Unpopular opinion: Cataclysm was one of the best expansions and I'll explain why.

[epigramx]

Tell me you never played on a private server without telling me you have never played on a private server.

They have fewer bugs than retail or classic.

Yeah right. That's technically impossible. By definition: if you are not like retail you are bugged: besides you literally said that Ulduar has bugs on private.

[Queendom]

I don't think there is any point in judging xpacs on the absolute scale, only on relative. Cata was bad relative to WotLK, but you can't really compare Cata and, for example, BFA.

MoP was good at first because it was better then Cata, and WotLK was mainly forgotten by now. It became even better after WoD was a disaster. It MoP good on its own? Probably yes. It was definitely not bad.
Again, at first Legion was good because WoD was horrible. But Legion then became the foundation of modern WoW, so like it or not, it was very influential and most of the stuff from Legion is still relative (M+, borrowed power, legendaries).
Both WotLK and Cata were heavily critized it it time, but as the time passed WotLK reception became better and Cata stayed the same.

[Beuargh]

some features from Cata kept me playing several years. I didn't like the story, the art and lots of stuff but transmog and lfr talked to me big time. for context, this is the period I lost my "historical" guild/mates as people stopped playing and I basically became a solo player by the end of the xpac. seems like all the QoL, badges etc catered to players like me now that I look back at it lol.. it was a trap for lost and addicted players

[ablib]

Learn reading:

I actually LOL'd at this. lol, the irony!

[Drench]

I honestly enjoyed ToC. /unpopular opinion

I thought it was fantastic.

[epigramx]

I'm stopping here. Your reading comprehension fails at even the most basic level. Go back to elementary school, then maybe we can continue this conversation.

No one said "it wasn't streamlined before Cata." People are saying "Cataclysm streamlined it significantly moreso."

But it's still bullshit. I clearly remember starting killing boars in hellfire peninsula near the launch of TBC and WITHOUT EVEN THINKING MUCH ABOUT IT I ended up to the final zone with ease.

That's why I said "if you were an adult back then": it was the main point I was making: most people were children at earlier parts of the game and have the delusion it was harder than it was.

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I thought it was fantastic.

Objectively: the fights were some of the BEST ever created: it was the art design that was absolutely disgusting (and boring) maybe with the exception of Anub'arak.
In fact: I should technically love that raid since it was the highest I've ever reached in "ranks" in the game (I was in a top-50 tier guild competing for world first).

In reality most of what I'm saying in this thread is "all expansions have faults and good parts so calling Cata "HORRIBLE!" is absolutely stupid".

[Ivarr]

Aside from Deepholm that was actually cool, Vashj'ir cause it was ubique and the Firelands patch it was mediocre at best. It also had less content because of the revamp

The revamp was a ton of content as well. And it's evergreen content that drastically improved the levelling experience for 11 years now. Without Cataclysm you'd still be farming bear intestines and grinding murlocs for quests every time you wanted to level an alt.

This is why I'm lenient towards Cataclysm. It's the only expansion that actually remained relevant throughout the span of this game. People are fond of the other expansions because none of the other expansions took that burden on themselves. They all provided a bunch of new continents that were then forgotten again.

[epigramx]

Which, if you thought for two moments beyond, you'd realize is bullshit.

Outland =/= the old world. You didn't kill boars in Hellfire in Vanilla. The old world, Vanilla world, was updated - Not Outland. Comparing the updated Cata world to the world that wasn't updated by Cata is a disingenuous argument.

"If you were an adult back then" is your excuse to dismiss literally everyone, apparently. "If you were an adult back then" you'd be much more mature than this.

Yeah whatever: now you're moving the goalposts. Literally ZERO PERCENT of Cata haters ever say "Cataclysm made it easy in Vanilla BUT TBC WAS EASY TOO IN THE OUTLAND AREAS". Those people are so delusional that when they hate an expansion clearly paint it as "THE WORST EVER AT EVERYTHING" and that includes calling Outland supposedly hard to level (absolute bullshit) and it's very clear why they are delusional: the got predictably addicted to an MMO/or just feel super bored and that they're wasting their time and instead of admitting they're wasting they life by their own choice they unload hate onto the object itself without the object deserving it (since obviously no expansion in the game is too horrible and no expansion in the game is too perfect).

[Vrinara]

In my opinion? Cata isn't as bad as WoD Was. Or BFA in that matter. But it's also not good either.

[Tanaria]

The only few things I liked about Cataclysm were the initial dungeons. They were very hard. No room for slip ups or bad players - exactly what heroic dungeons were meant to be.

It also brought Transmog in.

