Why did people love TBC?

[Rixis]

I'm confused as to why that orc is wearing intellect plate.

[Dermont]

Riding into Nagrand for the first time was (and still is) one of the most impressive things I've seen in the game.

[ruuBEN]

1] Environment. While Vanilla WoW had a very mystical aspect to it, TBC was like the emerald dream in terms of getting to define what was 'normal'. It seemed very mystical, more like a real fantasy game due to how un-real it was. The environment was always awesome, it gave you a new area every few seconds that you were flying/walking around that just made it feel... awesome. This even includes the raids. WotLK got old with the constant up-north, 'cold' attitude, and some of the zones just seemed very bland. In my opinion, the best zone in WotLK was crystalsong forest and zul'drak, but everything else seemed already used in vanilla in some way shape or form. MoP seems to have nothing unique about the environment, and Cata had some really nice zones. In fact, vashj'ir and deepholm are my favorite zones (or in my top 5), but the whole expansion felt clunky. It didn't feel like a true expansion.

2] Progression. I always had something to look forward to, and something to aim towards achieving. This mainly deals with LFR, but has so many more aspects to it. Now that I get to do LFR, I lose my want to raid and see the content. It comes to the "Yeah, I can get all that amazing gear when I raid regularly and put time into it, but t will seriously go to waste... I've already seen the content and I won't use it in PvP." In TBC, it wasn't entirely like that. You HAD to dedicate time, you got a mix of fancy gear that not may people got to have, you saw something onyl a small fraction got to see, and you also got to use quite a bit of it in PvP. I think LFR ruined that aspect of the game, and to people who say "I deserve to see it for paying $15", you really don't. I think it's a null argument. Not everyone is supposed to see the content, in the same way everyone in LoL isn't supposed to get to the higher ELO rankings. Exact same concept.
Beyond the raiding, I found that having to find groups kept quite a nit community on a lot of servers. Ever tell yourself "I miss the people I play with in WoW< not so much the game"? Yeah. The community helped with quite a bit of that feeling. Going out and having to get to a dungeon occasionally let you re-explore the world every time, and I found it awesome/fun/fascinating. Now, half the people couldn't tell you where a specific instance is at because all they do is que up in LFG.

3] Creativity. Everything in terms of art seems to be way more creative in TBC. I'm not saying the rest of the expansions weren't, but what I am saying is 75% of the armor and weapons in WotLK were bland as hell. Mute in color, nothing too fancy, some sets were just plain ugly, but we had to do it because it was our tier gear. That's not even counting the zones, how I said environment. For the tiers, as well? In TBC, you managed to look great and jaw-dropping in your tier. You know, because it wasn't something available to every single player in the game who can reach a max level.

4] Lore. The story was more important and close to most people in WoW, unlike Cataclysm, and MoP. TBC was WC3 pretty much all in one. WotLK was TFT. Then we had the two expansions where WoW went "Downhill", and I think a huge part of it is us hearing everything near brand-new about it at blizzcon and going "Wait, what?" The next two expansions, azshara and her naga and a burning legion continuation, I believe will definitely help since it's more of a relative level when it comes to lore and the players.

5] Things were hard. This kinda ties in with the 2nd point. Look, don't put in 4 difficulties for a raid. Make people progress on one very, very challenging raid. Make EVERY raid start off at a 'heroic' level, and then just keep it there. It'd go quicker with tuning the raids, faster release times. I know people want more to do, and getting rid of difficulties would be "getting rid of the content quicker for players", but it wouldn't. Most hardcore raiders get done with all-but-heroic modes in the first week. And as for people who aren't hardcore and love raiding?
Remember the argument when leveling in Cata, they wanted 5 levels to make each level feel like an achievement instead of "just another level?" It'd be like that, with raiding. Kill one boss, HUGE AMAZING OMFG ACHIEVEMENT I DID IT. Instead of feeling calm in a normal raid difficulty, having a small celebration on the last boss, and then re-killing a boss on heroic and FEELING NOTHING AT ALL. We just felt a sense of getting closer to the end-boss of the raid in heroic, or whoever the big mile-stone of that raid would be (like animus). On heroic, you killed the boss once before, this time it was just in a different manner. That's why I hate those difficulties. Another thing, dungeons? Don't make them just something to do at max level to gear up for a raid. I think challenge modes were definitely a nice addition to this, but I would certainly love to make heroics feel harder. At least make *some* heroic-only dungeons, or make some heroic dungeons very hard, to an extent that does require a tiny bit of coordination instead of face-rolling. Remember shattered halls? Arcatraz?

