So, what didn't work this expansion?

[kamuimac]

But with all the people who cried about BC being the golden age of WoW and the burning legion (Sargeras) returning as the main protagonist, you can bet your ass the sub numbers are going to skyrocket back up when the next burning legion xpac comes out.

highly doubt that they will skyrocket - in TBC wow was still new game gaining playerbase - its a 10 years old game - u cant do anything about it - only thing which would make numbers skyrocket would be WoW2 not another expansion -_-

[john duo]

Because talking cows and dragons are better.- yes much better, taurens came out in wow 1.0 with all the other 7 or so races of the game in 2004 they are lame but they are 1 out 8 avail races if you dont like it you got 7 more to choose from, its 2013 i dont want to see an animal race on 2 legs again b4 i see all the humanoids races out there playable first (ogres, vrykul etc etc )

You talk of ferals. How is a naked bear in anyway better protected by fire more than a user of energy and chi? Also, monks are nothing new, they have been in the Warcraft Universe since WC3. - ferals are not normal bears , they are magical , nature enchanted dire bears ..the rest of the tanks are plated. users of energy and chi? look at them, they are fat short legged drunk and lazy race, they say so themselfs if you read the text of your leveling up quests, they revere drinking and gaining wieght...are all monks in wow do that? the brewmaster spec is designed from the comical movie "the drunked master" Z rated movie ....

The plot is the Horde and Ally expedition to a completely new and unknown land where they will meet new enemies, new allies and deepen their relationship. - dont change what blizz said ok? blizz said the goal is war or conflict or somthing in those lines, thats pointless.

Lei Shen was the greatest tyrant of Pandaria, leader of the worst enemies of the Pandaren, the Mogu. Also, wait, did we kill Lei Shen while leveling? Nah, I don't think so. What we see, is that the trolls manage to steal his corpse, and after much work managge to bring him back to life. And don't get me started on killed and resurrected bosses. (Kael'thas I am pointing at you) - Kael resurrected ended up in 5man boss , no1 knew who lei shen was, and he started up as already dead, they ress him so we can kill him in the next patch raid. this boss life span in wow is so short that it doesnt matter what they written about him in time past he is still a nobody and will be quickly forgotten.

Garrosh never had "the right stuff" in heart, he was always an arrogant racist like his father, always lusting for Alliance blood. His leadership was the result of Thrall's hopes that he would become a wiser and better person, but as we can see, Thrall was wrong. - go do some low level quests than in the horde side and you will understand...you probably playing ali and dont have a clue what im talking about.

Did Cataclysm give you anything lorewise, based on what you posted above? I saw no old gods (Only N'Zoth in the end), no Titans, no Azshara, no Sargeras. In Mists, we learn more about N'Zoth, creating a good backstory for an Ny'alotha expansion, we saw more titan technology. I agree that it had some holes as a story, but it implemented some good features and a nice touch to the war between the two factions - cata took me to see deepholm and other elemental planes somthing i only read about...i got to kill deathwing from war2 which i playd long ago, i got to see azshara even if it was very short ..the entire twilight zone was locked since wow 1.0 untill cata , this zone is all about old gods...and cho'gall , my 1st war2 hero i playd... originally it should have given us war of the ancient raid as well, but still we got to travel in time to get the dragon soul etc etc and in the end lore wise cata >>>>> mop in so many ways....


stop defending mop, blizz themself were forced to do it to booster the subs as a direct order from thier bosses the share holders...
check the videos from last blizzcon and you will see a total silent after the 1st trailer of mop , no cheering no nothing, and there is another time at blizzcon where chris metzen himself asks the fans to give it a try...really? its going to be that bad ha?

wow came to 12M because of its lore which was built since 1992 upon demons , corruption , outworld powers and heroes and not upon stupid short legged bears who revere beer making , general lazyness and obese...