[RickJamesLich]

I actually thought the first raid tier was pretty good. Interesting heroics at the start that ended up getting nerfed beyond oblivion. BoT and BWD were solid raids, Vashjir IMO gets too much hate, it was a very innovative zone. Lots of cons though, questing became way too linear, lots of iconic zones got changed for the worse, flying in Azeroth killed off the last bits of world pvp, the zones didn't really provide long term content.

The second raid tier was boring as hell and it didn't help that ZA and ZG were the only 5 man content worth running... killing trolls ends up getting really boring after the first month. The final tier was even worse, Dragon Soul was just an awkward raid, LFR stunk, and it felt like Deathwing as the main villian just wasn't built up properly... even if he appeared credible on the surface. Tolbarad was doo doo, the new BG's left something to be desired too.

[Ivarr]

I think part of the confusion is that 'difficulty' and 'fun' are two separate dimensions on which to compare expansions. Content can be difficult and fun, fun and not difficult and neither difficult nor fun.

The point is that, regardless of difficulty, the quests in TBC are obviously a lower quality than the ones in Cataclysm. There's less story, more repetition and fewer scripted events. I was trying to complete my loremaster a few months ago and I was amazed at how well the Cataclysm content compared to modern quests. Cataclysm aged perfectly, probably even better than Mists of Pandaria.

To then use the fact that Cataclysm didn't update TBC (and WotL) as well isn't fair. Would be great if it did, but that's a ridiculous amount of content to ask for.

[epigramx]

I actually thought the first raid tier was pretty good. Interesting heroics at the start that ended up getting nerfed beyond oblivion. BoT and BWD were solid raids, Vashjir IMO gets too much hate, it was a very innovative zone. Lots of cons though, questing became way too linear, lots of iconic zones got changed for the worse, flying in Azeroth killed off the last bits of world pvp, the zones didn't really provide long term content.

The second raid tier was boring as hell and it didn't help that ZA and ZG were the only 5 man content worth running... killing trolls ends up getting really boring after the first month. The final tier was even worse, Dragon Soul was just an awkward raid, LFR stunk, and it felt like Deathwing as the main villian just wasn't built up properly... even if he appeared credible on the surface. Tolbarad was doo doo, the new BG's left something to be desired too.

The first tier in terms of fight mechanics was probably one of the best in the history of the ENTIRE game (which isn't surprising since this was practically the same era of devs that brought Ulduar and ICC (ToC had also great mechanics but it looks like ass)).
Firelands though probably had the perfect legendary system the game has ever had; it rewarded guild skill since with good coordination you could target a specific player in your group that you know you can trust and get that item VERY FAST; one could claim "you had to be a caster" but that's objectively an on-issue if we are talking about *guilds* targetting their overall performance which is what raiding should be like.
DS wasn't perfect but it's also clearly underrated; e.g. some of the fights were stellar (objectively most of the fights before the final 3-4 fights); even the final 2 weren't horrible for all people (e.g. Arcane Mage gameplay was glorious in Spine).

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Nobody moved goal posts. You compare the world as it was to how it is - That's what was updated to be more streamlined, and is why people make the argument. Sorry that you hate that you're wrong about it, but you are.

Don't use buzzwords you don't understand, especially when you are then going to utilize it along together with a strawman: "Those people" are nonexistant - A fantasy you made up in your head that is an amalgamation of every complaint about Cataclysm that ever existed. You keep arguing against "those people," but "those people" have not commented here even once. Not only that, but we weren't talking about "people who are so delusional," we were talking about the merit of Cataclysm being the "best" expansion - THAT'S "moving the goal posts" buddy. You have yet to provide even ONE reason why it is, all you claim is that people hated it more because they were tired of the game - A metric you have no data to support, and just keep shouting like a manic person into the ears of any who will listen.

Stop wasting your time arguing against nonexistant people and try to make a coherent point.

Your personal attacks can't re-shape reality. People can read this very thread: half the posts are people with the delusion "ALMOST EVERYTHING IN CATACLYSM WAS THE WORST EVER AT LEAST UP TO THAT POINT IN TIME".

The main point I'm making is against the fanaticism of haters of expansions and fanbois of expansions: they have the delusion there are "perfect" and "abysmal" expansions: in reality all of them are in a range.

[epigramx]

I think part of the confusion is that 'difficulty' and 'fun' are two separate dimensions on which to compare expansions. Content can be difficult and fun, fun and not difficult and neither difficult nor fun.

The point is that, regardless of difficulty, the quests in TBC are obviously a lower quality than the ones in Cataclysm. There's less story, more repetition and fewer scripted events. I was trying to complete my loremaster a few months ago and I was amazed at how well the Cataclysm content compared to modern quests. Cataclysm aged perfectly, probably even better than Mists of Pandaria.

