Based on this - next expansion will be great!

[Kemsa]

TBC> its just the standard expansion of a game, like SC with Broodwar, it expanded the game a little, not as hard to forget what was the ideal of the game. It repaired things that were broken. Azeroth was still there, and you could still return to azeroth. And the raids were amazing, introducing the Legion again into warcraft was the best idea.

WoTLK> my pinnacle of Raiding, but also the lost of identity between RPG and Action Game. Remember LFD was introduced in this expansion, heroics were easy, gear badges, tiers getting completly trash by gear vendors, something that not even on TBC happened. People remember this expansion as good because of Arthas, nothing more. THey forget how Anubarak became a dungeon boss soloed by a lot of people. They needed more time for a raid for him (remember the TOC content drought???) When they introduced harder Heroics people didnt think a heroic was hard and i think this problem persisted on Cataclysm too. And Naxxramas... just a copy paste of the true old naxxramas, just because people didint care about Naxx on classic.

Cataclysm> I NEVER played this expansion. And everytime i see the high amount of dungeons and raids it had, i wonder why people hated it.

MoP>Well i love Mist of Pandaria, i still think artistically, was the most impresive expansion but because the "game model" they are using was still the same as WoTLK improved with LFR. Well it went shit. Also the "for the horde/alliance" was so cringy when they used the Horde as the main enemy plotline dividing the horde....

WoD> i loved the story until Tanaan and for some reason, everytime time i enter Highmaul i got nauseas. Dont ask why... still happens.

Legion> well i returned and pretty much i founded it was hell of a fun with the Mage tower, the new WQs system, the lego, the storyline everything.

BfA> i love this expansion, dont get me wrong i had a lot of issues with the Azerite Gear, but in the other hands, the raids, the WQs, the hidden quests, its just, everything makes a good sandwich, but!! blizzard its not using its special sauce in this expansion, wich means the fuckers are just waiting for 9.0 and BfA was just a filler expansion.

SOmething like
"p1>HEY WE NEED TO INTRODUCE A HEK TON OF RACES FOR THE STORYLINE WHAT WE DO???
p2>JUST DUMP EVERYTHING AT ONCE LIKE AN ASSPULL!!
p1>SURE THING!!

And probably i am not mad at BfA, i mad at Blizzard because it was such a huge oportunity wasted because they needed to itnroduce plotpoints for 10 more years of WoW.
Oh the light? the light its bad, the void its bad, there are death bosses, lich king, calia, talia, sylvannas, anduin future, magni, azeroth dying, thelightforge, the loas, blood trolls, hakkar, old gods, vulperas, mechagon, ETCETCETC.
Its too much, vs Legion that was only "fight demons, demon elfs, old gods working with demons?, more demons, and green everywhere."

So yah.... waiting for 9.0 because Blizzard its already ditching BfA.

[Apexis]

For me it's more like:

BC: ✭✭✭✩✩
Wrath: ✭✭✭✭✩
Cata: ✭✭✭✩✩
MoP: ✭✭✭✩✩
WoD: ✭✩✩✩✩
Legion: ✭✭✭✭✭
BFA: ✭✭✩✩✩

Next: ? ? ? ? ?

I am going to use this as a template, but I do not base my speculation and opinion on things like to complain the most about. I look at each piece of content as a painting in an art museum. Starting with the canvas, the landscape itself, how much depth and immersion it offers to the eye, how does the zone or entire content make me feel, that lead to the level of engagement that I am going to have from my main to many alts I intend on leveling down the line.

In other words, my speculation and opinion are based strictly on the level of immersive qualities and level of depth of story being told. That said this my list.

BC: ✭✭✭ My first expansion, loved the story could not stand much of the color saturations, burned the hell out of my eye constantly. At this point, I am glad Blizzard gave me to option at 60 to completely bypass questing in the Outlands

Wrath:✭✭✭✭✭ Has always been my absolute favorite expansion, I base the level of quality of both depth of immersive qualities and story of Wrath. I simply love questing in every zone, even to this day. I did everything that the content had to offer, from WPVP up to raiding. What made both BC and Wrath the best for me was the guild and server I was rooted on at the time. So many people doing things together, no matter which side of the faction divide. We had a sister and brother guild on both sides of the content. Which led to some wonderful WPVP and Rping events throughout the entire expansion. The game changed, the people changed and the entire dynamic of the game shited at the end of Wrath. many did not care or like what was coming in Cata and simply walked away from the game. Many of the people I had on my friends list simply vanished by the time Cata released.

