When did Modern WoW start?

[ohwell]

It's funny how everyone tries to lump in WotLK together with Vanilla and TBC, when in fact it was the one expansion that transformed the game the most into what it's now during its course. The only thing it was missing from being pretty much more or less the same thing as what came next (besides being the last expansion that could easily build on top of Warcraft 3 story) is Mythic+.

So anyway, Vanilla was an entirely different thing from anything else later on, where they didn't really know what they want to do, and everything was new for everyone. Vanilla to TBC is the biggest change in the history of WoW. So if I had to pick arbitrary points in game where the changes were the largest, the first one would be Vanilla->TBC transition for giving the game a direction (as well as removing most of world pvp besides specified locations thanks to addition of flying), then possibly mid-WotLK for adding all of the quality of life stuff, and then Legion launch for adding Mythic+.

Then again, there were some less important changes that affected some people much more than others. Personally, Cataclysm making 10 man raiding legitimate, and then WoD killing it were two more important points, but that's mostly my personal preference for smaller groups and more personal influence, that clearly not everyone shares.

Expansions between WotLK and Legion did gradually modify game mechanics, the way classes play (e.g. using 2 buttons every a few seconds no longer was a valid DPS rotation), etc., but the changes were not drastic, so it's hard to justify picking a random point and saying it's a new era of anything.
On the other hand, there are some changes that nostalgic people like to pretend changed the game in any significant way, such as cross realm play or LFR.

Yeah I think Vanilla TBC are in their own cluster, then WotLK to MoP, then WoD to now.

[Minikin]

There are generally three pillars upon with successful MMO's are built. The social aspect, the world, and the game.

WotLK destroyed the social aspect of the game, it damaged guilds so badly that they added the guild reward system in Cata to try to repair it, and dungeon finder made it so you didn't have to talk to anyone to progress.

It also did serious harm to the world, your character stopped being an explorer/traveler and became the hero. Rather than coming across some people who were desperate, who saw you as someone with a sword who could help, you became the savior. The world stopped existing outside of the players actions.

Finally, the gameplay lost it's focus. Classes began to lose their distinct advantages and disadvantages, abilities began to just sprout up to cover perceived deficiencies of classes, everything began to run together and feel the same. Classes began to lose their moments to shine in favor of everyone doing the same-ish (except DKs, fuck DKs).

There were changes before this that were negative toward these pillars, and certainly the introduction of the flying mount in TBC did not go the way the developers originally intended, but the three pillars were heavily damaged to the point of WoW basically being a new game during WotLK. Since then, it's just been a zombie lurching forward, every two years it "resets" itself and players flood back with hope that WoW will have recaptured the magic it once had, only to discover quicker and quicker that the game is not what they wanted. That began with WotLK.

100% agree.

Mind you. I have always wondered what it means "flying didn't go the way they intended". What did they intend?

[Peacemoon]

Legion definitely

[Zka]

3 biggest crimes in my book that made retail wow crap:

1) increasing encounter complexity instead of increasing difficulty - this started as soon as end of LK, but definitely arrived in Cata

2) character power obtainable through super dumbed down and boring solo gameplay, but not obtainable with normal mmo gameplay (that is instances, raids, pvp)

3) features that have the primary or sole fuction of wasting player gametime: timegates, weekly maxes (which are actually weekly minimums), war campaign questlines, hard to traverse terrain, mob aggro everywhere outdoors, travel time ever increasing, rares take time and effort to activate and I could go on, it's really brutally rampant now and they have been clealry going full force with these recently.

3+1) not quite sure, but borrowed powers seem to be a bad idea now. It was much better to get a few new trained skills and talentable skills every expansion while saying goodbye to a few others. Now we get complex and timeconsuming systems to get something that should have been a talent point.

There is no hard breakpoint between classic and modern wow, it happened between end of LK and start of Legion, it was more like a gradual transition. Also, it is still ongoing. Complexity is still increasing for no proper reason, timesinks are still growing - at least I can figure out the reason there. (some stupid KPI imposed by incompetent management)

[Echo of Soul]

Isle of thunder and siege of orgrimmar and the beautiful zones and good story of pandaria were shit? Lol okay dude. We get it. You don't like pandas. Doesn't make the content shit.

I was mostly referring to Cata. MOP was a very enjoyable expansion from start to finish and most importantly it gave casual players reasonable gear progression, something to work towards over time. Granted I was a raider at the time but I could still appreciate things like rep gear and burdens of eternity off the timeless isle for the casuals.

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WotLK destroyed the social aspect of the game, it damaged guilds so badly that they added the guild reward system in Cata to try to repair it, and dungeon finder made it so you didn't have to talk to anyone to progress.

This has since been fixed. You need a guild and you need to make premade groups if you want to accomplish anything of value in WoW nowadays. Being on your own and using the group finder doesn't get you anywhere.

[sam86]

You did challenge modes, mythic raiding, garrison invasions etc without ever chatting? Interesting. WoD was crap expansion but seriously, Wrath was more solo friendly than WoD was. You could do everything in game in Wrath except cutting edge raiding without an organised group. There was nothing outside of progression raiding that wasnt easily gotten into solo/casually along with catchup gear obsoleting the previous tier entirely so you could skip previous raids entirely.