[MrExcelion]

Without going into class specifics, nor is this an exhaustive list, just off the top of my head in a couple of minutes:

-The exclusivity of challenge mode gold (lots of selling for real life money)

-The weekly requiring 90 charms instead of 40-60 from the getgo

-Mostly attributed to dead servers, but they didn't follow up on renewed world PVP. We got Hardened Shell and that was really it, and that item is underwhelming

-10 and 25 man balance, along with Shared Lockouts, players had been clamoring for the Wrath model in late Cata, not so much anymore if they know they have no shot of filling a 25 man roster

-PVP Participation is at a low point (being able to queue with anyone without joining a team might help)

-Many encounters in T14 that went live with encounter breaking bugs and oversights, T15 was also rushed, buggy, and overtuned for normal pugs (but all in all still a great raid tier)

-Keeping low/med pops alive (still server merging in 5.4 at least)

-CRZ, buggy and they didn't use it to balance factions in low level zones like they talked about

-MoP racials, keeping the PVE factions balanced (mostly Horde now)

-LFR: no social interaction, players aren't engaged, Flex mode is what LFR should have been

-Normal mode pugging largely died off (hopefully flex fills the void)

-"Rare and difficult" world bosses - Ended up as an AOE fest on Galleon with lots of griefing and taunt resetting, not to mention Oon/Gal crashed servers

[Claymore]

I think Dailies are the number-one mistake. Dailies tend to lead to player-burnout, which is fundamentally counterproductive to what a subscription-based MMO should be doing. Raids already will the role of "weekly content", and if that isn't enough incentive to keep players interested, then you've got a real problem.

Secondly, nothing about Mists of Pandaria felt terribly compelling, aesthetically or thematically. Don't get me wrong, Pandaria is goddamn gorgeous by WoW standards, but it seemed whimsical and unimportant. Compare that to the Burning Crusade, which was breathtaking in its scope, or Wrath of the Lich King, whose antagonist clearly resonated with people in a way that few fictional characters do. Cataclysm felt arbitrary, with no meaningful narrative beyond "Ermahgerd therr's a dragon, go keel it!". Pandaria simply feels more like a vacation-spot than the source of any real conflict, though. The concept was good -- something less-serious before the two following ultra-serious expansions, but it just hasn't caught-on with people.

Lastly, the armor-designs have been, generally, atrocious. Believe it or not, cool-looking armor is actually a pretty big incentive for a lot of people.

[Osmeric]

there's some truth to this but players have to try to get better.

What? It's the players' responsibility to fix up Blizzard's mistakes?

No, players always have a right to say "I'd rather be doing something else instead of playing this game". If they decide to jump ship instead of getting better, Blizzard has failed to design a game for that part of its audience.

[Crysis]

I don't think the expansion was bad or has done something "wrong" really, I think what caused the drop is mainly the theme, of the expansion. It seems like a "break" time for Azeroth, I know, those who are playing now that it isn't, Azeroth will change because of what happened during this expansion, but people generally think that "pandas" is not "real" Warcraft. Another cause is definitely the growing MMO market, there are MANY other MMOs and its much harder to keep players interested in your game than it was during WotLK or even at the beginning of Cataclysm.

Im pretty sure that with Burning Legion theme and better opted features (like rep gaining and daily zones) the next expansion we'll see the numbers go back up a little.

Im guessing we'll be at 9millions +/- subscribers half into next expansion. (if they deliver)

[Roujeaux]

On a similar note, the third losing battle: Trying to be all things to all players. This is a sub based game, an unfortunate rarity in today's market (I can only think of a handful that still pursue this income method). Which means that, by all PC game standards, it's quite expensive to take part in. I think, by trying to make content for 'everyone', the game has brought in players who aren't necessarily interested in a long term investment such as this game. After all, if you only have time to play video games a few hours per week... then a sub fee looks even worse, and WoW winds up seeming like an effective waste of money.

That third point is the most troubling to me, and here's why: Broken down by its elements, there's little this game does that some other title, MMO or not, doesn't do better. Graphics? PvP balance? PvE encounters? Storytelling? I wouldn't call this game the best at any single one of these. What WoW (I think) strives for, is to put that package of elements together as a whole better than anyone else does... and it needs to, given the cost to play it. And by trying to appease everyone, concessions get made that keep it from being as good as it can be in other areas.

It will take the loss of a few more million subs, most likely, but the best thing Blizzard could do with this game is say "This is what we feel our core customer wants, so this is what we're focusing on 100%". If that means dropping hardcore, very difficult content? Fine. If that means dropping casual, extremely easy content? Fine. Just pick a direction, and do very well at that, because appealing to everyone simply isn't working.

