What expansion do you think marked the golden age of WoW?

[Stormwindpeep]

…and what was it that made it that way for you?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If we are not allowed to pick vanilla (it was. Blizzard put off doing Classic for years and wanted to shut down Nostalrius because they didn't want to admit that they fucked up and people preferred how the game originally was to retail. Classic saved the subs) then clearly the golden age of WoW was TBC because that was the only expansion period in WoW's lifespan where the sub count was still rising throughout before it plateaued in WotLK. That was when the number of new accounts joining outweighed the number of veterans leaving the game. The masses were still checking out WoW, the earlygame experience was still good, and WoW still had retention factor.




My personal favorite expansion was MoP. I had never been as invested in WoW as I was in MoP. Aesthetics were great, story hadn't become kodo poo yet. The sheer amount of things to do, from the reputation questlines to the treasures to Timeless Isle to RBGs. Rated PvP was just as popular as raiding back then.




And ofcourse, the RP scene was still thriving due to the faction conflict theme. Massive events featuring hundreds of players happening multiple times per week, and lots of RP-PvP campaigns. Nothing like that now.

[Palapop]

"Golden age" is really... eh... In very literal meaning- that would be Vanilla.

But... you can easily see which expansions players liked the most: WOTLK, MOP, Legion.

And which expansions players hated the most: Shadowlands, WOD, some hate DF too for various reasons.

[ro9ue]

The original trilogy of Vanilla - BC - Wrath.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

So you're not asking what somebody believes the "golden age" to actually be, but what they think it is for them?

What conditions make it the golden age?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Dragonflight is the best expansion in my eyes, but that's mostly a product of the times. Its obviously got more content than an expansion such as Wrath, even though people would say Wrath was more successful.
For me, the best expansion given the era though would be MoP.
After playing Remix its obvious. The atmosphere, music, story, characters, lore, and characters are all amazing.
Far better than anything that came before, and better than almost everything that came after.
The thing that holds me up is the content. I remember HATING the dailies back in MoP.
But now I can't get enough of them.

I can only pray they do an authentic MoP Classic with the veil and golden lotus stuff fully restored so I can experience it all again with fresh eyes.

[Kaleredar]

Absolutely Wrath of the Lich King.

-Every zone's vibes were immaculate. The music from every zone is instantly recognizable and the art direction on every single one of them was fresh, interesting and clever.
-The dungeons were exceptional. Occulus was the one dud, but even it was trying something new.
-Ulduar is easily the best raid in WoW. Innovative encounter design. Great art and design. Storytelling built into the raid. Algalon.
-Icecrown citadel might not be the best raid in WoW, but it's pretty darn far up there. Two bangers in a row.
-The storytelling setups and payoffs vastly exceeded anything from Vanilla or BC, and frankly I'm more and more fond of its casual, show-don't-tell myriad of storytelling beats spread through casual quests than that of the long, stodgy and linear massive quest chains that basically dominate all questing of today.
-Dalaran is the best city hub ever designed. So good they just used it again in Legion. Valdraken is inoffensive but bland. Oribos was annoying. Ashran was boring and an utter letdown from the promise of Karabor/Bladespire. Pandaland was practical but too simple. Dalaran, though? It felt like an actual city. Easy to navigate, every corner and shop of the city was identifiable and had character.

Basically, WotLK marked the point where every point in WoW came together. Art direction, storytelling, zone design, music, raids, dungeons, quests. Honestly, it feels like the last expansion that was truly innovative on all fronts.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Dragonflight is the best expansion in my eyes, but that's mostly a product of the times. Its obviously got more content than an expansion such as Wrath, even though people would say Wrath was more successful.

Agreed!

Also, love checking out your vids. The pug stories are hilarious

[Kyphael]

Wrath for me. Mainstream, it was peak WoW,

[Elbob]

[/IMG]

woah there careful linking that image. We got people on this forum that think the 2nd picture has a y axis from 10-200 or something

[panasc]

More subscribers? Wrath. But the best expansion for me was Legion.

[Vonazak]

My personal golden age were Battle for Azeroth and Burning Crusade. Wrath started the decadence of this game but I enjoyed it. Legion was peak nu-WOW. Dragonflight was fun but lacked epicness.

[Echo of Soul]

clearly the golden age of WoW was TBC because that was the only expansion period in WoW's lifespan where the sub count was still rising throughout

I agree. The game was a little more difficult than Classic but not so much that it drove people away. As soon as they started creating more difficult content and locking people out of the best gear in the game people started leaving. Nobody wants to put in a lot of time for mediocre gear, they'd rather just quit and play something else.

FFXIV does this the right way, super hard content only rewards cosmetics and the highest tier of gear is accessible to everyone. Too bad the combat is shit and the graphics looks like Everquest.

[Ghostile]

…and what was it that made it that way for you?

Like nostalgia or actually good?
Cata is my nostalgia love, but I know it's rose tinted glasses and will stay away from classic.

Dragonflight is the best expansion I've played in years.
No need to grind borrowed power
Dungeons and raids are good

- - - Updated - - -

I agree. The game was a little more difficult than Classic but not so much that it drove people away. As soon as they started creating more difficult content and locking people out of the best gear in the game people started leaving. Nobody wants to put in a lot of time for mediocre gear, they'd rather just quit and play something else.

The average joe that didn't raid later in wow didn't raid in TBC either.

[Dancaris]

Lorewise? It was MoP. Worldbuilding? MoP. Fun of gameplay? to me - MoP. Storytelling was far better then any expansion up to date. Attention to details was far better then any expansion. Not too high bar to reach btw, but we have what we have.
Legion was ok, but dull. BC and WotLK was too grindy and too hardcore to me. DF is okeish, but lore gone places whre sun can not reach.
Other expansions - just shitshow.