TBC if you think you got better than raid gear from badges then you are delusional. You got a couple of items which were near quality to the max raid loot. And it was tied behind group content that wasnt readily puggable until near the end and/or raiding. TBC you needed a group to even get through attunements to get into heroic dungeons let alone touching raids. You also needed group content to get the materials to make decent crafting items.

attunements were removed early in TBC, badge gear was better than BT/MHJ and u even get gems from it, TBC patch 2.4 u can easily (still need lot of playing) get gear better than raiding by doing hcs (which wasn't lfg thing yet), specially since TBC each class had its unique status and almost no 2 classes share same gear
I'm not delusional since literally my friend protadin did that to get to raiding, and i was in a 10 men guild almost all rl friends except me and someone else,

Legion. Sadly.

I really don't understand why people glorify Legion that much. It was really, REALLY bad expansion in my eyes. Endless rng grind-fest is NOT fun. + all classes are RUINED since legion.

because they were amazing on short term, if i knew from day 1 legion launch that artifact is just this exp and will be deleted after exp end i may not bought it, i literally bought it thx to artifact trailer and how amazing it was
it is same thing as wrath lfg, i loved it, and i was stupid for liking it, what i thought is finally i can do a dungeon at 3:00 am, but what happened is it killed social part of wow
Legion ideas were great IF they stayed, what we had is taste something we can never get, and yes i call it taste because of 14 years of wow when something exist for just 2 years it is taste at best

[Zig Zug]

Fixed that for ya

Gear score feels hurt by this.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Between Cata and MoP for sure.

[Kalivox]

Cata / MoP. Cata still had the old talent system so i'd say MoP

[Tsamane]

The question will the next era start, and what will define it

[Kuntantee]

WoD

/10 chars

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Cata / MoP. Cata still had the old talent system so i'd say MoP

Old talent system was replaced in Cata iirc.

[Necromantic]

Fixed that for ya

Sad but very true.

The game was a blast when doing harder dungeons was about bringing the player or the class rather than scour for scores. That totally ruined that aspect for me.

[lolmmofuture]

The question will the next era start, and what will define it

with modern blizzard, no chance for a next era, and even if it happens, no hope in it lol

[LordVargK]

WoD

/10 chars

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Old talent system was replaced in Cata iirc.

It was replaced in cata, but not with the current one. That came in MoP. Cata still had skill trees, just shorter ones.

[Varaben]

It was replaced in cata, but not with the current one. That came in MoP. Cata still hat skill trees, just shorter ones.

Oh crap I didn't realize Cata still had full talent trees. They were different, but still looked pretty similar. Kinda wish we'd kept the Cata system...

[Thage]

Cataclysm is generally recognized as the beginning of the 'modern era' of World of Warcraft, as it was the "true" beginning of the large-scale reorientation in the game that WotLK took steps toward (WotLK is generally lumped in with Vanilla and TBC since the three expansions formed a narrative arc and the core gameplay of each expansion built on the last, while Cataclysm saw large-scale changes to all classes). Mists of Pandaria refined gameplay shifts Cataclysm started, and heavily simplified the talent system. Warlords of Draeneor saw large-scale ability pruning and the earnest beginning of temporary systems with Garrisons, so the 'transition trilogy' of Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor could be seen in entirety as the beginning of modern WoW, itself exemplified by the narrative trilogy of Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands.

[Drench]

Fixed that for ya

na people had gearscore back in the day. Didn't matter if you had achievements or full clear. Only gear.

[Necromantic]

Cataclysm is generally recognized as the beginning of the 'modern era' of World of Warcraft, as it was the "true" beginning of the large-scale reorientation in the game that WotLK took steps toward (WotLK is generally lumped in with Vanilla and TBC since the three expansions formed a narrative arc and the core gameplay of each expansion built on the last, while Cataclysm saw large-scale changes to all classes). Mists of Pandaria refined gameplay shifts Cataclysm started, and heavily simplified the talent system. Warlords of Draeneor saw large-scale ability pruning and the earnest beginning of temporary systems with Garrisons, so the 'transition trilogy' of Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor could be seen in entirety as the beginning of modern WoW, itself exemplified by the narrative trilogy of Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands.

Cata semi-started to modernize with LFR but I'd take it over what we have now without

na people had gearscore back in the day. Didn't matter if you had achievements or full clear. Only gear.

GS wasn't the poopfest we have now. Sure, some people may have gotten rejected due to their "score" but not to the magnitude of today. Nobody back then ever said "LFM Naxx, must be full ICC geared!"

[Drench]

Cata semi-started to modernize with LFR but I'd take it over what we have now without



GS wasn't the poopfest we have now. Sure, some people may have gotten rejected due to their "score" but not to the magnitude of today. Nobody back then ever said "LFM Naxx, must be full ICC geared!"

Yes they did.

They also had dumb rules even up to cata. Where rogues had to have stage 3 daggers or no invite and stuff like that. It has been that bad since wotlk.

[Gestopft]

Nobody back then ever said "LFM Naxx, must be full ICC geared!"

Uhhh yeah they did. "Have a higher gear level than the dungeon" has always been a thing. All the the mods of today have really done is make the information easier to see in-game.