Widely considered the biggest loss in subscriber numbers, MoP strayed from what made WoW special by diluting its core identity and alienating many long-time fans.
Legion
Criticized for its unoriginal changes, Legion saw developers recolor tier sets and incorporate elements reminiscent of StarCraft. These moves left many players feeling that the expansion lacked creative innovation.
Shadowlands
Deemed “beyond horrible” by a large segment of the community, Shadowlands suffered from convoluted mechanics and narrative choices that many felt undermined the game’s legacy.
Dragon Soul
Once heralded as a potential game-changer, Dragon Soul ultimately became a missed opportunity. It failed to live up to expectations and is remembered as a low point in the series’ evolution.
Retail
The current iteration of WoW, often criticized for its overemphasis on monetization and microtransactions, is seen by many as having diluted the essence and immersive experience of the classic game.
Top 5 Best WoW Expansions and or Versions
Vanilla
The GOAT. Vanilla laid the foundation with immersive gameplay, rich lore, and a community spirit that defined an era and set the standard for MMOs.
SoD (Season of Discovery)
Praised for addressing many issues inherent in Vanilla, SoD refined and revitalized the classic experience, providing a fresh yet familiar take on the original game.
TBC (The Burning Crusade)
Renowned for introducing flying and expanding the universe, TBC broadened players’ horizons while deepening the game’s lore and challenging them with exciting new content.
WoTLK (Wrath of the Lich King)
A fan favorite that raised the bar by adding heroic and hard modes to raids, delivering both challenging encounters and some of the most memorable moments in WoW history.
WoD (Warlords of Draenor)
Remembered fondly for its innovative Garrisons and excellent raiding content, WoD introduced unique elements that enriched gameplay and offered a new strategic dimension to the game.
Each expansion has left an indelible mark on World of Warcraft, shaping the experience for different generations of players.
At least it’s a thoughtful bait post. SoD isn’t even an expansion. It’s a seasonal private server.
btw, it’s commonly known that the biggest player loss in WoW was during the WoD HFC farm period right before BFA. MoP had a higher concurrent player count than even TBC.
Assuming this isn’t a troll its interesting how you list LEGION as one of the worst when its generally seen as one of the better ones and WOD as one of the best when its widely seen as the worst.
It’s definitely a troll post. WoD had better raids than MoP imo but they nuked 75% of class abilities and the gameplay didn’t really feel that “good” until Legion when they added artifact traits.
Even as a hardcore WoD enjoyer, I can admit that outside of fun leveling and raids, the expansion had practically nothing to do.
I would say class design, Dragonflight and current TWW is the best it’s ever been. The current DF-model talent trees windmill dunk on all prior iterations in terms of creativity.
Legion isn’t without its flaws, even though many celebrate it, it also struggled with issues of originality. The recoloring of tier sets and incorporation of elements reminiscent of other franchises diminished its creative spark. Simply rehashing familiar ideas left some feeling that Legion missed an opportunity to push new boundaries.
On the other hand, WoD, despite its detractors, delivered memorable raiding content and innovative mechanics like Garrisons that added strategic depth to the game. Its raid experiences and unique base-building aspects resonated with many players, offering a fresh layer to WoW’s gameplay.
You are wrong!!! The biggest player loss DID NOT occur during WoD’s HFC farm period. While yes, every expansion sees a dip as it approaches its end during the raid farm phase, but MoP suffered subscriber losses consistently throughout its entire run not just at the end. This persistent decline in MoP clearly indicates systemic issues, whereas WoD’s losses were typical end-cycle drops.
Worst
1.Cata- It promised flight in the classic world, then absolutely destroyed the classic world. Introduced 5 level cap, completed the already begun removal of community that let us enforce some blacklisting of players who would lie, steal and cheat other players. It was the single biggest hit to the player base of any expansion. Taking WoW from its peak and starting it’s decent.
2.WoD- It promised immense things and couldn’t deliver any of them properly, it took one of the most looked forward to expansions and absolutely crushed an already apathetic playerbase.
3. Everything after WotLK, not because every expansion was bad but because it belittled the players by forcing them into a story that they didn’t ask for, constantly forcing them to “be the hero” instead of letting them be whatever they wanted.
Best
Vanilla. You got it right, it’s the reason classic continues to this day.
TBC. Forget flying, this was a nearly perfect extension of Vanilla, from Karazan to the Sunwell
SoD. Classic was great and while I can still complain that Hunters weren’t given a Tank or Heal spec when everyone else got one… The truth is, refreshing Classic with new stuff has been more fun than anything offered since WotLK
Mixed
Wraith of the LichKing- It was both the peak of WoW and the brief glimpse of the Sun as it reflected off Blizzards wax wings… I have the fondest memories from this expansion and the faintest hope it would ever be that good again, dashed with each new QoL feature being teased.
No, I’m not wrong. Before Blizzard stopped reporting player numbers, WoD had the highest measurable loss in subscribers. It was the peak era of private servers and the birth of Nostalrious.
Legion lacked creativity? Are you sure you even played Legion? Blizzard created a masterpiece with 7.0-7.3.
Mythic+ was the biggest, most successful content addition and one of the few that didn’t end up being one-expansion gimmicks. I would say Delves from TWW are the closest thing they’ve done since that have made such a positive impact on the game.
Class Order Hall campaigns were immersive and written very well. You had unique class mounts and weapon unlocks from progressing your campaign into Argus patch with Mage Tower cosmetics such as the Fel Green Werebear for Guardian Druids.
Each zone on the broken isles was incredibly immersive before they added the pathfinding achievement and you couldn’t fly. You had different items you could interact with to traverse the zones more effectively like the grappling hooks to scale Stormheim and Highmountain.
