Best timeperiod for WoW?

[Azgraal]

Voted Legion because new is always better. This is just a reference, shame on you if you take it literaly.

[Deleted]

Thank you for asking

Thanks for telling. MoP was very good raidwise, pity you missed out ;( Throne of Thunder had this massive expansive raid instance thing going on, to the point where some people compared it to Ulduar (whether it's a good comparison is ofc a subjective opinion we shouldn't get into). Some fights were also top notch. Thunder King heroic was a great fight. First tier was worse than 1st tier of Cata, but still solid and SoO would be among the best raids, were it not for massive burnout, since it took so long.

But I totally agree dungeons were crap, LFR was pointless and with all the things they did really well with solo MoP content, gating really sucked.

[Dastreus]

WoTLK. Specifically, the Ulduar era of the expansion, with ICC neck and neck with it. Ulduar's so fucking cool.

[docterfreeze]

MoP best PvP

WotLK best aesthetics, sound, story, and environment

Can't comment on PvE.

[Ciddy]

Oh, and since people are ranking stuff here, here's mine:

BC > Wrath > Classic > MoP > Cataclysm > WoD

BC and Wrath are my favorites by far, with BC only slightly winning because that period is when most of my best friends were still playing and my guild was at it's strongest. I thought Wrath was an awesome expansion because I really loved Northrend and thought it was cool to finally see Arthas in WoW (seeing some closure to that story was cool because I'd been playing Warcraft since WC3).

I started playing in Classic and have a lot of fond memories there (and again, a lot of my best friends were still playing). The whole experience of being a noob in my first MMO, seeing everything for the first time, and running those huge dungeons is something that I won't forget.

I think the "MOP SUX CUZ OF PANDAZ" thing was way overblown, and I really enjoyed it. MoP is where I backed off on raiding and became a more "casual" player.

Cataclysm was a fun expansion overall, but it disappointed me in a lot of areas that really could've been better (I was really excited for Uldum before I saw how it turned out in game).

WoD....I liked Draenor and leveling from 90-100, but I lost interest very quickly after that. I've been unsubscribed longer than I was subscribed for WoD, and it's the first time that's happened for me.

As for Legion, that remains to be seen. I do like a lot of things I've read about it so far.

[Jueles]

For me one year into Vanilla was an awesome time - great guild participation - realm competitive raiding (Deus Conclave will always have a special place in my heart). Moving into BC was awesome - 25 man was the right way to go at that time as it became difficult to have 40 commit, however, for us the 10 man format tore the guild. We were again competitive raiders on the realm, being realm first until they made the raids open to everybody without all the pre hard work. Deus Conclave died during this expansion so I mourn. As I moved on, raiding Black Temple was probably the highlight of my heavy duty raiding days - great people! Holy priest were still awesome. Guild community was still strong in WotLK and I very much enjoyed the dungeon and raiding time I had. But time passes, peoples lives move on, the game keeps changing. By the time we get to Panderia, I am getting fed up of relearning my class once again, trying to justify why I insist on staying a holy priest and not finishing content. By WoD, my guild no longer raids, and a couple of us raid with another guild. We are half decent and struggle, just as we think we have a good meshed group, life comes up, good players disappear and we are back to gearing up and making no progress. I will not have completed raid content in WoD and life as a holy priest sucks. So, after all this - Molten Core to Lich King are my best years

[Mlz]

In general, I loved MoP and I kept on saying that already when it was current. The amount of stuff they introduced - from pet battles to Challenge Modes - was crazy, plus I enjoyed Timeless Isle and raids thoroughly. There were things I didn't participate in, like scenarios, but I never saw them as pointless content in contrast to apexis dailies, for example. It also helps that I'm a one-class-person and my class felt really fleshed out during MoP. In general, it was incredibly fun to play back then, eventhough it all got shattered in WoD and probably will be as badly designed in Legion (at least character gameplay wise which for me is probably the most important aspect of an MMO).

In terms of Cata - I didn't like it when it was current nor afterwards BUT WoD destroyed the standards for what is considered a bad expansion, hence I don't usually even mention Cata when talking about timeperiods in WoW I dislike the most.

[Deleted]

TBC, WotLK was okay but TBC was better.

[melodramocracy]

Probably BC, as the game was still unquestionably growing / gaining momentum. Legion will pull new players to the game thanks to the movie, though certainly not at BC / Wrath levels, and most of those players will be short term dabblers.

[Xandrigity]

For me it was BC followed very closely by wolk.

