People get this wrong - WOTLK was the turning point which killed WoW

[Tekkommo]

not really
even Kripp admits that wow started to fall after wotlk

Wow, even Kripp, consider my mind changed...

5 year old account. Did you even played in WOTLK?

What's account age got to do with anything? I've used MMO Champ since around TBC time (mainly just used it for news), I just didn't bother posting on the forums till 2011.

[EternalBany]

How can you be against Heirlooms?

I rather the leveling be a journey like vanilla and have 2 chars than 8 level 120 i dont touch

[Deleted]

I rather the leveling be a journey like vanilla and have 2 chars than 8 level 120 i dont touch

Then don't use them?

The amount of max levels other people has no bearing on your game

[tankbug]

WOTLK killed WoW only in the sense that it wrapped up the epic journey of WarCraft 3, and everything after felt a little pointless or forced afterwards, especially the faction war elements.

[Garybear]

I say wotlk was the best xpac because it was when my friends and i all had the most fun. BC was pretty fun too but not nearly as much.

[markos82]

Wotlk had heroic dungeons that were a joke compared to tbc heroics.
It had a reused old raid instead of a new teir. And on top of this the raid was so easy that one could go in with sunwell gear and clear it the moment you dinged 80.
Crafting professions were so irrelevant they were pretty much nonexistant.
Repgrind was over in a week or 2. (except for frostborn but one daily Q hardly occupies one time long).
Flying made the world feel very small.
Wintergrasp was okay i guess, but faction imbalance sucks.
We had time gating inside raids and limited attempts..

Honestly, the only redeming parts of wotlk was ulduar and the leveling.

WOTLK had harder dungeons than any dungeons after that and more fun and intuitive
It had best raids ever, fuck Ulduar was and it still is BEST RAID ever and introduced new style to it, using vehicles and HC modes.
Crafting was great in WOTLK much better than before where you had 500 things to craft of which you used less than 1%
So what? I don't see how that is relevant, like do same daily quest 100 times so you get exalted?
Flying was introduced in TBC and WOTLK areas were huge.
Wintergrasp was ok, nothing great but ok.
And what is wrong with time gating?
Limited attempts were great, and they were for HC, HC was meant to be hard, not do 400 pulls, hope one will be perfect and you will kill the boss. LK hc was amazing experience....

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think WOTLK was the turning point. But mostly because the story after it got way to player centric instead of world centric. After this point you stopped being a humble adventurer and became hero of all the world, greatest explorer, greatest fighter, savior of the world, head of your class, great military commander, and the list just grows and grows.

It was cool once or twice. But now I feel I am going to end up some great war hero of this war in BFA and all that will come of it is me tossing the title of greatest of all time (in BFA) on top of a pile of greatest of all time rewards from expansions since WOTLK (just like everyone else that was there) and have it be meaningless in the end. Because everyone is the goat in their own personal world just like I am in mine. After all I did the war campaign quests for a couple hours each patch.

[Deleted]

People say WOTLK was the best expansion because it peaked Subs number, but WOTLK was the turning point which killed the MMO and the RPG elements of WoW:

1) Introducing Dungeon Finder
2) Heirlooms
3) Catch up mechanics ( dungeons ) which nullify completely previous raids

So, WOTLK was the Worst Wow expansion, and the rest followed its line

It definitely was a huge changing point for the game, it brought in the most players afterall, and they wouldn't have stuck for so long if it wasn't for those catch up mechanics, but "killed wow"?

It simply transitioned wow from a 2004 game to a game of the new decade.

The developers said it best themselves. Every WoW expansion is almost like a new game to them.

[markos82]

What's account age got to do with anything? I've used MMO Champ since around TBC time (mainly just used it for news), I just didn't bother posting on the forums till 2011.

Everything when yo put such a weak reason, one has to wonder did the OP even played it in WOTLK.

[Deleted]

All the good things that made game more accessible and enjoyable, WoW still delivers to this day.

[valis]

Wotlk had heroic dungeons that were a joke compared to tbc heroics.
It had a reused old raid instead of a new teir. And on top of this the raid was so easy that one could go in with sunwell gear and clear it the moment you dinged 80.
Crafting professions were so irrelevant they were pretty much nonexistant.
Repgrind was over in a week or 2. (except for frostborn but one daily Q hardly occupies one time long).
Flying made the world feel very small.
Wintergrasp was okay i guess, but faction imbalance sucks.
We had time gating inside raids and limited attempts..

Honestly, the only redeming parts of wotlk was ulduar and the leveling.

