If Blizzard were to make a definitive version of WoW

[Akka]

I'm seeing a surprising number of votes for Wrath of the Lich King.

Called it :

And considering most people here are Wrath babies, I expect WotLK ending up on top, despite being the expansion which created what WoW is today (read : shit).

---

The difficulty in TBC was more down to the sensitivity of gameplay and requirements of players to play together as a group and being considerate of group synergy. The game wasn't especially hard but it was easy to fail, and if you failed the game punished you pretty hard. Tanking 5 mans in blues at the start of TBC was a hair-raising task that no further expansion has remotely come close to, due to the threat mechanic and dungeon design/mechanics (aka everything designed to CC the tank/drop threat). But that frustrating design made the well oiled machine of a good group feel ever more satisfying, DPS numbers came secondary to group synergy/situational planning/reaction.

Which is exactly the kind of WoW I like, I don't want to be bombarded with a never-ending job of menial progression like in Legion, I like a heavy front end and then maintainence mode. WOTLK had some amazing story, visuals, raids, cool items etc but it wasn't rich or well designed like TBC in this aspect (endgame progression/relevance) and content was churned through extremely quickly, a lot of overly easy content existed and it was a little more shallow (but still much improved in many areas and a great game).

Couldn't agree more.

[Shufflez]

WotLK is gonna win, the x-pac that so many hated upon on this forum, when it was out. (and if MoP comes in second, I am gonna piss myself laughing)

Pissed yourself yet?

You knew this was inevitable.

[Theed]

Stepping through the dark portal for the first time, venturing through hellfire peninsula, zangarmarsh, Terrokar and Blade's Edge and getting my first gladiator title is without a doubt the favourite time in my 21 year gaming experience (im 27). Vanilla comes close but i was a one of the 95% casual players. The atmosphere of the game was different/better back then.

[Lyvefire]

I've played since Vanilla, and I vote for WotLK because the endgame structure of TBC sucked. There was some stuff that was good in TBC (druid EFF quest), but the way endgame was structured sucked.

Wrath hit the sweet spot for hard vs. accessible.

Yeah, smashing your face on 1 key to aoe-spam clear dungeons and having the entire first raid tier cleared on the highest difficulty in a single week is the definition of well balanced. /s

Wotlk was absolutely not the gem people make it out to be. It was the edge before the cliff.

As for the OP question: Mists of pandaria for everything but raiding and maybe pvp. TBC raiding was absolutely perfect where-else i will give Wrath the red for its pvp design.

[Deleted]

Its impossible to only have good features in the game, because this would exclude the possibility to bitch 24/7 about the game and take away the most important feature for alot of players.

[Bigbazz]

On an objective level, Legion is so far superior to any other expansion previously there is just no comparison. Every aspect of the game has just so much more depth to it than ever before. I could go on and enumerate all the things like professions, class hall campaigns, riddles and minigames, hidden reputations, improvements to pet battles, mount farming and the changes that make raiding/dungeons digestable...but that won't convince the haters anyway, and those who enjoy the game probably know all that already.

I don't know if anyone is arguing against you here but more of a difference in viewpoint, I'll try to give some insights.

Professions : In Legion you have cool profession quest lines, but for the most part those questlines are centered around extremely generic items with random stats, the whole system is ultimately about gambling for "X" generic item with your preferred stats and upgrading it to "X" ilvl so that it can sit on your person until you find something better.

Previously lets not forget that crafting revolved almost entirely around fairly unique items with a lot of care and attention put into them, there is a reason people remember Dragonstrike more than they remember "XxX neck of the ferver". A lot of these unique items came from rare patterns (Felsteel Longblade) or patterns farmed from specific mobs (Ragesteel) or dropped from bosses (Mongoose) that facilitated trade on the server, and some crafted items in Vanilla were a task in of themselves, requiring questing and travelling, farming, forging items inside BRD etc.

It's not hard for people to feel luke warm about Legions generic randomised items in a sea of generic randomised items, even if the professions had decent questlines the overarching game around it makes things very different, very easy to be completley apathetic towards it all and generally that is the point a lot of people make.

Questing : The big difference between old questing and Legion questing is that in Legion we have voice acting (a lot of it very cheesy/cliche/cringe), the player character isn't just a "random hero" anymore and the circumstances are made more "dire" and "immediate".. That said, a lot of the writing and depth of the old story telling was really maybe a little more mature and grounded than the perhaps over the top grandness of Legion. I think a lot of people have become tired of the grandness and cliche to the point where it struggles to give the right impact because the contrast and tone isn't always as well delivered... Again the result is people tend to become apathetic towards it.