6] In TBC, not once did blizzard get rid of something, dumb it down, or just make it super easier and claim "It's a quality of life change". I think that's an outrageously over-used term, and I'm finding a majority of blizzards changes fall back on that. I'd call something a quality of life change that did nothing but improve a situation, and NOT something that has benefits and sanctions/negatives to it. Like, LFG for instance. Cool, we can que up from everywhere, but at what expense? Losing a community, not going out in the world and everyone being lazy and programming that mindset into the players? That's not a quality of life change to me.

But, as they said, they have a different audience and if they didn't "Cater to casuals" as most notoriously call it, WoW would be in a bad spot. My mindset is they programmed lots of people into casuals. Nothing's really changed, in my opinion, in terms of the demographic.

And there's so much, so much more I can add to this.

[Arkenaw]

I'm confused as to why that orc is wearing intellect plate.

Clearly it's one of the elusive orc paladins.

[HavokHeart]

Why did people love TBC? Look at this. LOOK AT IT...

Ahhh the good ol days.. when you could easily tell the pro's from the scrubs.

Seriously tho... Kara, SSC, TK, BT.. awesome raids... that's why.

[YankeePhan1234]

I think mostly because of Nostalgia, it was WoW's 1st expansion and it was when the hardcore player was catered to the most, and most of the people who are still playing from then are probably what you would classify as 'hardcore' today.

[Deleted]

For me the leveling in Wotlk was horrendous, it seemed like zones didnt had a real story to them but mini stories shoehorned into one big confrontation at the end of quest chain, out of all zones i quested only zone i connected with was Howling Fjord.

Farming Karazhan for badges after that new tiers were released was a good thing imo, in wotlk and cata older raids were neglected and people werent doing them at all, everyone was jumping from doing heroic dungeons to latest raids which left a sour taste in general.

Shaman issue in Sunwell was more a Blizzard fault rather than expansion fault and that didnt stop there either because same problem only with different classes existed in both Wotlk (Mages, Paladins) and Cataclysm

Nobody is saying TBC didnt have flaws or problems but some people are really going over the top with their hatred for TBC even tho majority of TBC haters didnt even play it

As a man from the cold north i feel the exact opposit about the wotlk zones

Farming kara for badges has left me hating that raid with passion. It was a good raid but after you done it around 100 times it became really boring.

TBC was a huge leap from vanilla, they fixed so many things that was shit with vanilla but also it left people farming BT for over a year some guilds got a set of glaives within a few months some guilds had to wait a year to get 1 set. Was a guild back on talnivarr with 4 MH glaives and 0 OH. IIRC. TBC had it's up and downs but was a part of the evolution of WoW. It was not as a good as the next 3 expansions but not as bad as the first.

[Immitis]

I have to be honest, I don't see a coherent argument here. I guess this proves it: Pandaren are comic relief after all.

here let me put in terms you might understand.

ever watch fullmetal alchemist?

edward elric freaks out when someone calls him short, thats a comic relief element, is edward elric a comic relief character? no, hes integral to the storyline.

now compare edward elric to garfiel.

his entire purpose is to be comic relief and the creator never even took the time to give him a proper backstory or literary focus, hes simply there to be funny when he pops up



or if you dont know who those are the difference between the ewoks and yoda.

