Was Wrath really the best, or was it the time period?

Community General Discussion
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No salt here, I have two questions for you all. I did play ALL of WOTLK and loved it:

  1. Was WOTLK really the greatest thing ever, or is the reason it has the reputation it has was that everything still felt “new” and WoW was still the hot new thing to play in the MMO World (even being the 2nd xpack)? Obvious Lich King story was a driving factor, but we all know we don’t just play for story alone, despite it being a huge factor for some of us.

  2. If WOTLK were released today (as if it was never released in '08), would it still have the same effect? Or would it be received just like BFA?

People tout it as the greatest expansion ever by far, yet there were no ground-breaking systems added to the game. BGs, Dungeons, & Raids were all created in Vanilla and Arenas in TBC. WOTLK was not docked any points for this, yet more recent xpacks are. Gylphs, vehicle combat, raid difficulties, and some QoL stuff (LFG changes) are not ground-breaking, they’re tweaks, in my opinion.

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Both the combination of time period and in-game mechanics is what made Wrath the best expansion for me.

I picked up WoW at the tail end of EvE Online’s ASCN VS BoB war, at the time the largest war in the game and saw the loss of the first ever Titan. Sniffs at memories of building Steve.

I wanted something more relaxing that didn’t involve brutal all or nothing PvP… also I was broke and lost all my ships, and buying ISK wasn’t a thing then.

Wrath was awesome because I just clicked with the gameplay and playstyle of Paladins at the time. Found a good solid raiding guild on my server and had a blast doing progression raiding until they broke up. Still had fun otherwise, though, because my character was fun to play.

As WoW evolved, though, and changes were made to Paladins I find myself playing less and less. For the most part I find I don’t have the energy to do hardcore raiding anymore. I could probably find the time, but I just don’t enjoy the changes they’ve made to the Paladin play style. The rotation doesn’t feel smooth and it’s not enjoyable to play at all anymore.

If they were to fix that, I’d definitely play more and be more invested in the expansions, but having to fight my character to try and do what I want makes playing the game miserable regardless of the mechanics, story, or other changes they make within the game world.

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Short answer, No.

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It wasn’t perfect, but it still had the feel of the original game in terms or gameplay and class design, just extra abilities and talents. There were a few new things that were alien concepts to people like heirlooms and dungeon finder but other than that it was mostly true to the original game. After Wrath was when they really started making drastic changes and updates. I think this is why people are fond of it.

But I liked Wrath through and through. Fun gameplay, good class design, good raids and great PVP.

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It was the best for me. I could put all my DK’s moves in one random macros and still beat people in pvp!

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It was my favorite xpac simply because I enjoyed the game play and the story line. I’m a casual player but did get to raid in WOTLK quite a bit.

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The story,raids and 5 mans were all pretty damn good. As far as no ground breaking changes. That was a good thing. The game played very well. They don’t need to drastically change crap just for the sake of change every xpac(I’m looking at you gcd changes!)

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Wrath had a good balance of QoL changes and familiarity that we were used to. They didn’t reinvent the wheel on every xpac back then.

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It was mostly because of the connection to WC3 and the final climatic showdown with Arthas which is probably the most iconic piece from all of Warcraft’s lore.

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I’m playing thru all this content for the first time so here’s my honest opinion. (Played vanilla and BC 12 years ago, so consider me new)

Wrath for me was the first time I saw broad over reaching storylines that spanned multiple zones. It was good stuff, it was coherent and consistent. Sad I only got to run thru 4 zones 60 to 80.

Cataclysm did a good job of revamping individual storylines contained in a single zone. Usually ending in a big finish. Again well done. Makes early questing far more interesting.

Pamdaria again did big questing zone wide stories. I only completed 3 zones in Pamdaria 80 to 90 and although they were good, they could be confusing, not as streamlined as Wrath.

Draneor where I’m at now I really like. There is an incredible amount of single player content. They continue with the zone storylines but they ratchet it up by treating you to cinematics for the big zone finish. That’s awesome. I also like the random upgrades on quest rewards. There’s alot of things to like. I did feel the whole premise of the expansion was awkward at first, but it’s growing on me.

Anyways just my 2 cents on first hand experience this last month.

Oh yah I also like how since Pamdaria rare silver spawns can and do kick your *"" routinely. It’s not just Hogger free loot.

