Originally Posted by
Statix
Cataclsym was bad for a lot of reasons. They changed a lot of classes. Mage for example. The Fireball glyph changed from crit to haste. Pre-Cataclysm, but with all the changes implemented in WotLK, the difference wasn't noticable. But once Fire Mages hit level 85, they sucked balls. No crits, no Pyroblast, no DPS. And the best part is, they barely fixed it. I remember Fire being so broken in Firelands I actually quit my Mage and leveled a Hunter.
Cataclysm is where Blizzard got lazy. In WotLK there were constant class fixes. In Cata, Fire Mages were broken up until Dragon Soul. Dragon Soul was a crappy raid. It wasn't epic. We didn't even really get to fight Deathwing, just some stupid tentacles. In the end, what did we really do? Ragnaros was the fight Deathwing should have been. It was epic, Ragnaros is epic. Deathwing was a pussy. Where was he the entire expansion? Occasionaly flying over the map killing everyone?
The Lich King was present in so many Dungeons and Raids, you really felt his presence, the threat he posed. ICC is still the greatest raid ever created, simply because of the variety of bosses, but still it felt complete. The Lich King's monolog when you enter ICC; amazing. I can still get goosebumbs when I enter ICC. The trailers for WotLK were also a lot better. "Let them come, Frostmourne hungers!", arguably the best WoW quote out there.
ICC had 12 bosses, but on a farm night, it would take just as much time as clearing DS's 8 bosses. Blizzard just made fights lenghtier to make it seem as if the raids are as long as they were in WotLK because they ran out of ideas. Again, laziness. Leveling in Cataclysm was also a step down. I looked forward to my new talent point when I leveled. In Cata I had to level 2 levels before I got one.
Wrath of the Lich King was considered a step down from The Burning Crusade when it was released, but when Cataclysm hit, everyone loved Wrath of the Lich King. People said everyone would love Cataclysm aswell, once Mists of Pandaria was released. But that didn't happen. WotLK was bashed because it wasn't TBC, people just wanted TBC back. Cataclysm was simply a bad expansion.
Mists of Pandaria is a huge improvement, but the laziness of Blizzard is still there. Just the insane amount of dailies proves this. They are trying to make the game seem lengthier by just adding a lot of the same shit. Countless of dailies to farm rep. It litteraly takes you months to complete.
WoW has a reversed design process. Where other games become more refined and more complicated, WoW becomes crude and easy. WoW is being dumbed down. Now that I think of it, the perfect comparison is the WWE. It used to be amazing in the Attitude Era, but once we entered the PG era, it's barely a shadow of its former self. Why? Because it started to focus on kids. WoW is doing the same. It isn't honoring it's loyal players by keeping the game a challange, no, they are making it easier. Less talents, because there were cookie cutter builds. Blabla, they are still there. It's just easier to switch talents now. Had they made it that easy in WotLK, it would have been exactly the same as it is now.
Cataclysm is the John Cena of WoW.