[RickJamesLich]

Terrible point because while the basics of making movies haven't changed, the core elements of MMO's are constantly being adapted and reiterated and updated. People are nostalgic for their experience in TBC back then, which does not equate to the core elements of the game actually being "better" than now. They just liked them more, which is fine. Just learn to express yourselves properly and this whole ranting thread can be avoided.

I think the main point is, WoW has gone kinda backwards in the eyes of many long term players. Not really nostalgia, but things like progression and socialization are in the gutter right now lol.

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Despite what people might say, the nostalgia "argument" becomes very valid when you look at what I quoted.
Claiming you must never have played if you don't like it is moronic.

I enjoyed TBC at the time. Would I play it now? Not in the slightest.

I'm gonna ignore the movies part of your post because I actually did like a fair amount of movies that came out this year :P

Personally for me BC was more enjoyable mainly because I'm an MMO player... WoW really doesn't have some of the key points an MMO has anymore - socialization and progression (which is in there somewhat, but it's kinda screwy now). I do find most of the people that didn't like BC either didn't play it or are bitter - not everyone fits into this boat, but just from my own experiences.

[hrugner]

the thunder king, the mantid, further lore on the titans, wrathion, chen stormstout, jaina actually doing things and not sitting around crying, the sunreavers, lor'themar, all of 5.1, the burdens of shaohao, all of the badarse alliance lore.

You don't consider the reversal of Jaina's pacifism to be a retcon, and even praise it as good writing? If anything it highlights the current WoW plot trend where everyone is a tragedy away from being evil. It's childish.

[Tziva]

Lets all discuss a subjective matter and pretend its fact!

Also we should fight about it an insult people for arriving at different conclusions then us.

Or not.

We shouldn't do that.

This is about sharing our opinions and talking about why we enjoyed BC, if we did. Not about berating people just because they happened to like an era we didn't.

[Deleted]

or if you dont know who those are the difference between the ewoks and yoda.

The ewoks and Yoda are both comic reliefs. You're not doing your argument any favours here, I feel.

[Immitis]

You don't consider the reversal of Jaina's pacifism to be a retcon, and even praise it as good writing? If anything it highlights the current WoW plot trend where everyone is a tragedy away from being evil. It's childish.

a retcon requires things to be changed, nothing in jainas history changed, and yes its good writing, jaina never did anything in wow except cry and try to "save" arthas. it was about damn time she grew a backbone and stood up for herself and stopped taking everyones bullshit.

and no, jaina is far from evil, she kicked traitors out of a city and had ONE moment of weakness after THE ENTIRE THING SHE WORKED HER ENTIRE LIFE FOR WAS DESTORYED.

so no, she is nowhere near evil, shes human, you can stand up for something without being evil, being good doesnt require you to be nice

[Arkenaw]

I think the main point is, WoW has gone kinda backwards in the eyes of many long term players. Not really nostalgia, but things like progression and socialization are in the gutter right now lol.

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Personally for me BC was more enjoyable mainly because I'm an MMO player... WoW really doesn't have some of the key points an MMO has anymore - socialization and progression (which is in there somewhat, but it's kinda screwy now). I do find most of the people that didn't like BC either didn't play it or are bitter - not everyone fits into this boat, but just from my own experiences.

World bosses, heroic scenarios, challenge modes, normal raids, heroic raids and soon flex raids all require "socialization" to complete. I'm not even gonna bother with your progression argument because it makes no sense. If complicated attunements is your idea of progression then so be it.

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The ewoks and Yoda are both comic reliefs. You're not doing your argument any favours here, I feel.

Yoda is not comic relief. Do you even know what the word means?

[M1r4g3]

[/B]

A lot of the nostalgia about TBC comes from how it ended, not how it started.

