What determines a good expansion?

Community General Discussion
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With all the threads popping up about x expansion being bad or peoples favorites, what is it that makes a good one?

For me is the theme broadly speaking. I want a solid cast of characters to carry it, good lore obviously helps but it’s just the general vibe. The zones, the music, the new mount styles (shadowlands was irregular for example), just lead up to its release with animated shorts or events. All of these things effect me more than the actual gameplay loop

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I like the expansions with a cohesive, well-written story. Every expansion has had their exclusive combat gimmicks so having to adapt to the new style is expected and uninteresting to me. The art and sound departments are always top tier so it comes down to the lore. If I’m not entertained, then there’s no reason to play.

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Seems odd, but for me, the measure of a good expansion is how I feel and think about it after it is no longer the current expansion. Well, except for Cata. Unless you were raiding, there wasn’t jack to do after gearing up and completing each zone.

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For cataclysm having such world changing events there’s hardly anything I remember fondly of it. It could of just been a large patch and I’d of known no different

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Good atmosphere, immersion, soundtrack, and the feeling of my character actually being more powerful and not squished.

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A good story is all about the “3 C’s” to me.

  1. Concept
  2. Characters
  3. Conflict

TWW feels disjointed conceptually/story wise to me. If it is supposed to be about the Void, the Siren Isles and goblin detour to Undermine was a little off-putting to me personally. Xal’atath needing help from goblins diminished her imho.

Characters or NPCs at the forefront… it is Windrunner fatigue for me. We had a small break of Dragonflight before having another Windrunner shoved down our throats. From 2016 to 2025 we’ve only had 2 years without one being a main focal point of the story. Also, Turalyon is an after thought which I think is really lame, there is no reason he shouldn’t have as much screen time as Alleria.

Tag on to that that Thrall just sort of did…nothing despite being featured in the TWW cinematic with Anduin? The Horde as a whole for that matter did nothing either.

11.2 SPOILERS: The conflict with Xal’atath seems sidelined because…power of friendship. She blows up and kills thousands of Kirin Tor magi and we just bump elbows with her now?

Expansions like Wrath, MoP, Legion and Dragonflight checked all 3 boxes for me but TWW will go down as one of the weaker WoW efforts, unless 11.2 surprises me somehow.

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Personal preference determines what is a good expansion.

It’s all opinion and personal preference.

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Thats generally how i feel about TWW too.

Also fully agree with the xalatath points. Making her work with us in this patch imo is a huge mistake. I could be wrong but having her work with us really diminishes the threat she poses imo.

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It really makes no sense. I get that WoW is basically Saturday morning cartoons level of writing most of the time but it is weak by even most WoW standards. Xal’atath destroyed a city and killed Khadgar, who needed a rez from Anduin but Alleria is just putting up with it. Trying to Silver Surfer Xal’atath is corny.

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Yep. I just hope they have a cool spin on her working with us and its not the whole “omg she betrayed us at the last second!” Shtick.

That would REALLY kill my hype for this trilogy. This patch matters alot. Without real consequences i dont know how the world soul saga is going to matter.

TWW started off strong with killing dadghar, then brought him back basically kneecapping any real threat posed by her and diminishing her as a villain.

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A lot of people, myself included, are just expecting this to be an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation while expecting a big double-cross from Xala-wiggly-toes in the end-of-raid cinematic as she chugs back a void lord smoothie.

… and that’s the best case scenario.

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What I think about it makes it a good or bad expansion. Same for you.

I can say that SL was a bad expansion. You can say it was a great expansion.

And we’ll both be right because we are both telling the truth about our own experiences with an expansion.

They kind of killed off “real consequences” with time travel and alternate universes a long, long time ago.

We have infinite chances of getting everything just right so it’s a given that we win in the end in one timeline or universe.

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Surprised Pikachu faces

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Here’s the problem the only defining factors of a good expansion or a bad expansion is someone’s subjective opinion because everyone is going to have a different answer. The same goes for calling it successful or unsuccessful. For example, I would say that wrath of the Lich king was successful because it peaked at 12 1/2 million players and that WOD was unsuccessful because it lost more than 7 million players less than a year And continued to decline. However, there are people who believe that wrath of the Lich King was a horrible expansion and that WOD was one of the greatest pieces of content in this franchise. Granted, I’m confident they probably do some sort of narcotic, but they are entitled to their opinion.

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To me it’s whatever I felt some sort of RPG investment in

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What makes an expansion good?

  • Person: New to wow or not. Usually when people start WoW they have a more memorable starting experience and this gives their expansion points.
  • Good story: general public perception of the story.
  • Memorable characters. Sire Denathrius for example largely has surpassed the otherwise infamy of SL.
  • Appeal to audience. People can sometimes see storyline plot as ‘pandering’ to whatever the modern narrative and this could be negative for the game. In playing MoP remix we saw a bit more of a classic narrative compared to what we’ve seen in the last few years.
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Dozens of player communities dozens of answers. I liked wod… outside of hellfire lasting forever it had some amazing raids.

The no life must grind crowd liked shadowlands.

You won’t get a constant answer.

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Solid aesthetic and theme

Fun, memorable dungeon and raid encounters

Game systems that aren’t anti-fun

Memorable and likeable characters

Decent narrative

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Wiggly-Toes: (betrays everyone)

Angy-lleria: “Called it.”

Locus-Limper: “You… bettayed us?!”

Wiggly-Toes: “I did spend a few millennia as a knife. Back-stabbing is what I do.”

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Comes down to a few things:

  1. Writing. You need to sell the players on the concept of the expansion, the goals of the villain, the objectives of the NPC and the themes of the various zones which all should be distinct enough so that we’re not just looking at 23 diffeerent versions of the same NPC/zone we’ve seen stince the game first launched while still forming a coherent narrative.
  2. Mechanics. As players we need fun and intereting ways to interact with the world, not just in the form of native class abilities but also in terms of what the expansion itself has to offer. Examples of this would include the Garrison from WoD, the Tillers from Mists, the Artifact weapon from Legion, Corruptions from BFA, or the soup from Dragonflight. Ideally, these mechanics will be balanced across all of the classes in order to prevent anyone from being marginalized.
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