I have now played every single version of World of Warcraft. Every expansion, every classic version including SOD. Read books, comics, etc and two decades later since Warcraft III to WOTLK nothing will top the Lich King (class spoils it)
This is mostly geared LORE wise. I don’t think WotLK is the pinnacle of gaming. But story and theme and feel wise? Nothing beats it. Original Warcraft had an amazing GROUNDED, down-to-Azeroth, high fantasy setting and wasn’t all over the place in 100 different ways like it has been since Shadowlands (arguably earlier)
Even after the total embarrassing desecration of the lore the writers in 1999 and 2002 cooked up in Shadowlands (I still remember being baited after Legion, and by the Shadowlands youtube thumbnail)
And after all the “ERM, ACTUALLY NONE OF THAT MATTERED AND THIS HECKIN BIG BIG SUPER BAD GUY WAS BEHIND IT ALL!!!” Wrath, WC The Frozen Throne, and all of the little snippets I get (Legion DK questline, a lot of the cool stuff in Season of Discovery, etc) nothing they write up, no matter how much “This time it’s a universe level threat mkay” will top the Lich King and the culmination of 15 years of lore at the Frozen Throne.
PS: #GiveFrostDKsFrostmourne
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I’m glad you have an expansion you liked so much! 
For a lot players it was the end of Classic-Era after WoTLK so I think you’ll have many players share your sentiment. I’m on Classic Anniversary and I’ve got 1/2 a mind to stay in WoTLK this time if they give us the option tho nothing has been said yet.
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I agree. And it actually got me to play through (most of) the Warcraft 3 campaign before wrath launched so I could be more caught up with the lore. I think it was a wonderful conclusion to the story of Arthas that was started in Warcraft 3.
Nothing has topped it for me since then, and probably nothing will. And that is okay, I don’t necessarily need another Wrath. I do like the modern retail game, but it definitely is missing some of that early WoW “magic” but I think that’s not anything specific to WoW. After all I’ve been playing Warcraft games literally since Warcraft was a game at all.
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I’m a wrath baby and I will even admit myself I think TBC is better than WotLK in terms of “classic wow” gameplay. Still love the zones and vibe to it. Modern wow is one of the better looking games imo, and I’m not a total hater either. I thought Legion was AMAZING, everything else has been pretty decent.
But the established lore and characters have not been done justice. It seems like after Legion and the Burning Legion was gone everything kind of went haywire. In ONE xpack we were introduced to something supposedly more dangerous than the Legion, and then they instantly got rid of them.
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I enjoyed wrath back when it was current and Arthas is the best character in the Warcraft universe, (Anakin Clone) but I replayed wrath again with classic and it did not hold up for me at all, TBC Is better than wrath and Legion is FOR sure better in my opinion.
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I think it was a hard sell.
BC and Wrath could build on a lot of the love we had over the previous years, Cata onwards has been new.
I am glad they continued though I’d rather they gave it a go and we have the game we have now, than none at all.
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Had more fun with Legoin and BFA. Started with Vanilla and played each expansion to some degree or another. Everybody has their favs.
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I think Wrath benefitted from having basically the perfect setup for an expansion.
It was coming off the heels of WoW’s first expansion, so the player base was more used to the idea of an expansion. When TBC was on the horizon nobody really knew what to expect. But unlike later expansions, the idea of an expansion was still really new and exciting.
We had just spent ~2 years in a broken alien world floating in the twisting nether, Wrath was a chance to return to the familiar skies of Azeroth.
The whole expansion had a very unique and amazing feeling about it. With the Norse inspired visuals, the music, the northern lights, the snow, just everything about it really came together to deliver a great atmosphere for Northrend.
It completed the story of Arthas, WoW’s best villain and probably the most recognizable character.
Anyone who played Warcraft 3 would have loved the story, and even those who didn’t would enjoy it.
Wrath was also the expansion that really expanded all specs to be raid viable. Feral druids could be a competitive DPS, for example.
It was able to build off of the dungeon wings that TBC had to great success.
And the questing was more up to modern standards, with more quests that could be done in one place then turned in all at once instead of vanilla or even some in TBC that were just annoying.
Not to mention the expansion launch was so smooth, probably owing to there being two starter zones. TBC and vanilla were really rough with massive queues and server lag and all that.
Basically, Wrath was able to take everything that TBC had started and just make it all more refined and better and even finished the Warcraft 3 story. It was setup to be the perfect expansion, or as close as one could have, for the time it was launched.
It might not hold up as well now, and even throughout WOTLK people had complaints about it, but it was hands down the best possible expansion WoW could have had right after TBC.
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Lich King was a dumb enemy, ripped off Star Wars, only WC3 babies liked him.
WoW could still ride on the well received story telling of WC3 with the TBC and WotLK expansions - even though TBC pretty much spit in the face of those characters they featured using them as nothing more than loot piñatas.
After that it was all downhill as the people responsible for WC3 story telling probably weren’t at the company anymore - either that or WC3 was lightning in a bottle and they were one-hit wonders.
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Agreed, for me WOTLK was the start of WOW being a good game.
We got our conclusion to WC3 TFT’s story, not to mention the combat and gameplay got a lot better.
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I liked him. I was 28 when When WC3 released. You got something else to say son?
Why pick a Dwarf when a Troll is more fitting.
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Northrend is one of the most boring continents I’ve ever had to quest through, only slightly topped by Outland. For this alone, I am glad timewalking leveling exists.
Cata was the beginning of the end for them, it was the first expansion to actually lose subs, a trend each expansion afterwards not only followed, but by WoD exasperated to the point of losing most of the subs TBC and Vanilla earned them and WotLK kept.
I agree. When Deathwing few through he upended more than the surface of Azeroth, he changed the entire game. It was the end of the “classic” period and the beginning of a middle period. Then when DF and TWW came along with Dragon Flight, Follower Dungeons, Delves and Story Mode Raids they started a new era we now call Retail.
I actually like all three but they are different periods.
Yes, no question Cat, back in 2010 was the beginning of the end. Everyone believed WoW would be dead in two years which means it died and was gone by 2012. Oddly enough, in its “death” it has remained the number one MMO on the planet so apparently death hasn’t slowed it down very much.
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WC3 (and TFT) through Wrath was absolute peak Warcraft lore and story. I don’t think anything will ever top it either. However, I still find plenty of fun in the game.
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I’ve enjoyed all of them.
Each one has their pros and cons (more some than others) but even the ones that have more “issues” I still found things I liked about it and enjoyed.
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