Easy heroic dungeons -> more people try out 5 man content (later on ICC 5 mans were good, it would been best if the Ulduar Dungeons were harder tuned and released with the raid)
Easy entry level raid -> more people try out / get into raiding, not just the few sunwell raiders
Crafting professions -> unique bonuses for each profession that were good the whole expansion (exp. extra slots from blacksmithing)
Repgrind -> choose a tabard for your 5 man content, i would still prefer that system but had flaws
Flying -> made Northrend awesome!
Wintergrasp -> shitshow with vehicle combat...
Time gating -> poorly implemented
Wotlk was the expansion who brought the wohle spectrum of players (casual, normal, hardcore) to play, sometimes together. And it was the last expansion which was friendly to people with casual and normal time investment. Later expansions focused only on the people with a lot of time (hardcores), untill the height of that in Legion (AP and Legiondary Grind on top off the normal Rep and Geargrind).
BfA replaces the legiondary grind with the azerite grind... if BfA flops it's because it continues to cater to the vocal hardcore playerbase.

[Deleted]

Then don't use them?

The amount of max levels other people has no bearing on your game

But systems do. If game have systems what allows you to catch up with alts etc. It do affect you no matter if you do it or not. Same with LFG, LFR, etc.. It will allways affect you becouse thats how ecosystem in mmorpg works. You can choose to ignore conflict in Iran yet it will affect your cost of gas. So quit using this argument it is absolut nonsens. You are supostu be invested in 1 char in mmo period. More chars = less invested. Less invested = lesser retantion. Lesser retantion = people quit. It amazes me how people defend current game without any knowladge how players mind work.

[Felixon]

People say WOTLK was the best expansion because it peaked Subs number, but WOTLK was the turning point which killed the MMO and the RPG elements of WoW:

1) Introducing Dungeon Finder
2) Heirlooms
3) Catch up mechanics ( dungeons ) which nullify completely previous raids

So, WOTLK was the Worst Wow expansion, and the rest followed its line

Agreed with all except the Heirlooms - they didn't affect the level 80 gameplay,thus is irrelevant.

[Darththeo]

In order to make money, you need to allow people to feel they are progressing ... if people don't feel they are progressing, they'll quit. Requiring people to raid 2 to 3 tiers of content in order to get to current, guild members may not want to do content that doesn't progress themselves. Make it too easy, people will reach the end and stop.

It is impossible to make everyone happy.

[Xykotic]

Think the obvious truth here is that it devolved (or evolved depending on who you ask) step by step since vanilla. It wasn't a matter of it turning into what it is overnight. Every expansion, even including vanilla played its part in making good and bad changes.

[EbonBehelit-]

I loved Wrath overall, but it's undeniably when modern WoW began: 5-mans were a joke, dungeon finder was added, and Blizzard started going bonkers with raid difficulties. Seriously, every single tier had a different difficulty system in Wotlk.

A version of Wotlk with slightly harder heroics, no LFG and a single raid difficulty per tier may just be the perfect version of WoW.

[Faesroll]

Yeah totally killed WoW...oh wait here we are 5 expansions later

[Beerbill Society]

Well it has some truth on it, but I must say those systems worked pretty well on Wrath.

It was hard to farm heirlooms you had to chose between upgrading an alt or getting a loom and by the time it was one single loom, it was so hard to come by it was uncommon to see people in full sets of loom on every alt.

Dungeon finder was actually very welcoming at first, Wrath had many short dungeon in order to make a full clear your party would waste more time flying than actually playing, people would just clear two dungeons before giving up.

The only catching up dungeon we had was trial of champion that on its first iteration was not easy at all. Heroic was had if you haven't had gear enough and some bosses where impossible even on normal. I remember having a hard time with a group of friends on the first day because the Black Knight was strong af and Argent Confessors Paletress was a bitch depending on the vision she had.

Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection were only farmable at normal as well with the later being one of the hardest dungeons to date.

All those systems worked pretty well on Wrath, Cataclysm that broke them, making dungeons hard af and enabling random pugs was the most toxic moment in WoW history, including Zul'aman and Zul'gurub that were later included, it was so toxic and rage inducing that I bet some fatties had strokes playing it.

Cata also added LFR, which made raiding trivial.

MoP was the last nail with the Catch up island, that was pretty fun don't get me wrong but undeniably was a lot galore.

[xindralol]

although it would be tough to follow up wotlk with a really good expansion, wotlk itself was very good

[Leyre]

WotLK was the best expansion simply because once you made it to 80 you never run out of things to do, even older raids were still relevant thanks to the weekly quest