Hellfire was overcrowded at launch.
yeah so was every other starting zone at launch
Heroics were so hard you needed raid gear to complete them.
yeah if you were very bad and/or impatient
To unlock heroics you needed exalted with each dungeon faction for each dungeon key.
you mean revered? you were probably honored by the time you finished the zone or even revered
To get exalted you needed to grind normals for weeks/months.
it wasnt supposed to be easy/fast but it did not take that long
If you were a DPS without cc (if you were a hybrid, basically), you had a hard time finding dungeon groups.
not that hard, a group needed only 1 cc maybe 2
Most hybrid DPS still sucked.
hybrid tax
Karazan was overtuned and undergeared. At launch, it mostly rewarded blues, not epics.
pretty sure it rewarded epics since the launch and how exactly was it overtuned? cause you couldnt clear it in 1 night so early?
Nearly every raid was broken in some fashion, the conspiracy theory was that it was artificial blocking by Blizzard because content wasn't finished.
every raid has bugs
The step from Kara raids to 25 mans destroyed so many guilds.
well yeah only strong guilds could raid 25mans. if a guild is filled with people who dont care enough or were impatient it wasnt going to get far
Attunements created so much difficulty for raid recruiting
i think it was great to not be able to skip content like you can today
Arena sounded great until people realized it was only great if you were a Resto Druid, Disc Priest, Arms Warrior, Rogue, Lock, or Mage. Hybrids need not apply, again.
Holy Paladins were good for season one until people realized you could zerg them to force bubble then kill them.
rarely pvp-ed so cant comment on that
Quest gear design was all over the place. Great for transmogging now, but everyone looked goofy then.
true only the dedicated had a matching set
Most casuals said screw it and pvp'd to gear up. Even raiders used pvp to fill in gear slots. Blizzard didn't like this.
i dont remember exactly how that was but didnt it take alot longer to get gear trough pvp?
Resilience didn't fix it.
ew pvp
Warriors were still the best tanks for most of the expansion. Paladins didn't shine until the end when they could pull entire dungeons at once. Druid tanks were on a buff/nerf rollercoaster for most of the expansion.
warriors were the best all-round tanks, paladins were the aoe tanks and druids were the hard hitting boss tanks
Ret and Prot Paladins got a complete stat revamp twice in the same expansion.

There was a lot to like about TBC. I enjoyed it, even as a casual. But it was still deeply flawed. It fixed some problems from Vanilla, but introduced others. But that's every expansion. People fondly remember Wrath too, and it was the same deal, some good, some bad. There's people who liked Cata too, and one day people will look back on MoP fondly too.

The beauty of nostalgia is that people mostly remember the good, and very little of the bad. But there's something to be said about flaws too. The more effort it takes to get something, the more you'll remember it, even if the memory isn't a good one. A lot of the nostalgia about TBC is that people had fun and made memories despite all of its problems.

When someone asks you why you think tbc was great do you start off with ''i didnt like how only druids could summon anzu" or something positive?
ofc it had a lot of bad stuff(some were a necessary evil) but the amount of good stuff simply overshadowed it, most importantly it was awesome in its CORE
i just feel sorry for people who were unlucky or just too bad to not have fun back then

[Shiny212]

you clearly havent paid attention in mists of pandaria. the pandaren ARE NOT pacifists they never have been and never will be, they are not against fighting by any means they are against WHY we fight, they dont fight out of hatred or rage they fight because they have to, they fight without emotion.

"Of course, you can refuse the mercy I have extended and confirm Tao-Long's suspicions. And then we will take the scroll from you, as well as your life. But don't think that this means we will simply kill you, thief. When the Shado-pan take your life, it means that your life comes into our possession. We will bind you, take your eyes, your feet, and all but two of your fingers so that you can feed yourself. Then you will be strapped to a mount and carried to our monastery high in Kun-Lai Summit. Upon your arrival, you will be placed on an ice-rimmed ledge to wait for our Truthseekers."
Here, the beer-dipped Shado-pan—Tao-Long—smirked and twisted his sword ever so slightly. It was obvious which option he preferred.
"The Shado-pan Truthseekers will teach you that the previous removal of your eyes was only the first and most gentle of our gifts. They will find out how you have been corrupted by the sha, what you know of their designs, and whether we should toss you to the canyon winds for judgment."