[Sunnydruid]

WOTLK, best of both worlds for everyone playing.

No time to commit to raiding guild? PUG it. No time for that? LFD was released and was a great choice to gear up quicker.
Continent was great in terms of art
Reasons to go out in the world
Wintergrasp, while a bit buggy, was actually pretty fun and throughout the whole expansion people were playing it (and still do in WoD).
Leveling took time however it wasn't painfully slow.

[JV Chequer]

I'm pretty optimistic about Legion, it gots everything that I liked on MoP on a whole new level.

World Quests are pretty amazing and new Mythic+ are pretty cool.

[Djuntas]

TBC sunwell patch was good for me. The dumbing down already happend end of vanilla with honor weapons as good as AQ40 drops so...meh

[Deleted]

In terms of story and the environment I completely agree. However, it is where they fundamentally broke the game design, from which they never recovered. LFG trivialized dungeons, and the full reset in every patch and multiple difficulty/size modes trivialized progression. The game design moved to instant gratification, which has continued to this day. The big problem being, that the only real source of gratification is the effort-reward loop, which instant gratification breaks -- so it is a self-defeating design. If they had continued with the TBC game design, WotLK would have been one of the most amazing games ever.

What this guy said.

I honestly don't know who the patch resets or multiple raid difficulties caters to. As you said, it does nothing but trivialise previous content, as well as current content with the multiple difficulties. I also think removing 10 man content like Karazhan and Zul'Aman was just plain stupid, as it was a much better bridge into "proper raiding" than LFR will ever be.

[Deleted]

WOTLK, best of both worlds for everyone playing.

I was a progression raider back then, and WotLK ruined raiding for me. WotLK did include the last proper raid instance of WoW, Ulduar, but then they obsoleted it with the circus tent. The reset in every content patch instead of having to finish every tier to move to the next, and the different raid sizes and difficulties destroyed any feeling of progression from raiding for me.

[Sastank]

Vanilla - Grindy (reps and cloth come to mind) confusing (not everything was datamined or with a solid guide in place) buggy (literally unkillable bosses) challenging yet rewarding time. Things won't ever be this way again (assuming no official pristine servers lol)
TBC - Probably the closest to 2nd favorite it could be. The raids and amount of quality boss encounters were amazing
WOTLK - Favorite expansion. Where I was probably the most hardcore. ICC was one of the best raids WoW's ever had imo. (time invested / clearing wings before the % buff was "too high")
Cata - Missed out on ~9 months during this expansion. Just didn't like it. Dragon Soul was too long. Not enough content in time.
MoP - I can't recall anything I actually enjoyed THAT much in this expansion at all. The raids were okay I guess. Only a few bosses impressed me. SoO being a meme for lack of content/raids lasting a year plus...
WOD - Uhm...it was easy to make gold? A couple bosses were okay I guess, rest were meh. Again way too long without anything to do...it's a worrying trend at this point

[Chrno]

classic was amazing, TBC was great progressing from kara to T5 to T6 and later sunwell a real journey i enjoyed with my guild back then.
cataclysm T11 was also great pre-nerf. reminded me allot of TBC after the nerf it was shit, sorry to be so blunt.

I myself did not enjoy WotLK as much as the rest of the world. Raiding wise i found it a very shallow experience ... If WotLK was your first (raiding) expansion i can understand why people love it so much as it did do many things right It just killed the journey TBC had going on

[OneSent]

The best time period for WoW was from Patch 1.9, up to and including, Patch 3.1.

Patch 3.2 signified a change in philosophy within the company, and they have not deviated from that change ever since.

[Deleted]

WOTLK, obviously, which was bad design according to Blizz, and that's how we got WoD.

[Roar-Powah]

I was a hardcore raider up until the end of WotLK and got really burned out. As for a favorite time period, it has to be Vanilla even with all its faults. The world events that went on and the server community it self cannot be compared to anything WoW has to offer today.

TBC, pre nerf Sunwell is where i had my best time as a raider!

WotLK had the best leveling experience to date(I don't know how people could even think WoD leveling was good, i found it really boring), the best lore to date and the best raids to this day.

Cata was good / decent until they nerf'd everything due to people QQing everything was too hard. I didn't raid much or play much at all during Cata.

MoP was ok/ish, got back into raiding as much as i could and found a really good group of people that i still play other games with today and will be raiding with in Legion. But the whole panda theme was really shit.

WoD... wtf is WoD? I don't remember this expansion....