Mounts : Again this can still be fun for some, but when you've reached the point of a billion mounts it does lose it's effect a lot. The over-availability of lots of mounts and the "quantity over quality" approach of Blizzard has made people again apathetic towards this element. And if it's no longer compelling or valuable content to someone, it no longer really matters in their view of the game.

Raiding : They traded one medium difficulty model (with difficulty being boss to boss) with every difficulty setting possible, with the final difficulty requiring a professionally organised competition level team to overcome (at least initially). There are obvious reasons for this progression in the game design, but it does in a way turn a lot of people off. What I mean by that is that a lot of people look back fondly to say beating Illidan, there was that psycological aspect that they have beaten the game, they have bested the best the game had to offer and everyone was on an even playing field (even if they weren't).

Well Illidan in TBC wasn't even a fraction as difficult as a modern Mythic boss, and as a result raiding and raiding groups are a lot more fragmented now, they are naturally much much more performance focussed with players more segmented into their own difficulty groups. It's just a very different experience even with the consideration that there is a "difficulty for everyone". The only thing we can say objectively is that bosses are harder and are on average more complex/multilayered.

Dungeons : Dungeons are faster and more streamlined, mechanics almost always have a clear hard counter and personal dps is largely the most important factor. In old days threat was the primary aspect of difficulty and dungeon mechanics were designed around that as a way of tripping up the group (often via CCing the tank/group in various ways, threat drops, debuffs), as a result your approach in defeating a dungeon differed heavily. I'm not saying one or the other is better, but they are different to such a degree that it's like comparing apples and oranges, people will heavily favour one or the other approach.

Pet Battles : Is only really relevant if you like pet battles, is someone isn't into this aspect it has no bearing on the discussion and it's so far removed from the core game it's hard to use pet battles in any real discussion about the game. If you like them that is great, but for a lot of people I'd bet it would make zero difference if they didn't exist at all.


And really if your goal was to look at it objectively you've done a pretty poor job, rather your post comes across like a slightly bitter player, you're posting very defensively and using some pretty childish descriptions to defend your point. It's an emotional view and not an objective one, and that's fine but don't try to give yourself more credit than you deserve, if you want to argue your point as an objective view you need an in depth understanding of those older raids/dungeons/game elements while being able to look at them fairly and objectively, which you haven't shown.

[lummiuster]

For me a mix of WotLK and MoP (Voted WotLK). WotLK had the aesthetic, lore, and general game play structure that I miss greatly even to this day. MoP had a fantastic world design, added some really well made quest chains, and made some grate additions to the lore, as well as haveing my favorite interpolation of the legendary system.



The problem with BC is the casual crowed was mostly ignored until sunwell. You HAD to be in a progressing guild to get things done, you HAD to push raids or high end pvp, because if you didn't, you where stuck grinding a handful of super tedious dailies as your path of "progression".

This is exaaaactly what made BC so great. Sunwell was not accessible to everyone. When you would reach 70, you had to run dungeons for gear set, then Kharazan, then Gruul, then Magtheridon, then SSC (minus lasdy vash), then the eye (minus kaelthas), then Hyjal (minus archimonde), then Black temple (minus last bosses), then Lady vash, then Kaelthas, then archimonde, then full BT clear, then sunwell.

With the stupid implementation of raid difficulties, you get to max level, quest for 6hours, run normal (because we even skip flex). Then you run the same fuckin raid for 6months in normal then heroic then mythic.

[caervek]

If it's a definitive version with all the best aspects of every expansion then what does it matter which is the base as it won't make any difference.

[lummiuster]

No, people vote for WotLK because they like it more. OMG RPG ELEMENTS is not the only part of World of Warcraft. TBC, while excellent and fun, was also extremely tedious. It was a lot of fun, but WotLK overall was still the best experience in World of Warcraft I've ever had, and even then... Mists of Pandaria is likely second after that, then TBC.

TBC had its moments, but it was harshly punishing to people who didn't want to be hardcore raiders. Casual raiding basically didn't exist unless you wanted to jack around in Kharazan and Gronn's Lair and never move past that. There's a lot of things in TBC I liked, and liked a lot more than other expansions, but there are too many flaws that prevent it from being 'the best'. It was definitely the largest improvement of any expansion over the base game, though!

this is exactly what made the game good. And honestly it is exactly because blizzard listened to feedbacks from people like you that the game is dying. "game is too hard, why is the end raids unaccessible for everyone". Look now they made the game for grand mothers and children. You still have 5 other raids to do, still you wanna do the hardest one...

[Spookysheep]

WOTLK was the definitive version. Math is not subjective.

