much more atmosphere (best questing zones, atmospheric raid zones), a reasonable enemy (scourge, old gods) and much more stuff to do (motivating or boring, anyone can decide for their own) then WoD.

So no, I don't think Wrath would be a failure if released today.

[Tekkommo]

What about the lag in Naxx, that was some extreme lag.

Still the raid was so easy, your entire raid could lag and as long as they kept spamming their abilities, the boss would die.

[buck008]

Wrath was certainly more popular and had more vocal fans, but there were plenty of people crying about specific things and warning that the end was certainly nigh for Warcraft because some other game was going to come along. Hell, Mists was the worst expansion ever if this forum was to be believed and now people love it, apparently. Whatever is new sucks and whatever is old is better because we remember it that way.

That being said, Ulduar really is my favorite raid Blizzard ever released. It's amazing.

[Deleted]

OP, you're forgetful. 3.1 wasn't just Ulduar, that content also included the Argent Tournament daily content.

Not to mention, wrath's base expansion content, brought in in 3.0, was vastly greater in effect than anything WoD tried to come up with. Thus there was far greater subscription retention.

[Dhrizzle]

Don't forget the Wintergrasp debacle. Some context;

Early vanilla Blizzard release battlegrounds, effectively kill world-PvP to the dismay of many.
Late vanilla Blizzard add PvP objectives to a few zones, largely ignored.
TBC Blizz have PvP objectives in several zones, largely ignored.
WotLK - Blizzard have Wintergrasp, a dedicated PvP zone. Everyone floods there and kills the servers, Blizz have to make it a glorified battleground.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and how can we forget the complaints of Blizz dumbing down WoW for the console-tards by introducing achievements?

[Deleted]

Don't forget the Wintergrasp debacle. Some context;

Early vanilla Blizzard release battlegrounds, effectively kill world-PvP to the dismay of many.
Late vanilla Blizzard add PvP objectives to a few zones, largely ignored.
TBC Blizz have PvP objectives in several zones, largely ignored.
WotLK - Blizzard have Wintergrasp, a dedicated PvP zone. Everyone floods there and kills the servers, Blizz have to make it a glorified battleground.

Still better than Assram.

Oh, and how can we forget the complaints of Blizz dumbing down WoW for the console-tards by introducing achievements?

Never heard that one. Must've been a minor complaint.

[Gsara]

If we go by just forum complaints, the entire life span of wow has been a failure. WotLK, while having a rehashed Naxx, still had what is considered one of the best raids ever put into WoW, Ulduar. I also doubt Naxx was actually rehashed for the vast majority of players, including this forum, because less than 1% of the player base even killed more than one boss in vanilla Naxx.