Which Installment of WoW Provided the Best Story?

[Wewlad]

Which installment(original game or one of the expansions)had the best story, or at least the most appealing one for you?

[Rigimi44]

For me, Wrath had the best questing and lore. I love the Scourge and the Lich King, so all of Northrend was like Christmas to me. I liked BC and the Lich King's questing more because we had an actual, tangible force that we were fighting against. The Lich King was everywhere in quests, and we were made to hate him so much that killing him in ICC felt amazing.

[Venziir]

MoP no doubt. Continuation of the classic Warcraft storyline with Horde vs Alliance, major character progression, races that usually never did anything are now busier than ever, and still with a breath of completely fresh air via Pandaria.

[Deleted]

For me it's a tie between chasing down Vashj/Kael/Illidan and finally putting the boot to the Lich King.

[macazine]

Leveling up and seeing the Lich King during some of your quests felt awesome. Always wondering why he never just killed you on the spot was wrapped up nicely during the RP when you got him to 10%. Hearing him say that he wanted you to make it to him this whole time so that you could serve him was a "holy shit it makes sense" moment for sure. Great closure to the expansion.

[Rigimi44]

Leveling up and seeing the Lich King during some of your quests felt awesome. Always wondering why he never just killed you on the spot was wrapped up nicely during the RP when you got him to 10%. Hearing him say that he wanted you to make it to him this whole time so that you could serve him was a "holy shit it makes sense" moment for sure. Great closure to the expansion.

Yeah, that was pretty cool for me as well.

[Komati]

Wrath of the Lich King.
It was awesome in every aspect.

[Resentful]

No contest nothing can beat Wrath of the lich king like everyone anticipated it simply due to TFT well least I did.

[cityguy193]

Best: Wrath, then burning crusade, then cataclysm.

Worst: MOP, by far. Rather have the story line of hogger over the garbage of this xpac.

[StationaryHawk]

Wrath of the Lich King. Partially due to the factor I-NO brought up: the anticipation brought on by TFT. Aside from that, it just felt like it had a more concrete, unified story that really flowed throughout the expansion. Even the interlude in the Scourge issue to head on over to Ulduar felt like part of the larger plot.

I also just adored Northrend and the Argent Tournament.

[Deleted]

I'm a massive Thalassiaphile (blood elf buff!), so the vast quantities of Sin'dorei lore (from the brink of extinction, to the counter-attack, to salvation and recooperation) and the introduction of Quel'Thalas and playable blood elves into the WoW world made the Burning Crusade my favourite expansion in terms of contemporary story and future lore content.

Wrath of the Lich King was fantastic though and the questing during that expansion was truthfully the only levelling content (outside of the blood elf starting-zone) where I felt like I was playing a game through the expansion specific content rather than jumping through hoops to reach level cap and then being able to start playing a game because the lore was so interesting and delivered so well through the questing and raiding experience.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

So far MoP has had the best story out of any expansion. I actually feel a part of it, that and there are many stories in it.

[Khaza-R]

The Burning Crusade, hands down. Why? Because the characters were believable. Kael'thas (who was the true villian of the expansion) was a tragic hero. You actually felt his struggle, why he wanted power. His motives were believable. Not to mention the twist with him and Kil'Jaeden was nice and unexpected. It neatly wrapped up the story elements introduced in the Blood Elf campaign in the TFT.

By the same comparison, WotLK was awful story-wise. The character of the Lich King was severely disjointed from the character we met in WC3 and TFT. In fact the story couldn't even decided if it was Arthas, or the LK we were fighting half the time. Not to mention the conclusion, "There must always be a Lich King" was a horrible way to end the LK saga.

Pretty much the entire plot of WC3 was an attempt to display Ner'zhul as a mastermind who engineered his freedom so he could take revenge on Azeroth and the Legion. WotLK completely and totally abandoned that premise and didn't even address Ner'zhul or the union of him and Arthas even once. For continuity sake, WotLK is actually the worse expansion lore-wise imo.

[Wildmoon]

MoP by far. Other xpacs are not even close in this aspect. The wars,the way of pandaren's life,the side stories. All of this made MoP's lore so rich. Blizzard didn't really pay attention to the culture of other races that lived in other xpacs as much as MoP's races.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I am tempted to say Wrath. But the more I dig into MoP the more I feel there's potential to outdo Wrath.

Of course, that hinges on what happens after ToT...

[Thage]

Voted Mists, because of Halfhill and the Shado-Pan stories, and the surprising amount of history and lore there is to be found on random objects scattered across Pandaria and the Wandering Isle, but it's a tight race with Wrath crossing the finish line (literally) immediately after.

[NeonX]

Would be Wrath for me, I think it's the most I've felt involved in game and actually cared about what happens in the story.

[Tokru]

Classic.

Granted there was no real great story involving the whole world, but that made it the most believable for me. Every zone had specific stories and there were many stories which involved travelling a lot around the world.

If you value an overall story that ties everything together more, than WotLK had the best with the Lich King.

[Shampro]

Mists by far. First expac where I actually feel like my character matters. The Wrathion chain has been freaking amazing. No other expac not even Lich king has had so much mystery. This is the first expac where I wonder and cant wait to know ''what will happen next?!'' Not to mention is the expac with the most voice acting, which helps a bit with immersion. Also, Lorewalkers, best faction Azeroth.

[Shibboleths]

Not Wrath. Only good thing to come from Wrath was use of Saurfang for exposition for Garrosh's rise to power (The "I'll kill you myself" line), some of the Zul'drak/Drak'tharon storyline, and further development of Titan lore meeting a formal juncture with Old God lore (starting in Grizzly Hills, kind of)

Rest was the, as we called it then, "Saturday Morning Cartoon" villainy with zombies. (What's that? Anub'arak gets resurrected after gettin shafted in Azjol? OH, what's THAT? Kel'thuzad had a phylactery? The rest of Naxxramas too? WHAT"S THAT? THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A DR. CLAW AND HE WAS TOYING WITH US?)

Edit: Okay, I'll also cede that, although Malygos was part of a rather disappointing tier and it felt a bit odd for me, the blue dragonflight story was a decent set up for future development.