I liked TBC. Didn’t mind flying at all either, as I felt they incorporated enough quests and areas for it. Don’t agree that it killed wpvp, as I would argue, that if people fled to the skies on a pvp server, they wasn’t interested in pvp in the first place.
First half of WoTLK was ok, and then it went steadily downhill for me. Didn’t leave before Mid-Cata though, but that’s another story.
I can PLAY WOTLK… I can play it without hating it. But it starts all the stuff that brings the game down later. Because of that; over time I have come to accept TBC as the best expansion and the last really good one.
WOTLK was okay, but damn, recycling a whole raid tier with Naxx? Heirlooms? Dungeon Finder? Gated raid wings? Crazy welfare epics when they added the ICC Heroics that were dropping all Purples… Epics didnt mean anything anymore. It was the beginning of the end. I enjoyed it, but I could tell by the end something was off.
Naxx was recycled since it fit lore, why many were confused when BC was the announced as the expansion and not going after Arthas given all the plague lands build up. It would have also transitioned better with the dragon flights after Onyxia & BWL. Doing that then having a dark portal disruption of sorts calling players back to Azeroth to halt the invasion would have been a much more logical and fluid story progression. Then the slingshot to Cataclysm while Azeroth heroes conquered Outlands, the Eternal Dragonflight make their move after having the Bronze introduced Caverns of Time in a first expansion WOTLK…
Just my 2 copper…
Just want to point out that epics didnt mean anything since badge gear became a thing in TBC. Just run 5 mans, get purples. No raiding required. Most of the problems with wotlk i think were bad implementions of good ideas.
Last good expac.? Legion i would have to say.
Last playable expac.? BfA is not as terrible as lemmings would have everyone believe, it is very playable and it has issues but it is not the end of the world.
Legion was good, MoP was good, but the last great expansion was Wrath. BfA wouldn’t have been as bad if they hadn’t of doubled down on the crappy loot system and this moronic idea of a system to flesh out specs.
Cata and WoD were just freaking bad.
Last good one would be Wrath.
Id have to say Wrath because thats the one I spent the most time on (I came in Late TBC).
They pruned the specs to put them on gear and in talents to give “choice”. That coupled with gameplay like loot boxes in the real world with 9cp and 12 ap in it…just hurt the game in general. That along with the focus on grind and re-grind was not good for the game and i can see why some people are turned off by it.
WoD was content light, if we had gotten what they planned instead of what happened for whatever reason (i am betting it was some major shift in the game we will find out the truth of later…much later) it would have been fine. Personally i think they finally figured out ALL ORC story all the time was bad and tried to get past it asap.
Cata was ok it was just a bit jumbled and well green Jesus happened and that NEVER should have been a thing but at that point we were still stuck with ALL ORC STORY ALL THE TIME.
Mists was the last expansion I would actually call good. The expansion had a solid consistent theme, there was plenty of content for all levels of play, there were very few genuinely broken systems(really the rep system at launch was the only really bad thing about it).
Mists was starting to correct some of the damage that Cata did but was unfortunately followed up by WoD, the worst expansion in WoW’s history.
We got a new lead creative director in WoD and he seemed to have 3 main ojectives. Kill flying, garrisons and deincentivize everything by progression raiding.
Shockingly all three of those objectives bombed and subs tanked by more than half. I think he did exactly what he wanted to do and it wasn’t good.
Vanilla to Burning Crusade through early Wrath of the Lich King was my favorite time of Wow. Unfortunately Cataclysm arrived, and I started to see the reliance on dailies as the ‘main content’. Checked out in 4.2 or so.
I would have to chime in for WotLK too, but I really did enjoy Cata, as much heat as it gets.
Good? TBC
Playable? Wrath.
Wrath started strong, but ushered in a ton of negative changes.
Combined 10/25 man raids, achievements, hard modes, phasing, dungeon finder, etc.
The first half of TBC, maybe. It improved gameplay and class design in many ways (still with some issues), and had some beautiful new zones. However, the instant obsolescence of gear was a clear sign of the treadmill to come, and I found the dungeons and quests less and less interesting. I unsubbed before even doing any Outland raids.
Wrath of the Lich King. Even thought it introduced many things that eventually led to the downfall of the game, I played a ton and really enjoyed it for what it was.
From Cata on, the game was just not the same.
Great: WOTLK
Good: Legion
Legion ended up really good in my opinion. Bfa is getting there slowly
The last expansion I truly played and was fully invested was Wrath. That being said… I’ve done more with Legion and BfA than I have during the other expansions. That has LESS to do with the game and more to do with the guild I am in. Us Old Folks are keepin’ it social.
I just noticed I’m on my son’s characters… ugh.
There… THAT’s more like it.