Cata: ✭✭ Cata was my least favorite at its endpoint. Did not care for much of the story. The new zones were scattered so far apart from another that flying at the beginning did not help wanting quest through them repeatedly, especially when it came to alts, I think from this perspective for me Cata was the least alt friendly at this point in the content of the game. If I remember one thing from this content was how I felt at the end of Wrath when so many people left the game. What they all saw and talked about I played through. I really at that point understood what many were talking about with the direction of the game had taken through the entire Cata expansion. CRZ's and cross-realm, layering and sharding got worse and made things worse.

MoP: ✭✭✭✭ For me, Mist comes as close to Wrath as Wrath itself in both immersive qualities and depth of the story. The visual aspect of the zones kept me engaged from the very beginning. While not all that alt friendly, Mist was amazing enough that the many shortcomings I could overlook to capture the level of depth of immersion from the landscape itself.

WoD: ✭✭ This expansion for me was worse than Cata, it starts and ends with the Garrison. Constantly buggy, even today, not alt friendly, lacked a lot of depth given how much of a centerpiece it became to both the content and the story throughout. I loved the zones, loved the questing, minus what was feed through the Garrison itself, the tedious of the Garrison had taken away from wanting to further engage in the content. Level of difficulty felt more like BC to me, I liked that and wished Blizzard had never strayed from keeping the world engaging and as savage as it should be given the quality of the art of the landscape and what that had to offer. I now go back and run dungeons and raid. Though when it comes to leveling alts through the content. I do enough to get to Legion and move on without fully opening up the Garrison.

Legion: ✭✭✭✭✭ Legion next to Wrath is simply my second favorite. Though in places in the latter parts of the story things seem to be odd, pathetic, and downright silly between Malfurion, Tyrande, and Illidan. Each of these was a leader that was reduced to some pathetic level of nonsense that makes them look like leaders in their own right.

BfA: ✭✭✭✭ This one is tough for me since the expansion is not completed yet. I like the story more so from the Alliance side than I do from the Horde. The visual aspects of the zone are very good, the attention to detail also very good. I would guess for me at this point, I am wondering why Blizzard chose to swap out the artifact weapon for the Azerite nonsense. While I like the various pieces of the story from Magni, I could care less for the Azerite system itself. The island expeditions were sold as the second coming of the MoP scenarios They at least for me did not offer anything more than gathering additional Azerite. Having to add more pets and mounts, as well as mog pieces was not going to make wanting to grind these daily or weekly tolerable or better. These expeditions were simply not that all engaging, especially if one did not do them past the normal and heroic versions. I am giving BfA 4 stars, on level of immersive qualities of the various zones and some of the story content that I enjoyed.

Classic: I did not play then, but for what I have played it does not feel, at least to me, much different from the level of difficulty as it did when I first started in BC. Course I had never played anything like WoW when I first started playing in BC, so it was massively difficult for me at first to figure out what to do and how to go about doing things, I was very much a fish out of water in BC. That said, I have read and have been told repeatedly over the years that Vanilla was tougher than everything else after the fact. Well, it not tougher, it is more tedious than what I remember of BC. The level of difficulty in the same areas so far seems to be about the same, at least to me. I can tell my level of skill has massively changed over the years. Yet, I still do not consider myself good enough to raid in a decent raiding guild today.

Classic feels more like the Garrison than it does anything else I have to compare it to so far. So for that alone, I might not make it to 60. I remember the story well enough back then. I completed all the quest in every zone on both factions, except for the pally charger quest chain (never got to start it much less complete it) and the warlock Dreadstead (was three quests away according to Wowhead from finishing the chain when it was pulled) I plan on doing and completing both of these.

Both quest chains may be enough for me to sloth my way through to level 60. I am seriously trying to find something, anything to proceed forward. I love difficulty, but I hate tedious for nothing more than the sake of tedious itself.

If Classic so far is anything like Vanilla, then it's not about the level of difficulty, it's about the level tedious Classic and Vanilla had to offer. Given the tech back then from a hardware and software and infrastructure of the day. This first part of WoW had more aspect of downtime than actually engaging and immersing in actual content and I have received that in 15 levels of leveling content so far.

Everything was deliberately slow given the tech of the day. It dragged everything out longer, required more patience to endure the slowness of it all. The pace even now is pathetic given the actual content, which again really has not felt all that different from a questing standpoint than my humble beginning of BC. I am trying to find this silver bullet, this magical unicorn that I have been sold for 14 years since. I am not seeing it, what I am seeing is what I already played through many times over before it was all destroyed in Cata. Sure changes were made here and there from the first character I leveled through the content from the beginning of BC thru Cata, but not all that much from a questing and story standpoint. Mechanics and such yes all kinds of differences. The parts that matter, not so much. The journey does not feel all that different for me. Maybe it is the fact that I leveled every single class in BC that makes me feel this way today. I have done the same in every expansion since.

