Which expansion was the absolute worst?

[Osmeric]

It was the point when Blizzard decided to make it more assessable that player churn increased. Up to that point the player base grew.

You cannot conclude that because the game stopped growing, churn increased. A more likely explanation, IMO, is that the potential audience was becoming saturated.

[oblakoff]

BFA and Legion because it's a direct follow up on the shit ending WOD had and it brought back some characters that should have not been brought back. Boring and stupid.
From a lore point of view and lore matters to me in games.

So WoD's time travel and MoP's Pandas are perfectly fine for the lore. Oooooook.

[MoanaLisa]

Warlords for me. I don't raid any longer and the content just wasn't there for what I like to do in the game.

I've been fine with the quantity of things to do in Legion and BfA (although I'm not and never have been a fan of BfA's story and premise). It's pretty clear to me that Blizzard decided that non-raiders were never going to lack for stuff to do after Warlords. There's a ton of complaints about the repetitive nature of it but it's not clear to me at all what else they could provide that would keep people doing things for months and months.

It's easy enough to leave for a while and return when there's new stuff and there are lots of other games to play so that theory of MMO design is all good by me.

[MrFawlty]

You cannot conclude that because the game stopped growing, churn increased. A more likely explanation, IMO, is that the potential audience was becoming saturated.

They started losing players as fast as they gained them - thats churn. It could be that at least some of it can be atributed to its natural saturation point but theres no doubt the player base was changed. We will never know what might of happened but I think Blizzard made a mistake one which themselves tried to reverse.

[Laytnor]

BFA and WOD are both bad, but for me, the worst is BFA.
The reason is quite simple. Despite all it's flaws, I've stayed subbed through a big chunk of WoD. Can't say the same about BFA.

[newt0n]

WOD was easily the worst, BFA a close second. /thread

[dextersmith]

Hmmm..... There's so many to choose from after wotlk!

[Osmeric]

They started losing players as fast as they gained them - thats churn. It could be that at least some of it can be atributed to its natural saturation point but theres no doubt the player base was changed. We will never know what might of happened but I think Blizzard made a mistake one which themselves tried to reverse.

You are not thinking clearly. If new players are being attracted at a steady or growing rate, and then that suddenly slows, then subs will stop growing, or even decline, even if the expected time that any given player stays in the game after they sub stays just the same.

[MoanaLisa]

They started losing players as fast as they gained them - thats churn. It could be that at least some of it can be atributed to its natural saturation point but theres no doubt the player base was changed. We will never know what might of happened but I think Blizzard made a mistake one which themselves tried to reverse.

World of Warcraft has always had a lot of churn. They've said so and the infographic they posted a few years ago demonstrates that. When new incoming players outnumber those that are leaving the numbers go up; when the game gets older and new players coming to the game slows (as it always does with most any entertainment title) then it's the opposite.

They still have a lot of churn: witness the avalanche of people that come back for expansions and then leave after 30-60 days. At this point in time with the MMO market the way it is that's to be expected. That's also churn although on a shorter time frame.

It's something of a miracle that Blizzard manages to get people to spend upwards of $160-$200 dollars a year on one single game.

It's also worthwhile to consider that WoW is an outlier among other MMO games. Setting WoW aside the business curve on other successful MMORPG titles has been more or less the same: a few hundred thousand signups followed by a slow decline over time. Millions were spent by other game studios trying to mimic WoW's success. At this point in history it's worth seeing that WoW's success is unique among its genre and not indicative of anything else.

[tyranade]

I hated MoP. That was the expansion when everything started going downhill and that expansion was created only to woe China. I left at the beginning and didn't return until Legion. I like BfA better than MoP.

[Ryzeth]

From a pure gameplay perspective Classic/Vanilla was the worst. Hard to argue otherwise, really. The only thing that was good about it was pretty much all professions being useful the entire duration of it. But TBC, Wrath and most of Cata also had that, soooo...

Story was bad.
Dungeons were bad. They weren't hard, either, people were just bad when they came out.
Leveling was drawn out and bad.
Raids were bad, whoever thought 40man raids were good ideas needs to be stabbed.
Traveling around was bad, fucking RIP to classes that had mandatory class quests that had you going back and forth between continents.
Professions were okay, albeit horrendous to completely cap.

Aside from professions, even BFA did all of these things significantly better. Hell I'd wager even professions are less monotonous.

Wrath > MoP > Cata > others in no particular order aside from Vanilla being dead last. Don't bother quoting me with your REEEEs, I'm not reading any of your garbage replies. Peace out.

[Aggrophobic]

It's funny, after a few months in Shadowlands but before it's even out. It seems to be the worse expansion by far.

[Graeham]

Cataclysm. I didn't like how the world revamp was handled and entire zones ended up filled with dumb quests that overshadowed everything else. Uldum and Redridge being two of the most notable examples. The game never shied away from joke quests but it had a degree of subtlety and restraint up until that point. Deathwing was also handled poorly and ended up just being an insane dragon instead of the cunning, charming schemer he was portrayed as prior. That aside, the new zones were all over the place. I did like Vashj'ir quite a bit since it was a new concept and dealt with lore elements I found enjoyable but overall it was the point I started losing interest in the game.

[MrFawlty]

You are not thinking clearly. If new players are being attracted at a steady or growing rate, and then that suddenly slows, then subs will stop growing, or even decline, even if the expected time that any given player stays in the game after they sub stays just the same.

Regardless the reason, the amount of subscriptions stopped growing when the game became more accessible. That maybe because less people were joining or more people were leaving - I think it was the later. You complain about the system of so called elitism but there’s no getting around it - the game grew when that was in place.

[Acelius]

For me it was WoD. I don't have time for raiding so having M+ and world quests in BfA really helps with staying engaged and having things to do.

[Kaver]

In WoD there was not much content to play but in BFA it seemed that Blizzard actively tried to make it harder for players to play the game. So I think BFA was worse.

- - - Updated - - -

For me it was WoD. I don't have time for raiding so having M+ and world quests in BfA really helps with staying engaged and having things to do.

But these things were added in Legion. I feel that BFA just took the game Legion had built and made it worse.

[Accendor]

Pandaland. Simply because of pandas.

If I want to see pandas, I go to the zoo.

If you want to see Tauren, do you go to the next farm? Arakora = bird watching? For Nagas just check out the next reptile store? Feral druids = animal shelter?
I could go on here

[Acelius]

In WoD there was not much content to play but in BFA it seemed that Blizzard actively tried to make it harder for players to play the game. So I think BFA was worse.

- - - Updated - - -



But these things were added in Legion. I feel that BFA just took the game Legion had built and made it worse.

I know, but since WoD and BFA are without a doubt the two worst expansions, I just explained why WoD pulled ahead as the worst.

[Osmeric]

Regardless the reason, the amount of subscriptions stopped growing when the game became more accessible. That maybe because less people were joining or more people were leaving - I think it was the later. You complain about the system of so called elitism but there’s no getting around it - the game grew when that was in place.

I suggest you have the cause and effect reversed. The game saturated the market, and the devs, looking to retain the players who were quitting, and who were overwhelmingly casual, made the game more like what those players wanted (and less like what the devs, being hardcores themselves, wanted.)

The notion that most players have been hardcore flies in the face of all evidence, from completion stats, from what happened when the devs tried to go back to hardcore (in Cataclysm), and from the experience in other MMOs that tried to be hardcore.

[ZazuuPriest]

BFA and WoD are both terrible but at least WoD didnt have azerite, essences and corruptions.