Era One - The Golden Era. Vanilla, TBC and Wrath. Solid story, solid game, solid buildup. All of our favorite baddies from Warcraft 3 RoC and TFT were propped up as antagonists and promptly dealt with by us, the players. A truly amazing experience. It could’ve all ended here, and I’m pretty sure that oldschool Blizz had intended for WoW to end here, which might have been why they chose to sell Blizzard off to Activision and merge around after they came up with Wrath.
Quote of the Era: “Tell them only that the Lich King is dead. And that World of Warcraft…died with him.”
Era Two - Era of Decline. Cataclysm continued the tradition of big bads being propped up from beginning to end, when they’re promptly dealt with by us, the players, with Deathwing, the biggest big bad we had to fight and the second biggest antagonist in World of Warcraft history. The old systems were removed (leveling weapons, old combat system, old leveling, etc) and things that were still around, such as the talent tree, were on their way out the door. Talents were no longer flexible, anyway, so it might as well have been gone. MoP effectively removed the last remnants of old wow, and removed the tolkien seriousness and immersiveness of an amazing world that was now around two decades old by taking an April Fools joke from Warcraft 3 and making it a playable class. Freakin Pandas! Then Wod promised to fix everything, and turned out to be nothing more than a false advertising campaign to sell games.
Era Three - Era of Cinematics and Systems. Legion bridged the gap and actually improved the game by a bit. However, at this point, World of Warcraft turned into a cinematic, self-explanatory game. Artifact System. Every zone had a cinematic. Every piece of spoken/quest dialogue had a text box. Simple activities, such as switching zones, came with cinematics. The Legion was defeated in the end and this is where World of Warcraft should’ve ended, for the second time. If it didn’t end with the Lich King, it should’ve really ended here. You had the artifact weapons and they wanted it to seem more epic. If the lore was still the same as it was in 2003, then this would’ve been the end. Then BFA came out, and used up the final villains in the lore from Warcraft III (Azshara) and World of Warcraft (N’Zoth) alike. Heart of Azeroth Azerite System. After BFA, all the villains were gone, but were still in this era, because if you haven’t noticed by now, each Era lasts for 3 expansions worth of WoW games. They made the Jailer b/c there’s nothing left. Covenant System.
And now, we’re about to enter Era 4. With the lawsuit and the purchase by Microsoft, it seems time for a new Era to be honest. Dragon Isles are next. Hopefully they’ll break away from all this BS and simplify things and stop with all the BS systems and just make a nice, simple game!