Cataclysm is the only Expansion no one ever compliments

[Salandrin]

For better or worse, most of my sweet memories in WoW were from Cataclysm, even if the Expansion itself wasn't my favorite. But I think it's kind of scary how it literally stands out as being the Expansion that no one likes even on the slightest. WotLK was considered bad at one point, but people would eventually remember it for what it was, and it is loved to this day. Not only is that not the case with Cataclysm, the only thing people even say about it is "Let's pretend Cataclysm didn't exist"....yeah.

[Darsithis]

I do.

I loved the initial heroics difficulty. I loved T11 - my favorite raid tier behind 9 & 10. I really liked the new zones and the revamp of the old world. It was long overdue and it lent a sense of real progress to the world.

[Viled]

Cataclysm lived up to what it was meant,

it was chaos, destroyed the game we all loved, shattered guilds and almost completely destroyed the world of warcraft.

serious note, worst end boss in history of ever. Giant spaghetti monster who's toenails we attack while his blood and wacky flailing arms attack us? just ugh

[Belize]

Actually, you could say the same about Wrath when Cata was in progress. Everyone hated Wrath 1-ish year ago.

[Terahertz]

I somewhat enjoyed the leveling zones and seeing the new Azeroth with the new quests as I first went through them on my fresh level 1 rogue I had made. But that's about it.

PvP started to become more of a burst fest with the increased amount of burst CDs, which MoP only enhanced and the addition of LFR only made my motivation of doing real raids go down.

[The Glitch]

I loved the revamped 1-60 zones and quests, I liked Cata, just in different ways to previous expansions.

[Nearmyth]

It started out amazing but was just a series of disappointments after. Probably the biggest disappointment was how 5.1 was supposed to have 2 new raids if I remember correctly, both or one having to do with the Abyssal Maw. That place had so much potential. It's a shame.

Also the end both with Deathwing. Just... no... Once again, so much potential.

I loved the heroics though, and the actual raid encounters themselves were great. I think Firelands is one of the best raids in modern-ish WoW (but also keep in mind it was supposed to be released at launch).

[BoysBoysBoys]

The beginning of Cataclysm was some of the most fun I've had in this game.

[jzy0]

Personally Cata really changed me. It's my first expansion I saw the start and end of and the expansion that I started to actually know what I was doing. Plus the raids (minus DS) were very entertaining.

[Destinas]

On the contrary, I praise lots of things about Cata. I loved the Worgen and Goblins, their stories (what we saw of it) was very fun and in-depth. The Art team did an amazing job - each new zone had a different feel to it, and fit in with itself in a very good way (how Hyjal felt much more mystical than places like Twilight Highlands, where the overall feeling was sad and dark.) I enjoyed much of the lore for most zones - low level and high level - quite a bit. Leveling alts was much more fun and quick than it is now, as well. The introduction of transmog and LFR were good as well imo.

However, the problem I saw with Cataclysm was that Blizzard had too much on their plate. They simply did too much at once, meaning that many storylines and concepts weren't fully fleshed out. This is why people wonder what will ever happen with Neptulon and Koltira, or people wondering if Garona will make an appearance again as well. They clearly got the message, however, and fleshed out every possible storyline in Mists. Cata wasn't a horrible expansion, imo, it just wasn't as complete as anyone would like. But there were many good aspects to it that often get overlooked.

[Velshin]

Well I have to admit it that Cataclysm expansion added some nice features in the game such as transmog (been waiting for it for ages), reforge, and void storage. Other than that in my personal opinion it was the worst expansion of this game. It has so many problems and to be honest it's getting late and I'm not going through each reason why I didn't like that expansion sorry.

[Every Pwny]

Cata really destroyed the story.

[mvaliz]

Actually, you could say the same about Wrath when Cata was in progress. Everyone hated Wrath 1-ish year ago.

...that was most certainly not my experience (both personally and on the forums).

Durring Cata, the majority of forum goers hated it - and the Wrath-fans were fighting against the BC-fans for which was better.

Today's forums - MoP sounds very divided between fans and non-fans, the Wrath-fans are still fighting the BC-fans for which is better, and lastly there's about five or so Cataclysm fans saying "Well, I thought Cata was ok..."

[willowe]

Cataclysm lived up to what it was meant,

it was chaos, destroyed the game we all loved, shattered guilds and almost completely destroyed the world of warcraft.

serious note, worst end boss in history of ever. Giant spaghetti monster who's toenails we attack while his blood and wacky flailing arms attack us? just ugh

Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing Deathwing?

[Prokne]

Actually, you could say the same about Wrath when Cata was in progress. Everyone hated Wrath 1-ish year ago.

There was a quick turnaround from hate -> like Wrath not long after Cata was released. First it was the people who didnt like the difficulty increase, then it was everyone else because of lack of content, boring questing and overall suckiness.

The only good things that came out of Cata were intended for MoP and released early(transmog, LFR) to have at least a few good things in the exp.

[Poodles]

The revamp of the old world and removal of the class quests completely killed the expansion for me. I was excited until I played the new zones and found it linear and boring...

Removal of the class quests removed all the flavor from playing a certain class. Just too much removed and watered down in my book. I enjoyed the old god lore of cata, but that's about it...

[Yalingo]

80 -> 85 was great the first time.

Heroics were hard! Which I personally enjoyed. (I know a lot of people hated this.)

Tier 11, after some bug fixing, is still my favourite tier of raiding! Some really good bosses, quite hard too.

and then.......

firelands...... ohgodwhy.jpg

and just when you thought it could not possibly get any worse.... Dragon Soul was the single worst/rushed/poor/crap/anti climactic/boring tier in the history of gaming.

IMO ofc.

[PomPomPop]

I actually really liked Cataclysm; it was something different after playing WoW since Vanilla and growing bored of the content. I have rolled many a Worgen and Goblins by now and still rush towards Cataclysm content with more glee than when facing the Dark Portal for another ten levels through Outlands.

The dungeons were fun, heroics were actually a challenge with CC being used again. Parties would stand still for a moment to discuss who would CC what. You don't see that anymore and you certainly saw it less during Wrath. People rush now a days. I didn't raid in Cataclysm though so I don't have an opinion on it. The raiding guild I was a part of fell apart after we managed to clear ICC 10man and after killing the oh so mighty Lich King, I was burned out on raiding. I did however try out LFR and managed to bring down Deathwing a couple of times with NO tactics read beforehand or explained... that sucked the fun out of it even more; auto-pilot all the way. Not a big fan of that yet I still do Raid Finder even in MOP just to get some gear.

My most enjoyable WoW memories are from Cataclysm, though of course the previous expansions also brought fine memories along. When Deathwing would sear certain zones and had everyone unlucky die and wait for the flames to subdue to be able to res. We had a large world RP-PvP going on at the time in the Barrens for nearly three weeks and Deathwing just kept killing us all, Horde and Alliance alike. It was hilarious! I would love for something like that to be brought back (though on a smaller scale). This random big event that nobody could predict yet everyone came running for to get an achievement (for getting killed!).

[Mammoon]

A lot of people loved the launch of Cata. Difficult dungeons, optional dailies, and an absolutely amazing tier of raiding.

Very few people loved 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.

[Griffter]

People will be feeling nostalgic about Cataclysm next expansion. That's how it works. The current expansion is always terrible, the previous one not much better, but two expansions ago? Boy, that was a blast! They should totally make it like that again!

Cataclysm introduced transmogrification. So there's that.