All of this. All of it.

[Glorious Leader]

Clearly I think the removal of instant catch up is a colossal failure. In the last quarterly report players "casuals" weren't engaged but people were still subbing and unsubbing around patches. The removal of instant catch or near instant catch up hasn't done a god damn thing to shore up subscriber retention and has (IMHO) cost them subs from the casual player base who could "catch up" very well in previous expansions. All we heard from players on forums was that ohhh your loosing subs because the game isn't mmo like or the game is so faceroll now I'm bored cause I spend 30 hours a week playing this game. Well while that feedback may have been extremely concentrated it was not universal in the slightest. The far more universal wow experience is probably logging in an hour or two here or there. The game stopped being rewarding for those players so they left. Giving SOME players lots to do at the expense of everybody else is a mess. The player base has shown how little tolerance it has for the "stick" and the developers will take note I hope. They have to an extent but their so blindingly stupid that they can't see past their own decisions. Like somebody on twitter asked GC what they learned from Mists. Aside from the usual crap about dailies he also added that they wanted more streamlined gearing. Lot's of options was proving to be confusing for people who just hit 90 and had no idea where to go. Well yea GC it was pretty god damned streamlined in cataclysm but that was a bad thing apparently. Your lamenting something you did to the game that you couldn't just leave alone. Or take his claim that raid participation and completion is low because not everybody has the gear yet. First of all it's horse shit, raiding normals is simple to hard for the normal player but even if it's true well they changed gearing up to. All these unintended consequences, well I hope they'll be more careful in the future to screw around with things that are working. The dmg is probably done at this point though.

Pretty much every decision in the game comes as a result of the above. Valor taking a back seat (when it was good and rewarding for casual players in the past), the lack of 5 man catch up dungeons, the overwhelming inflation of ilvl, shoving players into lfr, daily quest grinding, you name it. All to give some players "more" to do.

Now somebody will come and say something about it being more mmo like but the classification is pretty meaningless imho. Especially in so far as money is concerned or even just player entertainment. It turns out that wow being less MMO like (in some areas) was what made it a success. They should return to that even if it means a loud whine from a tiny minority. Truth is those players are so hopelessly addicted anyways they'd just do the same content on 10 alts over and over again even if it only took like 2 hours to do. I mean at least then you had some fucking variety in what you were doing and how you were doing it. At least playing on alts spiced things up a bit. The group that got catered to in mists was the group that played one character and played for 20-30 hours a week. While everyone else who either played 20-30 hours a week and had like 15 alts or only had one guy but played for like 2-3 hours a week got the shaft.

The most damning thing I can say is that I would welcome Cataclysm back.

[shadowmouse]

The game has reached an age where the complaints become a destructive whine. Forums are filled with posts from people whose sole purpose in posting seems to be to complain, often with a side them of how they want the game to be, and a good number of them don't play at all.

It is like having to handle divorces. There comes a time in a relationship where it is better to let things pass, and most people won't. There isn't anything particularly worse about the expansion, but it reminds me of a line implying a certain type of marital problem that sets in after years together: "Flagellation on top of fornication! Boring Raymond, boring! (Well, it was the best darned Scrabble score I've ever had)". There isn't really anything Blizz can do, placate one group and the next group will demand more for themselves.

[Rhozul]

What I didn't like about Mists of Pandaria:

-The asian theme. Sure, it's well done and the zones are gorgeous. But it just gets old really fast. I signed up for a tolkien-like world and now there are pandas all over.

Yeah, I can totally see that. I loved that scene in The Hobbit when the dwarves built a giant steam tank in order to force Smaug out of their mountain home. That's where WoW got the Steampunk Inspiration for their dwarves and gnomes, after all. And I fondly remember all of the Tolkien influences in the Burning Crusade, with all of its beautiful Tolkien-esque space ships, demons, bird people, and ethereal folk. And how about Northrend! That viking archetecture and Norse mythology alongside the super-advanced technology of a forgotten race? Straight out of Tolkien. And Cataclysm's eerie gothic style was spot-on to that scene in Lord of the Rings went Sauron flies over the Shire and bathes it in fire, killing all the helpless NPCs and the vendors and EVERYTHING!