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It was more inclusive without totally destroying what came before.

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There was something about the raid designs, the leveling zones, music, and loved the entire Arthas story arc. It was all just pretty awesome. I mean, there were some complaints, but I seem to remember most people loved the WotLK expac more than BC.

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Wrath was amazing for me because it was really the last time I was in a great guild. We were all friends and we did pretty much everything the game offers its players together (PvP of all sorts, all PvE content, RP, exploration). We cleared every raid in Wrath for our group size… I’ll always remember the cheers when we finally took down Arthas. Great memories. =)

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I’m of the opinion wrath was the best expansion. I think part of it was the time period, but i also think overall the story, the raids, the dungeons where all just really good. I remember being absolutely pumped on certain quests/story-lines, which i haven’t gotten in BFA. I love the story and quest-lines in BFA, it just doesn’t feel as epic for some reason. I don’t think it would be as well received today since allot of people like the quality of life changes made for the more casual player.

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My honest opinion was that it was and still is my favorite expansion. I loved Warcraft 3 and seeing arthas rise up and threaten all I know from vanilla and crusade was really awesome. He felt like a boss to fear… someone to take down and I approached his throne with almost a reverence of power. Although story alone is not enough as you say I’d say that was enough for me, but I also found the introduction of dk’s Amazing. My favorite starting zone by far and if my memory recalls my main was on a quest to figure out something about death knights and I died and was risen again as the dead with new found powers. May my favorite class blood dps deathknight live on forever

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Wrath was the beginning of the end of the golden age. It was amazing but also brought systems that killed what made WoW great.

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Wrath was a good expansion, but at the time, for me, it continued changing the game in ways that I did not like so I quit the game about nine months after the xpac came out. I really enjoyed the late vanilla and TBC version of WoW and felt the game was being dumbed down ridiculously over time which is kind of amusing seeing the game as it is today. Its hard to say what it would be like if WOTLK was released today because the old xpacs were different in the ways they were implemented and the style of content.

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Wrath has more to be said for it as an expansion then any other. I don’t mean more features, I mean more in terms of everything from lore favorites to the music. The community wasn’t as salty and belligerent as it is now. There was much more community involvement (VOLUNTARY, not like Legion). Death Knights where a new shiny, and still a big favorite for many to this day. In my opinion, Wrath was Blizzards prime. They seem to be on a fairly steady decline, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that with every expansion, they feel the need to try and reinvent the wheel, regardless to what the players have repeatedly ask for, and want back from those days. They took a non broken system, and tried to fix it. Was there room for improvement? Absolutely, but not on the scale they did. I think that’s why Mists did so well, and is another fan favorite. It’s an Asian themed WotLK expansion.

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Wrath was the end of my hardcore raiding. I slowly became more and more casual from that point on. I giess that would make it a yes for me. It was the last xpac to feel like they put a lot of effort in. Plus, adding a new class is 10x more fun than a new race.

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I’ll do a more serious post on the matter, and the answer would be if an expansion like Wrath was released today would be, probably no.

Let’s look at why this would be the case.

Release: Wrath had good zones, I’ll give it that (except boring Tundra can go burn in wow hell). But ontop of all of that was the first raid tier, Naxxramas. Naxx was a complete copy of vanilla Naxxramas. At the time this wasn’t a problem since only about 5 people had played vanilla naxx.

If this happened today? Saying people would flip would be an understatement. It would be heralded as the death of WoW. Blizzard has gotten to the point of reusing old raid tiers? The forums would be a scorch earth policy.

Ulduar patch. Ulduar was a solid raid, there’s really no problems with this patch. The consensus would mostly be good.

Then we get to the filler raid of the argent tournament. The raid is one room, filled with bosses with existing models. Even the final boss is a 5 man boss brought back to life. The 5 man dungeon is also in the exact same room. It was the laziest raid ever created. The forums would go crazy.

The last patch was good, good raid, good dungeons.

Combined with overpowered DK’s, ret paladins, fan of knife spam, prot paladins in arena, the pvp was, well typical wow pvp I guess.

Fun fact, at the start of Wrath the top DK arena spec was an unholy frost hybrid build. What did this build do?

The rotation was:
Unholy strike (or whatever the move was called that gave the unholy dot)
Then spam icy touch. That was it.

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