and the pandaren were never a joke in warcraft, when warcraft 3 was being made the concept of pandaren was put up as an april fools saying they were going to be one of the factions in warcraft 3, when people found out they werent they were so mad blizzard decided to actually put them in warcraft 3 and eactually write large amounts of lore for them which were in the rpg books, which almost the entirety of was left in tact in mists with only one thing changed, pandaria was nolonger always an island but was originally part of kalimdor.

samwise never viewed the pandaren as a joke, they were and are his favorite creations he would draw for his daughter and family and friends. samwise even goes so far as to call them the boba fett of the warcraft universe. they have never since their inclusion to wow been viewed by blizzard as a joke ever. and they were never comic relief, they had comic relief attributes but the pandaren are not themselves comic relief in fact some of the darkest stories in wow have been told in mists of pandaria through the pandaren.

and the new star trek films are completely different, those are on a seperate timeline then the star trek series anything different in the movies or not fitting doesnt matter because its an entirely seperate timeline.

Well at least you're not one of the mad trekkies that can appreciate the new films. But to my knowledge, pandaren were a joke, and the only way you'd ever see them in WC3 was by completing a sheep related side quest. And I don't find the stories dark, I find the whole idea of Sha contrived and forced. And Yeah I'm aware theyre not pacifist but they advocate a passive anti-war message to the game.

Even the fact that they join one faction and fight against other pandaren and the supposed attitude according to Metzen would be "whats up brah" is just plain silly and not in keeping with this world of WAR. And they ARE comic relief, all you need to do is LOOK AT THEM, they're fat and look generally silly. On other count I'll just have to disagree, and you're right I haven't immersed myself in MoP lore like I did TBC or any other warcraft lore, but that's because it threw me off spectacularly after hitting 90, and doing the first few raids.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia mostly.. Also no new retarded races like pandas or goblins and no new classes to be op everywhere. Really good unique design and serious, even dark overall tone. Everything else... Honestly when I was playing it -- I hated it. I wanted back to Azeroth. Now I only feel nostalgic love towards TBC.

[Deleted]

I could take the game more seriously, screw Pandaren.

[Eldrad]

I doubt the OP reads a comment this far in...

But here it goes, simple, #1 reason...

EVERYONE AND THEIR FREAKING DOG WAS PLAYING WoW AT THIS POINT.
People who didn't game at all, signed up during TBC. WoW was being referenced in TV shows and commercials, etc..
It was "cool" to play WoW during this time frame.
I had 7 RL friends playing WoW with me back then and we had a Guild together that did weekly Kara runs. We could only do 10 man stuff, but still, it was hella fun.
Now I have 1 RL that still plays. I think that is how it is for most people.

That is the #1 reason, plus all the other ones people have already listed.

[RickJamesLich]

World bosses, heroic scenarios, challenge modes, normal raids, heroic raids and soon flex raids all require "socialization" to complete. I'm not even gonna bother with your progression argument because it makes no sense. If complicated attunements is your idea of progression then so be it.

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Yoda is not comic relief. Do you even know what the word means?

World bosses don't really require it, considering you need no sort of planning, and some like Nalak have been 5 man'ed even lol... come on man, have you tried a world boss? lol. Challenge modes, yes, but who honestly runs those besides if you want the transmog? They offer no progression. Normal raids, yes, heroic raids..... flex... I'm not so sure this will have "socialization" quite yet, we will see, but I got a feeling they will not.

So out of that, we got normal, heroic raiding, and heroic scenarios.... keep in mind this is all stuff at 90, so anyone leveling up is going to miss out on these and out of these, a very casual portion of the population misses out still.

And my progression thing stems from LFR, which many players are trapped in right now believe it or not lol. Progression was killed because you end up clearing the place on the first try generally, without the gear you need. So the gear you get from there really provides no use to you besides for dailies. Personal question, did you actually play vanilla or BC? Be honest.