Yup. Mist of Pandaria is the first point in WoW that had absolutely nothing to do with Tolkien. Yup. Totally.

[Tyrgannus]

Here is my real list of pros and cons for ALL ages of WoW. I'm seeing many comments that tend to remember this game with rose-colored glasses.

Vanilla

Pros: World PvP existed, everything was new by definition which gave players a sense of wonder, tuning was fairly hard and (unless you were in the top .5% of the gaming community) there was ALWAYS some goal to shoot for. I personally liked dungeon sets because they gave non raiders a true sense of PvE accomplishment.

Cons: Class and spec balance was atrocious. Only one set of tier/PvP gear leading to forced roles. Paladins and Shamans being faction specific was awesome lore wise, but in terms of gameplay it literally made PvE and PvP simply unbalanced with many arguing that PvP was better as Horde and PvE was better as Alliance. The 1-60 leveling process was pretty haphazard and you sometimes had to awkwardly run through zones far above your level to get to the next quest area. The resolution, models, and music was far poorer than it is today, though that is to be expected. Virtually no important lore and a complete lack of antagonist.

The Burning Crusade

Pros: Paladins and Shamans now available on both sides creating much greater balance. Jewelcrafting and gems. Gear that reflected different specs on hybrid classes making most specs quite viable. Introduction of Arena. Encouraged PvP activities within the questing zones. Lore with antagonist complete with (in my opinion) fun plot twist. Interesting 10 and 25 man raids, down from 40 because 40 mans were a clustercuss to coordinate and a lagfest to boot. Introduction of Heroics. Flying mounts.

Cons: While 10 and 25 man raids were a huge step in the right direction, it was weird that Karazhan and Zul'Aman were raided with a different size group than EVERY other raid; they needed an option to pick size like in future expansions. Original attunement system was pretty overkill (arguably mores than even Vanilla as rep and specific quest lines were required, not just 5 man gear). Only one new battleground, one, really?!

Wrath of the Lich King

Pros: I'm bias towards this one, but I'll work to be impartial and I do have some beefs with it. First off, the achievement system. Insciption and Glyphs. Dual spec. 10 and 25 man available for every raid AND the birth of Hard modes/Heroic mode raids making the hardcore still satisfied while now appealing to a broader demographic with easier content like 10 man normals. New death knight class (admittedly op at introduction, but I later came to really like dks in a lot of areas). Huge, epic, and iconic raids like Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel that had interesting mechanics. Probably the most interesting lore and felt like a sequel to Frozen Throne. The bold attempt at phasing zones (they didn't get it perfect at first, but phasing makes you feel like you have an impact). Wrathgate was awesome the first time, even if you think you're above it now. LFD.

Cons: More than basically any other age (except possibly Vanilla but Arena didn't exist in Vanilla), this was the age of destroying an enemy player character in 3 GCDs, and I wasn't the biggest fan. Healing was FAR too easy and people became lazy because of it. Vehicle fights sucked (Technicaly chess event is the first vehicle fight, but Wrath had multiple and they never felt right). While I stated that the mechanics were interesting and I meant that, they were often under tuned. This was generally not the case in Hard modes/Heroics which weren't quite as face roll as the community likes to remember (Yogg-0 had the longest first kill race in an expansion). People felt forced to do the same raid twice every week, and for T9 some guilds did it 4 times in a week leading to some heavy burnout. LFD, yes I put it in both spots.

Cataclysm

Pros: The 1-58 revamp was SO necessary and made the leveling layout far more logical and structured than it originally was. Archaeology, though admittedly it was a tad tedious. New race class combinations freed up a lot of choices, especially if you like playing a Druid. PvE content (with the exception of Dragon Soul oddly enough) was generally tuned more harshly and gave a sense of accomplishment that people hadn't felt since BC. PvP had multiple new battlegrounds, in my bias opinion an overall better balance, and had Elite armor for the skilled and dedicated. No one was forced to do the same raid twice in the same week as 10 and 25 shared both a lockout and gear, though this point is a pro and a con in and of itself. Every questing zone went out of their way to feel scripted and epic, especially Vash'jir which I believe to be a glorious risk and I personally liked.

