When did Modern WoW start?

[enigma77]

Legion.

As I see it there are 3 periods: Classic - Wrath; Cataclysm - WoD; Legion - Shadowlands.

Catalysm - WoD was the worst by far imo.

[Ihazpaws]

When Activision started to make decisions what should be in the game.

[Cringefest]

I clearly remember the introduction of LFG at the end of WOTLK.
I really liked WOTLK but the reality is the game started changing inthe very last few patches of that expansion. Cata brought in the linear questing, silly references and all. MoP gave it the final blow with pandas.
That's how it worked out for me anyway.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think there are 3 rather distinct eras in wow mostly marked by their design philosophy.

• Vanilla to mid Wrath

• Mid Wrath to End of MoP

• WoD until today

You can take your pick where it changed to something you no longer enjoyed.

Edit: Well I guess distinct might be a bit overstating it. For me my list seems to capture where most of the core aspects shifted, but for individual changes to each aspect of the game the boarders are probably more fluent. I tried to adress this by not counting all of wrath towards the 1st era for example. I think the geneal consensus from what I've seen in this thread is that the game changed around these points, the exact spot might just be hard to nail down.

Like for me WoD was already the current era, as the game's structure changed so drastically with full focus on secondary progression and integration of external systems, wheres others would ascribe that first to legion.

[Cringefest]

TBC had dungeon tokens that gave raid lvl gear. Hell some really strong weapons came from the Isle of Quel'Danas vendors.

Yeah but it wasn't a walk in the park. WOTLK introduced the "gogogo" tanking.

[kranur]

TBC added arena and catch-up mechanism via badges and "free" pvp gear which was also decent in pve.

Wrath added multiple raid difficulties and sizes and random dugeon finder. Also made raids and heroics a lot more accsessible.

Cata streamlined the questing experience and changed the old world and added LFR.

MoP added the modern talents and flex raid size.

WoD refined the raid sizes and introduced mythic mode in raids and dungeons.

Legion added M+ and systems.

BfA and SL followed the Legion style.

So from that, the most impactful steps towards modern WoW I'd say were WotLK, MoP and Legion

[terminaltrip421]

whenever they time-gated flying behind patches. that's when I started taking expansion-long breaks.

[Uoyredrum]

I would say MoP or WoD. Cata is sometimes cited but it's sort of in that weird transitional state where it still maintained a lot of the features and gameplay from classic -> wrath, but it was starting to move away. MoP is when talent trees changed and we started getting a bunch of extra systems like the farm and scenarios. WoD is when things really shifted by if I had to pick a "beginning" of the the downhill slide of WoW known as the modern era, it'd be MoP. And it's not that I think MoP was bad, but a lot of modern systems kinda started in MoP or were more solidified there.

But I think that one of the main differences between MoP and newer expansions like BFA and SL is that the systems they added into MoP were actually good and integrated with the core gameplay loop in a meaningful way. They felt rewarding and it never felt like the developers were just adding systems to bandaid wounds caused by other systems. That's basically what we have now because the core design philosophy of the game is such garbage now and the devs do not listen or take any kind of criticism and take years to fix obvious problems.

I should also say that MoP is the first expansion where I quit WoW. I played nonstop from vanilla naxx until sometime in MoP when monks in 2v2 made me quit the game. So that might also color my opinion on this.

[Therougetitan]

Classic/BC/Wrath is the original trilogy and wrapping of W3 storylines.

Cata/MoP/WoD they realized that WoW could go long term and had to make up expansions as they went and learn to plan in advance. Also learning long-term things like they can't add abilities every single expansion without bloat. Garrosh arc is mainly these three too.

Legion/BfA/SL is the most stabilized story and the modern systems. It began the united seasons of raid/pvp/keystones sharing one together. Sylvanas latest arc are these expacs too.

[Pendragon]

Cata. It's when WoW started going downhill in most aspects.

[D3athsting]

Cata. It's when WoW started going downhill in most aspects.

Including subs

[Lei]

Legion.

As I see it there are 3 periods: Classic - Wrath; Cataclysm - WoD; Legion - Shadowlands.

Catalysm - WoD was the worst by far imo.

How is cata any different from wrath? We still had the same thinking in endgame: badges, rep vendor gear, gearing process, reputations, outdoor world content etc.

[Cringefest]

How is cata any different from wrath? We still had the same thinking in endgame: badges, rep vendor gear, gearing process, reputations, outdoor world content etc.

Quite a lot changed in terms of content, writing I suppose, but also aesthetics. Questing was streamlined, every zone had 1 path to follow. Also, really important, your character became THE focal centre of your faction. As undead, you literally save sylvanas' life at level 8 or smth along those lines. That imo is what made Cata what it was. I'm not a hardcore gamer though, I spent cata doing mostly bgs and arena.

[Grand Warlock Phyrus]

it all started in patch 3.3, in my opinion.

[Daronokk]

Late Wrath of the Lich King with instant queue and Cataclysm is where modern WoW started.

[Cringefest]

it all started in patch 3.3, in my opinion.

Yeah I was looking it up myself, that's when LFG was brought in. I totally agree with you, the biggest change imo.

[Lei]

Quite a lot changed in terms of content, writing I suppose, but also aesthetics. Questing was streamlined, every zone had 1 path to follow. Also, really important, your character became THE focal centre of your faction. As undead, you literally save sylvanas' life at level 8 or smth along those lines. That imo is what made Cata what it was. I'm not a hardcore gamer though, I spent cata doing mostly bgs and arena.

I mean if you make such a distinction between wrath and cata then what would you call WoD or Legion? Both in systems (max level gameplay) and story writing, direction of the game in general.

[ldev]

WotLK

Standard raid sizes - 10 or 25 man, you choose. Raid difficulties via drop down, or cooler way to activate Heroic mode in Ulduar. No longer some raids were different sizes or difficulties.
Standard DPS spec - balancing started to make DPS specs viable and equal between themselves. Gone are the days of non pure DPS classes who were supposed to do less damage than pure DPS specs, because they bring "utility".
Dungeon finder - hey ho.
Also stupid specs that were just for flavor - like Survival Hunter - were made real specs. Skills were streamlined - like Mutilate became useful and doesn't require to be used only from behind.

[Zakajz]

vanilla / wotlk = wow 1
cata / wod = wow 2
legion / ? = wow 3

[Cringefest]

I mean if you make such a distinction between wrath and cata then what would you call WoD or Legion? Both in systems (max level gameplay) and story writing, direction of the game in general.

Yeah well yes but if we're talking about changes from original wow that's when I'd say it happened first. I personally found legion a step forward in terms of content, but that's personal. The questing in cata was beyond appalling.