You also had the various allied race quest lines that came with cool heritage armor sets and unique racials.
Emerald Nightmare, Nighthold, Halls of Valor, ToS and Antorus were all very memorable raids that had lots of quest lines and different content connected to them outside of that.
There is so much more to list, I can critique Legion in it’s flaws, most of them were addressed by the middle of expansion and creativity was never the problem.
I am a “retail” player but I started Mythic raiding in WoD. Warlords offered virtually nothing outside of raid-logging. MoP and Legion were two of the absolute best expansions for casual and hardcore players alike.
You don’t even know what you’re talking about because you weren’t playing the game back in 2014-2016.
Blizzard stopped reporting their player numbers prior to Legion because the end of WoD tanked lower than ever. It was estimated around 5.5 million toward the end of HFC whereas Mists of Pandaria maintained approximately 8-10 million or higher most of the expansion.
That “natural end of expansion drop” you’re describing happened in MoP, after one of the longest farm periods in history (SoO) but during the lifecycle of the patches, the numbers were extremely high.
WoD fell off of a cliff because not only did it have extremely long raid farms, there was no supplemental content added in between. Unless you count Twitter integration and the selfie patch. The only content was raid-logging and sitting in your garrison printing gold.
I still have over half of my gold I made back during HFC farm because my alts were all in max gear, class trinkets and I occasionally left my garrison to do some PvP which to be fair, was a lot of fun.
Is the worst version of wow and it’s not even close.
The gameplay is bad, the class design is bad, the raids are not challenging, and all content outside of PVP is repetitive.
Vanilla’s only strength was it’s original community, something no re-release has been able to recreate so far.
Legion is only seen as “one of the better ones” because it is between WOD and freaking BFA, and that’s the lowest of the low that it is being compared to. Legion is still complete garbage.
Sounds like your describing retail. Which is TRASH that dismantled of what made the game great in the first place. Instead of rewarding real skill and strategic gameplay, retail has shifted toward quality-of-life tweaks that mask underlying issues—a reliance on War Mode abilities as a crutch rather than engaging combat mechanics, for instance. Instead of meaningful progression from epic raids that demanded teamwork and finesse, getting top-tier PvE gear has been devalued by seasonal resets that replace every piece of content every few months. This “carrot on a stick” approach trades long-term commitment for a repetitive cycle that leaves lasting satisfaction by the wayside.
Moreover, the removal of true world PvP and the introduction of Warmode only underscore an attempt to placate a broader audience while sidelining the player-driven, organic encounters that once defined the game’s spirit. It’s not just about tweaking gameplay; it’s about fundamentally altering a rich tapestry of challenges and community-driven experiences. Where once raids required coordination that created memorable, hard-fought victories over tough encounters, retail now offers watered-down challenges in exchange for fleeting milestones.
In short, while some might argue the current iteration appeals to casual audiences, it does so at the expense of authenticity and depth. For those who remember when every raid was a worthwhile ordeal and every class felt purposefully balanced, retail feels not like a refined product but like an over-polished solution that strips away the grit and substance integral to the true spirit of WoW.
OG Vanilla was a game created for a different set of players which does not include Classic Vanilla players either. It’s community will never be replicated because it was a new game in a time where grindy wasn’t seen as a “waste of time”, nor was a long corpse run back “unfun”. Weird gear was there and that was fine. Empty rooms with no purpose were there and that was fine. Areas that had no purpose was fine. With each patch classes got stronger and weaker, and each got a re-work. Frankly, people just well, played the game. What was, was. It was a different generation of gamer.
As for saying Vanilla raids weren’t hard, let’s put on our Scarlet Enclave hats for a second and pre-tend we were all progression raiding in Vanilla. Practically every thing that people whined about SE - that’s what Vanilla was. Overtuned bosses? Slam your head against the wall encounters? Except in Vanilla prog raiding there was no DBM. At least in SE a day or 2 after release there was already a DBM update lol. It’s easy to say a raid is easy when you had an entire generation doing all the hard work for you.
There will never be games like Vanilla or even TBC by virtue of the fact that gaming and the gaming community has changed so much. But to call them “bad” because they don’t follow the modern mindset, I don’t know what to tell you.
To this day Era servers are still a thing for a reason.
The comparison to the Model T and the horse carriage completely misses the point. Yes, progress builds upon past innovations—but that doesn’t mean every step forward is an improvement. Vanilla WoW was the foundation of the game, and every expansion that followed was built upon its mechanics, world design, and philosophy. The issue isn’t that newer versions of WoW exist—it’s that Blizzard has abandoned the principles that made the game great in the first place. Retail’s constant churn of borrowed power systems and QoL handouts has dismantled the core experience that made WoW unique, replacing depth with convenience-driven mechanics.
As for the raids—Vanilla had plenty of challenging encounters, especially given the limitations of the time. AQ40 and Naxxramas were brutal for their era, requiring coordination and preparation that pushed guilds to their limits. The claim that Vanilla was ‘too easy’ ignores the historical context—players today have years of optimization and addons that trivialize encounters that were once cutting-edge. If Vanilla wasn’t challenging, explain why so few guilds cleared Naxx before TBC launched.
And the argument about Mage rotations? That’s just cherry-picking. Yes, some specs had simple rotations, but that doesn’t mean Vanilla’s design was inherently bad. Every era of WoW has had specs with basic rotations, even in Retail, where some classes still boil down to repeating the same few abilities. The difference is that Vanilla’s class design allowed for distinct identities and unique playstyles, rather than the homogenized mess Retail has become.
Instead of throwing insults, maybe try actually engaging with the argument—because dismissing everything as ‘trash’ without a real counterpoint isn’t a rebuttal, it’s just deflection.