Cons Everything else. No but seriously, forcing people to quest in Deepholm for shoulder enchants was tedious (at least BC and Wrath had items you could AH and turn in for rep). First and ONLY expansion where raid composition didn't change (no new classes, even BC had pallies/shamans). With the exception of Vash'jir (again, I did enjoy that zone), the music actually seemed a step DOWN from BC and Wrath. Dragon Soul was pathetically easy, this coming from summon that played through Wrath. Zandalari queues. Trash drops in BWD might as well have not existed due to lack of trash, yet they were BiS for a couple specs in T11. Deathwing was a shockingly pabulum antagonist for someone who "destroyed" the world; no charisma, no sense of motive, no screen time. Worgen "lore" was a slap in the face and more or less was concluded in Silverpine....a Horde area. Least amount of raid bosses in ANY age of Wow. Just a train wreck really...

Mists of Pandaria

Pros: Continent is beautiful and lush. More creative Exploration achievements attempting to put you back in the world. Better Cooking system. Challenging raids. Alternative approach to lore in an environment that is anything but overdone. First neutral race. MONKS! Brawler's Guild. Pet Battles (even if you don't like them, they were made to be completely optional which I think is an undeniable plus as it solidifies itself as a side game as opposed to just another chore). Xuen, yeah, no need to explain, he's just that cool. The subtle madness churning in Wrathion (One of the better written characters imo). Lorewalker Cho. Beer. Killing Garrosh.

Cons: Class balance oddly seems to be worse than in Cataclysm, and generally class balance tends to slowly get better. I find this a weird phenomenon, but all the data and numbers I've seen heavily suggest it to be objective and not just subjective. Far too many dailies that take far too long to get exalted. No new 5 mans after launch, and only 6 truly new 5 mans (3 of them are overhauls of classic dungeons). LFR being treated as a substitute for 5 man content when 5 man content has been a staple of WoW since 2004. The emphasis on DPS (Brawler's Guild, Scenarios) works to make the balance of players even more skewed towards DPS saturated than it normally is. Scenarios feeling forced if you aren't in a hardcore raiding group yet still want PvE gear (Scenarios should be an alternative, but when they drop 516 and LFR drops 502, and 5 mans don't even freaking exist on your radar at 463, they feel pretty darn forced and I personally HATE scenarios). As cool as killing Garrosh is, there's a huge disconnect in escalation. We're banishing elemental lords, killing powerful dragons, destroying sections of weakened Old Gods, slaying powerful demons and even interrupting Kil'jaedan's summoning, laying the smack down on Yogg AND the Lich King, canceling the apocalypse, and yet I'm to believe that rabbits eating juicy crunch carrots and an orc powered by a supposedly DEAD god is a logical sense of progression? It seems quite silly to me that Hoptallus is "more of a threat" than Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Every age has it's pros and cons.

[Granyala]

Alt unfriendlyness is one thing.
The other is excessive gating. Everything is gated by lockouts these days. Bloody hell even the catch-up mechanisms for alts are gated by friggin weekly lockouts.
The event in the Barrens was a nice touch but they had to ruin it by making mojo crap not BoA and NOT activate X-Realm zones on low pop servers.
Gee yeah I surely will grind 500 350k-1M Health mob with my item level 450 alt. Weee... <_<

I still love WOW and I still play and intent on keep playing it, but seriously I'm getting tired of all the gating crap. Back in the day it was an open world that let YOU decide how much to play. Today it's like "yeah dude, you played 2hrs and reached your cap. Come back next week!".

[Ethas]

First of all I have to say that I hated Cataclysm a lot. Mists was a huge improvement, but I, unfortunately, haven't so much of free time as I had during Cataclysm's period. I see several reasons in this decline pattern:
1. They haven't fixed serious 25-man raiding. 25-man guilds was a huge force which has been pushing realms for raiding.
2. No recognizable villains. Wow had its peak in Illidan/Arthas times.
3. Too much of dailies.
4. People realized that Mists is not enough for compensating 2 years of game-time wasted during Cataclysm.
5. Still no balance. Seriously, they destroyed complex talent system, introduced simple one instead and still can't balance it enough.

And yeah, especially I want to thank you Blizzard for selling real-money items in subscription-based game..

