Hybrid tax was still a thing in TBC, it was just much lesser and Blizzard was starting to approach the other specs as being more than just their defined role. Though Warriors were generally always seen as more than just tanks.
BC was when I had my first max-level characters.
Lock, then:
Priest, Paladin, Druid.
From Wrath, I focused on tanking.
I only care about Vanilla / TBC / Wrath.
Everything after that is a dumpster fire.
Cata was the height of WoW. Best instances and raids. MoP too (but I didnāt put in the time to enjoy it. It actually may have even made questing interesting! for the first [and only] time ever*).
*Except for Cata, which had some very, very interesting questlines.
Shadowlands is not classic+, itās retail. Classic + is deviating from previous release path of 2.0 for tbc. Adding raids or dungeons from retail, into this current version of classic, would make it classic+. You would have do somethings the same and some things completely different.
lol.
Retail is Classic+.
You are talking about an unpopular deviation from the game. Go make it! See how popular it is.
Cata was good, but it wasnāt the best of WoW - not in general, but maybe to you.
I certainly liked Cata early - triage healing was my favourite healing style - but it got boring quickly after they caved. Still good content with Firelands.
Objectively or subjectively, right? Well, how do we measure such a thing?
I mean, to each their own, but I wouldnāt call Cata the best raids. Firelands was really good, but DSā¦ ugh.
Iām sorry Thrall dropped me into the abyss too many times on the deathwing fight to forgive that raid.
You could use subs, or maybe the average opinion of the playerbase. Cata is severely underappreciated, but itās not the Golden Age.
I quit before DS, soā¦ I didnāt suffer at all in Cata. It was glorious for me.
If I knew how to do it, it would be fun to try.
So, money? Some people say Blizz only cares about money. That could mean that they only care about making the game the best they possibly could, which would be confirmed by subscriptions, but I donāt know what they mean.
What is Golden Age then, and why? (For me, Cata is the height of WoW).
MoP though too, and Arenas in WoD. Legion Raidsā¦ unfortunately I didnāt give BFA much of a chance after the first raid tier, but that was a very good raid! (and the instances in BFA are pretty amazing.
I donāt like daily grinds. I donāt like grinding to build power on gear, and I donāt like RNG for Titanforging.
I havenāt bothered to learn the corruption system at all, because I would rather not play than learn it. I HATE it. HATE.
So, Iāll quietly leave until things change.
Subscriptions are really the only way to determine player interest as a whole, though. And they peaked in Wrath (though notably, was the first time subscription growth slowed and then stopped).
Launch to Wrath end, essentially. Based on subscriptions and player opinion even though I didnāt like Wrath as much.
End of Wrath we got icky LFD, which quickly pushed into them nerfing heroics. I also noticed a distinct art style change and shift when Wrath ended. It went from detailed/ornate armor to some sort of chunky style.
The zones were interesting in Cata, but the lore began to take a dive for me. Apparently Deathwing has a rich history that they bombed pretty hard on presenting to the main story line.
Cataclysm also introduced LFR, which in my experience is a bunch of AFKs, troll specs, leeches, or people who couldnāt be damned to do their role/do boss mechanics.
Each expansion past Wrath had good things in it, it wasnāt all bad, but to me the changes they began end of wrath into Cataclysm was the beginning of a downward spiral of caving in to the wrong crowd.
How true is that?
APEX Legends, for example is a game that you can play for free. Should it be rated on sub numbers or aggregate payments?
Likewise for WoW? Do sub numbers matter more than revenue? Why?
Iād rather experience TBC
Cata had some of the best ever dungeons. Grim Batol is maybe my favorite instance ever, and Iām glad itās part of the Timewalking Instances, though I think every instance should be.
Cata instance bosses had raid boss mechanics, and that made them incredibly fun.
Yes. I agree. Mythic should be the only raid difficulty. If you cannot compete, then you cannot. Thatās fair.
I very much dislike that there are raid tiers that degrade the prestige of being better than others.
Yes. Ghostcrawler did a lot of damage to the game.
Weāre talking specifically about WoW, a subscription based MMO. Subscriptions are the easiest way to determine the popularity of the game.
Thatās an easy and simply way to look at it.
Catering to those who would spend more could lead to more revenue. That may not be the same as more subs.