All other answers are subjective opinions.

[Whitedragon]

This is exaaaactly what made BC so great. Sunwell was not accessible to everyone. When you would reach 70, you had to run dungeons for gear set, then Kharazan, then Gruul, then Magtheridon, then SSC (minus lasdy vash), then the eye (minus kaelthas), then Hyjal (minus archimonde), then Black temple (minus last bosses), then Lady vash, then Kaelthas, then archimonde, then full BT clear, then sunwell.

With the stupid implementation of raid difficulties, you get to max level, quest for 6hours, run normal (because we even skip flex). Then you run the same fuckin raid for 6months in normal then heroic then mythic.

The only trouble with that system is while it feels grate for the few who hit the top with a solid team, it makes it really hard for mid range and late progression guilds to get anything done, because of roster decay and higher guilds cannibalizing the smaller ones. Ya, if your group held together it was grate if not you felt like crap trying to find new people over and over. Casual guilds REALLY had it bad in that they never really got anything done, group night was usually lucky to get a Kara or ZA run going and after a while you just kind of lost hope of ever doing anything, And lord forbid you didn't like raiding because there was almost nothing to do besides it.

My point is BC had a few good strengths but that was all it really had, if the narrow avenues of play warn't for you, you ended up with a few consolation prizes to tinker with while you herd how much fun the top end raiders where having, and let's not pretend that any healthy percentage of people actually got to the top as this was still the era of 2-10% participation rates.

One last thing I will add is it's funny you cite ease of access as the reason why wow is dieing, when the whole reason wow became popular was because of that same ease of access. believe it or not but with it's launch WoW was probably the easiest MMOs one the market at the time, and for most if not all of it's time spent rising to fame and power, it continued making things easier and more accessible.

[Nihilist74]

I would want the definitive version of wow to have the class design in WOD and the world content, theme and other featurs of legion. I would also want the addition of the demon hunter class.

[Almiria]

Why not Battle for Azeroth?

[Zigrifid]

Im pretty sure vanila wow will be build with the new graphic engine,since its based on the new API etc. So we will have a definitive edition

[cparle87]

WotLK was THE BEST era this game had, content for everyone, easy catch ups, old raids were still relevant without some dumb shit like legendaries chances but a quest who helped you with current content, it was perfect

How were old raids still relevant? Naxx through Ulduar hard modes was 200-232 and you could buy 245-264 from vendors, including your 251 4pc. Also as for content for everyone you could only do 25 of the 80+ dailies each day.

[Goondicker]

While I prefer some parts of Vanilla and TBC, WotLK wins overall. As others have said, it was such a sweet spot.

It was very accessable to casuals but had some serious hardcore raiding, too. PvP was good. It was also the last iteration of the game that felt like an adventure.

Even though you didn't ask: WotLK >= TBC >= Vanilla >> MoP > Cata >> Legion > WoD

[Mosotti]

I think each expansion had it's pros and cons and there's no "definitive edition". Well, except maybe WoD, which was a complete fucking piece of shit.

[Apology]

Cataclysm 4.0 was peak WoW. It went to shit by the time 4.3 rolled around, though, so overall Mists was the perfect expansion.

[Deleted]

TBC 100%.
If wrath didnt have: lfg, laughable difficulty for t7, a progression that makes the previous patch irrelevant, t-sets for facerolling heroics
it would have been my choice.

[Namalia]

The only trouble with that system is while it feels grate for the few who hit the top with a solid team, it makes it really hard for mid range and late progression guilds to get anything done, because of roster decay and higher guilds cannibalizing the smaller ones. Ya, if your group held together it was grate if not you felt like crap trying to find new people over and over. Casual guilds REALLY had it bad in that they never really got anything done, group night was usually lucky to get a Kara or ZA run going and after a while you just kind of lost hope of ever doing anything, And lord forbid you didn't like raiding because there was almost nothing to do besides it.

My point is BC had a few good strengths but that was all it really had, if the narrow avenues of play warn't for you, you ended up with a few consolation prizes to tinker with while you herd how much fun the top end raiders where having, and let's not pretend that any healthy percentage of people actually got to the top as this was still the era of 2-10% participation rates.

One last thing I will add is it's funny you cite ease of access as the reason why wow is dieing, when the whole reason wow became popular was because of that same ease of access. believe it or not but with it's launch WoW was probably the easiest MMOs one the market at the time, and for most if not all of it's time spent rising to fame and power, it continued making things easier and more accessible.

This 100%.

+1 internets for you.

Beautifully stated. The endgame model sucked (even if the raids themselves were good) for much of the player base. Exclusivity should DIAF.