Originally Posted by
Claymore
I think the OP's post is a tremendous over-simplification, but not entirely off-base.
Wrath WAS incredibly popular, and indeed, it had arguably the most catch-up mechanics of any expansion to date. I think it was also helped that A) it had already build a MASSIVE following from the hardcore gaming community during Vanilla and TBC, and B) it was able to lean heavily on Arthas and his story, which was both something fans wanted more of, and was a character easily relateable as a "mainstream" character (very much in the vein of Darth Vader; people love fall-from-grace storylines).
Ultimately, while Wrath did a lot of great things, I think part of the issue is that we didn't really feel the true ramifications for its many changes until Cataclysm. Really, Cataclysm wasn't *MECHANICALLY* that different from Wrath. But it no longer had a story or setting that people connected with (Blizzard really hit on the rise "viking" stuff in pop-culture), and we started feeling the negative impact of changes originally set during Wrath. For example, Dungeon Finder was a phenomenal tool when people were used to spending sometimes hours putting together or finding groups. But by Cataclysm, we'd begun to see people abusing the system, being assholes with zero consequence, stuff like that.
I really do think Blizzard would do well to make WoW more of an "RPG" once again, giving more choice to players (even if it means some "choices" are less competitive than others), making the world something you interact with more, personally investing more into individual characters (I would actually like to see Specs made a little more "permanent", maybe only getting one talent reset a month or having to "un-level" to refund skill points one at a time).
I'd also say, the story has really kind of gone off the rails (and a "faction war" ceases to be interesting when -- by simple virtue of both factions being playable -- there CANNOT be a definitive "victor" in the conflict). I think Blizzard should consider some kind of a "reset button". I look forward to WoW Classic for much the same reason, but I think it would be a huge benefit if some major event occurred, and it completely changed the world. I've personally posed that maybe a time-skip would work; maybe almost all life on Azeroth is extinguished, but the Titan-Soul of Azeroth protects you and a few others, and "re-awakens" you in the distant future, when nature has reclaimed most of the world. Sort of a "Zelda: Breath of the Wild" vibe, where you're considered an "Ancient" by the tribes and clans that have sprung up since.
It would also be a great way to give the entire world a face-lift, and maybe reconcile some of the weird time-gaps between expansions (I suppose Warlords of Draenor could remain largely the same).