[WowIsDead64]

We already know whole Wow's story:
1) Classic: xpack made on knee, where quest designers used random mobs, put by programmers. But it's called only true MMO, yeah. We had tons of myths about it. About friendly community and xpack's difficulty. Mostly caused by rose-tinted glasses.
2) TBC: Blizzard realized, what they wanted game to be, i.e. that leveling wasn't enough to keep players subbed, so they had to implement daily/weekly activities, like dailies, heroic dungeons and raids, but overall xpack was still meh.
3) WotLK: xpack had it's problems, like lack of content and bad balance, but LKs story was the best in Wow's history, so many RTS fans came to see it. It's xpack, where honeymoon period ended for many players. They learned to play effectively and started to burn out. But they blamed WotLK's casual-friendliness instead. It was xpack, where focus shifted towards session-based content, like dungeon runs, and there wasn't way back, so trying to return to Classic/TBC design was big mistake.
4) Cata: beginning of the end. Hardcores whined about WotLK's being xpack for babies and other players whined about Classic/TBC being the best xpacks ever made. And Blizzard listened to them and retconned Classic instead of making something new. So, while leveling was one of the best, endgame was extremely overtuned due to having WotLKs difficulty and Classic level of class mechanics. Game was literally unplayable.
5) MOP: instead of fixing Cata problems, Blizzard started to implement new ones. They started to abuse manipulative mechanics like FOMO for the first time in Wow's history. FOMO reps, FOMO dailies, etc. Not sure, if it was caused by competition with GW2 (that time's Wow killer), but they started their war against flying, that was definitely big mistake. It was also moment, when "old vs new" problem raised. Some players got sick of same stories and same characters, but when Blizzard were trying to make something new - other players were whining about "not Warcraft".
6) WOD: well known fail. Reason is still unknown. May be it was caused by release of Overwatch. May be due to hiring new team. I'm not sure. But it's development was abandoned after release and only Beta content was released at the end. Plus apogee of anti-flying campaign. 6.2 should obviously have been 6.1, when flying should have been released. But it was delayed and release of flying was also delayed due to made-up "we want to completely remove it" reason, while it was obviously impossible, as they would have to refund all paid flying mounts from shop then. Plus may be competition with Wildstar (another Wow killer), that was claimed to be TBC-like xpack and implemented long awaited features like housing.
7) Legion: xpack, that was successful only due to contrast with WOD. Blizzard used the worst mechanics to provide lots of "content" and players liked it at that moment. Plus xpack was relatively fun and had many features, players asked for. Artifacts were fun. Class halls were fun. But it's legacy completely ruined two subsequent xpacks. Plus lies about flying, that should have been available via achievement at release, but was delayed due to made up reasons (part of story, required for flying, released in future patches, yeah).
8) BFA: downfall. While idea of allied races was good, it was implemented badly. Terrible story. MOP 2.0, i.e. xpack where Blizzard tried to abuse made up PVP theme again. Beginning of that Sylvanas nonsense. Endless AP grind ruined whole xpack, as it made xpack alt-unfriendly. Later patches were way too overtuned for fresh characters. Corruption mechanic was interesting, but overall last patch's content was terrible.
9) SL: apogee of Wow's downfall. Even worse story. Abuse of permanent "choices". Switching from endless character power grind to endless cosmetic grind. But problem was still there. Casual/alt-unfriendly game. Nobody would grind 100k anima at 500/day rate. NOBODY. Many design mistakes, like if this xpack would have been designed by newbie designers. Uneven difficulty. Uneven quality of content. Broken reward system. RNG fraud. Exceeding mob density. I had become allergic to some broken obsoleted mechanics after this xpack.
10) DF: not sure. I haven't played it beyond free trial yet. May be it's better, than SL. But anything would be better, than worst xpack ever made. For now it doesn't look better, than BFA. Because it's still based on WQ grind in "sandbox" locations with forced group content. Only improvement - while I don't like dynamic flying, at least it's available at release and content is no longer designed around rat mazes, navigation and jump puzzles.
11) TWW: while it's definitely step in right direction, it's still full of half-measures. Again. As many times before that - the best features of xpack are "free" ones, i.e. ones, that aren't tied to new xpack. Like Warbands for example. No reason to buy new xpack again, as it doesn't provide anything, that would be worth buying.

TL;DR:

[potis]

So you're not asking what somebody believes the "golden age" to actually be, but what they think it is for them?

What conditions make it the golden age?

Probably the delusion that they think they peaked in either gameplay/"Fun" or achievements that they consider important.

Got many examples, the biggest one is, two friends that killed Xavius Mythic, 2 hours before the next patch, after the like 40% nerfs to the whole instance, along with the overall 30% buff to damage and 20% to stamina by the Artifact changes from the previous patch so we had something to farm.

They glorify Legion season 1 because of this etc.

[Thundering]

If i cant chose Vanilla its wotlk.

[Shadowferal]

High points were Vanilla and WotLK and MoP.

[Puri]

It's hard to give a single take. For me the best parts were clearly
Vanilla (which was very epic for me as my first real RP, I never forget the chills I got when I first entered SW, or the epic moment our raid group defeated cthun),
WotlK (which concluded the most epic wow storyline, again chills when I first defeated LK),
and Legion (purely out of gameplay reasons, there was so much to do, and with the introduction of m+ gave it a replayability as we've never seen before while allowing to play endgame without the hassle of organizing larger raid groups).