To then use the fact that Cataclysm didn't update TBC (and WotL) as well isn't fair. Would be great if it did, but that's a ridiculous amount of content to ask for.

For me the main confusion comes from something too simple but not too obvious because it happened way back in the past for most people to realize.
Vanilla was just extremely unfinished/unpolished in terms of several systems (including questing) and people paint that as intentional.
It was obviously not intentional since the SAME PEOPLE only months later designed Outlands questing to be extremely streamlined.

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your obsession with an expansion that, rightfully, has people complain about it.

You are talking to a strawman: I never said Cataclysm is the best expansion. My favorite is WotLK (and especially the Ulduar era).

I mainly comment on the delusions people have when they paint expansions as "horrible" and "perfect".

[M1r4g3]

It probably would be up there with the best if it had a bit more content outside of the dungeons/raids.
LFD stayed in the game and ruined a lot of the more casual peoples experience in heroic dungeons, LFR was added.
But other than that, classes worked great, raids were amazing(ds had its issues but it was still decent), dungeons were the best ever(too bad they got nerfed cause of lfd).

[PenguinChan]

It's definitely better than some I've played. Even for being an underdelivered expansion, I still enjoyed it. Unfortunately it followed the same issue as before where Blizzard somehow fails to just - finish, and deliver what they planned on doing. It's unfortunate because if they did Cataclysm fully - even barring the lore being wonky, it'd have probably been up there with WotLK despite the 'difficulty' it had with dungeons.

[vertigo12]

After becoming victorious and somewhat ending the story of the defeated Lich King, the only place left to turn your focus on would be back to Azeroth's Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. The question is where the focus would be exactly? By following the formula new zones means new content:quest, reward, Lloyd, storyline we were able to explore never before seen areas from a game: a complete underwater experience that is Vashj'ir, undiscovered or veiled place such as Uldum and pretty much a complete make over of outdated existing zones to make them relevant once again.

They also did the same treatment for the first time in rehashing previous raid zones into dungeons so players can experience them with lesser number of people needed to complete the content thus resulting in a lesser effort to manage the group. Players are craving for a new race then there was Goblins and Worgen, the rest was history.

WotLK introduced so much aesthetics and cosmetics with armor and they expounded on the idea of transmog. With it, they even introduced star reforging. I can even still completely recall the scraped Path of Titans as iteration for Glyph only to be completely gutted in the future.

Did I play Cataclysm that time? I decided not to and stop playing WoW. I redirected my attention elsewhere.Still, I never severed my ties completely from the game franchise and title. I am a bystander and and side watcher but still consider myself a full pledge WoW fan.


Whatever review or opinion we may have, it will remain relative. It is relative to the fact that opinions made during that time would be a completely separate idea compared to making a comment or opinion now in 2021.

[epigramx]

It probably would be up there with the best if it had a bit more content outside of the dungeons/raids.
LFD stayed in the game and ruined a lot of the more casual peoples experience in heroic dungeons, LFR was added.
But other than that, classes worked great, raids were amazing(ds had its issues but it was still decent), dungeons were the best ever(too bad they got nerfed cause of lfd).

That argument about the group finder does have merit, but I believe it's always overinflated. I was playing a lot of 5mans in TBC (actually it's most of what I was doing as a rogue for months!) and I clearly remember that it was so OBSCENELY EASY to enter a 5man because back then you had a constant spam of "LFG/LFM" without much of the annoying gold selling spam you have now AND on top of those few gave a shit about who they were playing with so to a large extend the main difference is the connected servers only (which I don't know if it even existed in Cata (was it from MoP?(yeah just googled it: it was 5.4))).

[Ivarr]

People also treated each other better without LFG. They had their reputation, plus it's always awkward to look for new players halfway down an instance. That level of social commitment no longer exist. People treat each others like pawns in their own game.

Whatever review or opinion we may have, it will remain relative. It is relative to the fact that opinions made during that time would be a completely separate idea compared to making a comment or opinion now in 2021.

Right. The raids of any expansion age the poorest and Cataclysm lacked a lot of raid content. So when that drops away, Cataclysm compares more favourably to expansions that had this going for them.

Back then people were frustrated with the lack of raiding, there was nothing else to do. The expansion just ended into a void. That frustration painted everything else about the expansion unfavourably.

So we might just be looking at a difference in experience between people that tried to take Cataclysm to its limits, and those that didn't play it back then or quit the game early. The latter are now able to explore the strengths of Cataclysm at their own leisure. Especially with Chromie time.

[pinglong]

Cata's end game was unfinished, it's a shame they didn't introduce scaling more early to make remade content for 85.