The way I choose to receive and feel the immersive qualities are unconventional at best. I explore and grab flight paths before ever picking up the first quest. I have always quested alone at least the first couple of characters. The only exception to this I have made it back in the day with group type quest. Group types quest in today's content are a joke, back in BC, not so much. I will not run a dungeon until I get done with all the questing content and I will only run a dungeon if it has a quest or has some piece of gear I would like for transmog. I level every single class and change how I quest through a zone on every class. Once I get passed intro quests of the zone. I start questing in other parts of the zone. I do this on both on the Horde and Alliance side. These many years later, I still do the very same things every expansion. The game and its mechanics may have change as well as many parts of its player base. I can say that I have never allowed any of it to change how I play and approach new content.

People like to blame Blizzard for everything when the person themselves has all the power of what they do and will do in the game. Those items that were in place before things like the LFD are still in place today. They have not changed or been removed and today are being used again by people doing Mythic + dungeon grinds. Sure one can slam mechanic, spell, talents and all the rest, but all the things like group finders and such were not made for everyone and those that despise their existence have never been forced into using them. They and they alone made the lazy choice to no continue to meet at a stone and walk into a dungeon together like old. Things got easier that is also a legit aspect of the game. It has made the player base worse than it already was before the level of easy became a problem unto itself. Ease compounded many of the problems and even help to expose many people for who they were, but rarely showed their true colors.

I will give the people of Vanilla this, I have always loved that at the beginning of at least when I started was much more difficult from a leveling perspective, than it has been since. Though tedious, does not help make the content better, it makes it boring and given I read every quest the first and the 10th time around when I started the game. Tedious and color saturations are simply going to not make this content come alive for me. I will probably continue to sloth through it all, I am in no hurry to get to 60.

[Wangming]

If someone didn't see vale by the time 5.4 came out that is 100% on them

You are right. No reason to bring in new players, ever. /sarcasm mode off

[Doffen]

Nah I get it. It's just weird that you consider it bland. I can understand some people don't like the theme or didn't like the faction war focus or the new talent trees. But a completely new continent we have never seen before with rich cultures is the farthest from bland I can think of. And the ability pruning didn't start yet either.

I thought the theme was silly at first, for sure. I think Pandaren are silly, but Pandaria and the culture aspects of it is indeed cool and rich. But as an expansion, it just didn't do it for me. But I totally get that people liked it.

[kaminaris]

You realize you're the only one using Legion as a comparison point to try to justify BfA when I'm saying both are not ideal, right?
Obviously BfA improved a bit upon it, but it is still not debatable that you have to put extra effort in to get your neck up to a reasonable level.

And even then, you're completely ignoring how gimped you could be at the start if you got a piece of mythic azerite gear and couldn't use all the traits on it because your heart level was lower, so you were stuck with the heroic piece until you grinded out the HoA levels.

And no one said anything about casual players, I said playing casually even for a bit. As in...not clearing the WQs every day for azerite.

I am saying it was faaaar worse in legion. Yet people say BfA is worse, it isn't, those endless hamsterwheels were gutted down (improved).

Would it be better to have no AP at all and everything unlocked from start? Hard to say
Is current system bad? Not enough to make me complain as I do just fine without any world quests for 7 months now.

Azerite had issues around the beginning but those issues were not even close to legendary softcap and it's rng.
Azerite traits are nowhere near as powerful as legendaries were in legion. Was it bad? Kinda, but again, not close to what was on beginning on legion.

Some people like that, some people don't. And we really don't know what are the statistics. For me, removing AP would not make game better at all.
I would probably miss it.

[Wangming]

And we really don't know what are the statistics.

This is important. We don't know sub numbers since early WoD. We know critics scores and audience scores online, we can probably check sale numbers and even realm population. But sub numbers? We are in the dark. I would guess a 3 million for BfA, but that is only a guess.

[Shaqthefat]

You are right. No reason to bring in new players, ever. /sarcasm mode off

I must've missed when the original vale was a major reason for new players to come to the game.

[Wangming]

I must've missed when the original vale was a major reason for new players to come to the game.

I find it preferrable when new players can experience a coherent story while leveling instead of a disjointed clusterfuck. Phasing exists for a reason. It makes no sense to open a gate that closed off an area for thousands of years and see it already corrupted by Garrosh.

[GreenJesus]

TBC - First expansion, didn't like it but it got me hooked
WotLK - Expansion that I learned I enjoy raiding, but hardly my favorite
Cata - Awesome, 2nd favorite expansion
MoP - Mediocre, good raiding though
WoD - My favorite expansion
Legion - First expansion to make me quit
BfA - Came back because they fixed what made me quit in Legion, generally enjoyable
Next - ...uh.