[Osmeric]

Clearly I think the removal of instant catch up is a colossal failure. In the last quarterly report players "casuals" weren't engaged but people were still subbing and unsubbing around patches. The removal of instant catch or near instant catch up hasn't done a god damn thing to shore up subscriber retention and has (IMHO) cost them subs from the casual player base who could "catch up" very well in previous expansions.

I dread what's coming after 5.4. Slow catchup and de facto attunement via legendaries (for those wanting to do raiding beyond LFR), coupled with LFR players quickly reaching the end boss and not needing gear to go any further, will lead to even more catastrophic net sub losses.

[Xjev]

Focus on making game alt friendly is not good, it means there is not enough things to do with your main. I remember during Vanilla and tBC I never ever though of having alts and still had things to do in game with my single main toon.

[Vanisari]

I love my main but I get bored of playing the same class or characters all the time, so, like in wrath and cata, I like to play alts.. then remember.. jesus, I need to grind months of dailies to get anything on him/her.

That's def not the case. I recently leveled a monk in 5.3 and the only dailies I "had" to run were the Isle of Thunder ones. Even those I could have easily skipped. The older valor gear isn't worth the valor. My monk is now iLevel 509 and the only way for me to get new gear is normal ToT, and like 2-3 pieces from ToT LFR. Toons only been 90 for about 3 weeks. 4 at the most.

[Glorious Leader]

Focus on making game alt friendly is not good, it means there not enough things to do with your main. I remember during Vanilla and tBC I never ever though of having alts and still had things to do in game with my single main toon.

I have yet to hear any good arguments about why making the game alt friendly is a bad thing. Not having enough things on your main isn't a good enough justification nor is the appeal to "back in the day". The current game caters to individuals who only play one character, play for 20-30 hours a week, don't pvp (otherwise they'd have had endless game play in the first place and never needed to worry about running out of things to do) and in general are an extremely tiny minority in the game.

[Deleted]

My biggest gripes about MoP have been:

- The 5.1/5.2 daily grind and especially gating things behind Golden Lotus (this got corrected later on)
- The lack of challenging 5-man content (apart from CM's - which are excellent addition to the game)
- LFR associated grind (for all kinds of bloody tokens for the Legendary quest)
- Putting the valor rewards on same ilvl (522) as normal raid rewards. I do understand the "soft-nerf" mechanic that these provided, but it still sucks. 516 would have been better.
- Very unfriendly to alts - gear catchup is just too much to bother, really. But on the other hand main has much more content, so it sort of evens out.
- Too much insta-cast CC in PvP

Other than that (and those are fairly minor concerns), I'm reasonably happy about this expansion and rank it quite high - over Cata and Wrath certainly.

[Glorious Leader]

That's def not the case. I recently leveled a monk in 5.3 and the only dailies I "had" to run were the Isle of Thunder ones. Even those I could have easily skipped. The older valor gear isn't worth the valor. My monk is now iLevel 509 and the only way for me to get new gear is normal ToT, and like 2-3 pieces from ToT LFR. Toons only been 90 for about 3 weeks. 4 at the most.

We should note that mists has come A LONG way from 5.0. It isn't all the way back yet but it's a far better situation than dailies ad nauseum. When we get to the point where I can catch up and not have to do any previous lfr tiers AND I can cap valor in roughly the same amount of time it would have taken me to do 7 dungeons then we'll be much closer. Also to much emphasis in general on LFR. Always with fucking raiding this game. I wish they had some balls and made raiding take a back seat in favor of other content.

[But I Hate You All]

Oh for the love of God, will you quit crying in every single thread? The Alliance had their fist pumping moment from PreBC-Late Wrath in terms of story development, deal with it, like we did.

Keep telling yourself that load of bullshit

For me and mop

1. 85-90 sucked for alts
2. Dailies were out of control
3. Too much gating
4. Gal was a horrible boss idea till they change his spawn time.
5. Jp Totally useless
6. Pvp Way more broken than before
7. Random bgs filled with 10 man premades because of the conquest change
8. The best looking gear and mounts going to the cash shop.
9. The lore for mop sucked imo
10. Alliance getting fucked over like in cata
11. too much focus on lfr and vp