If only my opinion was able to be diluted into a simple "bad/good" format, maybe I could predict the future better.

Lol your opinion is probably the smallest minority in the history if minorities. Cata and WoD favorite expansions... ooooof

[Relapses]

Lol your opinion is probably the smallest minority in the history if minorities. Cata and WoD favorite expansions... ooooof

Thanks. Your opinion of my opinion has been noted.

[Shadochi]

Hmm from what I remember you had to grind badges to buy epics, not really the same as wrath where you got one for clearing the dungeon.

Still doesn't change the fact that TBC is when handing out of epics started. The means of getting them just became easier with each xpac

[Puzzony]

Still doesn't change the fact that TBC is when handing out of epics started. The means of getting them just became easier with each xpac

With that logic Vanilla started the handout of epics, you could just farm the gold and buy items that was literally best in slot for the whole era for some classes (Lionheart helm, for example).

[Aquinan]

With that logic Vanilla started the handout of epics, you could just farm the gold and buy items that was literally best in slot for the whole era for some classes (Lionheart helm, for example).

Or the PVP vendors that had epics, the dude's argument is silly

[Shadochi]

Or the PVP vendors that had epics, the dude's argument is silly

My argument is that you can shape an opinion in any way so that it supports a made up pattern. At no time did I say that I believed in the pattern.
You can shape subjective opinions to make it either seem that wow has become shittier each patch drop or better, or some type of good-bad-good pattern.
Objectively, no such pattern exists.

[Alopex Major]

Genuinely interested. What made you quit?

Not the guy who posted this, but I also quit in Legion. I can genuinely say that I enjoyed WoD and played it more than in Legion. As for why?

- classes gutted
- I disliked the Blizzard-dictated "class fantasy" for some of my characters, worst offender being lolpirate spec.
- dislike for artifacts as a general concept, plus so many were either TOO iconic (Ashbringer) or complete asspulls
- endless AP grind
- M+ is not for me, felt there was too much focus / it felt required for raiding
- incomprehensible story
- I hated Suramar
- not technically Legion but void elves/ARs in general, but especially void elves.

I didn't even bother buying BFA because the general consensus is "Legion but worse", and I already hated Legion more than I'd ever hated an expac. As long as 9.0 is made by the same people, color me skeptical.

[Relapses]

I didn't even bother buying BFA because the general consensus is "Legion but worse", and I already hated Legion more than I'd ever hated an expac. As long as 9.0 is made by the same people, color me skeptical.

So I'm the dude that guy quoted and I agree 100% with everything you said about Legion. It just wasn't my cup of tea. But if it's any consolation, BfA isn't Legion but worse imo. The worst thing for me was the AP grind and while it did carry over into BfA it's quite possible to be competitive in the game without no-lifing AP. You still can, sure, but they greatly reduced the necessity.

[kaminaris]

I didn't even bother buying BFA because the general consensus is "Legion but worse", and I already hated Legion more than I'd ever hated an expac. As long as 9.0 is made by the same people, color me skeptical.

There is no general consensus. You should not listen to what other people say to begin with and see for yourself. If you don't like you can always cancel subscription or do not buy game time.
- No weapon artifacts, you get plain neck
- AP can be ignored, its about 10x less powerful than it was in legion
- M+ is still mandatory but basically once a week
- story was never good, don't expect some massive breaktrhu
- No suramar

[Aquinan]

Objectively, no such pattern exists.

I wasn't refuting that, as I agree with it, I was refuting your statement that BC started the welfare epic train.

[darklogrus]

MoP was OK, Wod-BFA have been bad.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think it's kinda fair to exclude the first 2 expansions as they operated under a different design paradim than the more recent ones. They were also the ones that used the last major plot threads left behind by the RTS. Both of them also had issues, as does every single WoW expansion, some are just more eggregious than others.

If this will spell success for the next expansion though? We will see. It depends on if they learned for once from their mistakes, but it's doubtful. If anything I fear they may pick up on the wrong hints again and charge off into a direction that once again leaves the good stuff behind and instead focuses on the bad..

Edit: People also have rose tinted glasses when it comes to Wrath raiding. Naxx was a watered down version of the original and would have done well with a proper redesign instead of half-assing it, the side raids of the entry tier were so-so as well. Malygos ending in a vehicle fight was complete dogshit for exmaple, Satharions gimmik was interesting but overall the raid was rather uninspired. Ulduar was grandiose, no questions there, but it was followed by the worst excuse for a raid, ToGC. ICC was stellar as well, but followed by the filler raid Ruby Sanctum, which was just lame again. Hearing stuff like pinnacle of raiding is a bit painfull, when you have like 50-50 hit-miss score.