I played WoD when it was live on five accounts. I capped out all my toons, geared up in PvP, made great friends, and 10 million gold.
By contrast, I quit in BFA for 9mo because I got burnt out on dailies 2.0 and the narrative was uncompelling and made no sense.
WoD had:
frequent class balance changes
PvP vendors
old spriest playstyle 
gold 
the ability to play with alts
tell meā¦ what does BfA have?
WoD could have been awesome if theyād just finished it. Thatās what kills me. Instead we got half an expansion because they rushed it out.
BfA has allied races!
Also 4 different tiers of grinding! Essence, Neck, Cape and the other gear slots (with extra fun corruption/forging included!!)
You never run out of things to do, Isnāt that AWESOME?
WoD was awesome. We got our awesome Blood Elf and now Void Elf models thanks to WoD, and I never had more fun in the game than I did in Ashran World PvP.
I lead many Horde groups to victory over the course of a year and some, what a great time. The PvP Sets, acquiring PvP gear, all top notch. Easy for alts to get new gear with a good leader.
Also the framerate didnāt drop like it does today in 40 vs 40 PvP in the same area.
That is what scares me ā The next xpac will be a dumpster fire as well.
This expansion is certainly disappointing compared to how Legion was at the end, but itās still better than WoD.
Comments like these are why no one will ever agree on what WoW should be.
The fact that some determine the quality of the game by how little they have to log on or how easy it is to afk alts to gear is mind boggling to me.
The reason I remember WoD more fondly than a lot of you is probably because I played through WoD late in itās cycle. It was still the ācurrentā expac but most of you had already zipped through it.
So I didnāt experience any disappointing patches or the lulls between them. It was all there when I played.
My main negative experience was hitting Tanaan jungle grossly under geared and how short overall the expac was. I liked the garrison and still to this day use the AH I have there.
Most of my memories of BfA will not be so positive. The failed artifact gear, all the RNG especially that weekly Mythic+ chest roulette, mostly useless professions that were more trouble than they were worth, an actual $5 million mount (I still have trouble with that one), boring repetitive systems in WQās and paragons. Hey devās! One of the great aspects of old WoW was how you could FINISH things!
Hell, I wasnāt as crazy about Legion as most people seem to be but that did at least have the cool weapons. BfA is Legion without the weapons.
And comments like yours make me annoyed and saddened.
I may be the furthest person from an alt-leveler, I hardly ever do it. It was a statement of fact, nothing else. BfA is no comparison to WoD in terms of leveling and gearing up.
WOW - 5 out of 10
TBC - 8 out of 10
WoTLK - 9 out of 10
Cata - 6 out of 10
Mists - 8 out of 10
WoWD - 4 out of 10
Legion - 6 out of 10
BFA - 3 out of 10
I miss class specific sets.
Waiting for reset, I read the credits of each expansion (yes that bored) and Noticed one name that was on every expac up to MoP but never again from WoD onward. Frank Pearce. He was one of the co-founders of the game, and he disappeared in totality after WoD launch. Iām curious as to what happened there (the real life stuff) as there seems to be silence on that change overall.
And? Raiding is a very very small part of the game. Raiding is like the dead last thing I would ever think about doing. The time commitment for raiding is not important to a lot of people.
And why is that a bad thing? WoD rewarded afking in your garrison and provided zero incentive to log on after raid day.
PvP gearing was not better. It did not reward skill. It did not reward commitment. It rewarded honor buddy botting for a weekend.
If that happens I will eat my own leg. You can clip this and quote it.
Iāve heard this line of thought every expansion since Burning Crusade.
The biggest complaints with WoD were the garrisons/professions (professions are still uninteresting in BFA), the fill the bar quests (very much still in BFA), and the large content lull.
That is in stark contrast to the relevant and ānewā content just being terrible. Big big difference.
If 8.3 is this disappointing now - imagine 9 months from now.
I wouldnāt mind dark too much. Dragon slayer that loves having a massive gear advantage. Would rather keep slaying dragons and having PvP that is purely about how much power you can farm and not skill.
This will definitely happen.
Give it 5 years though but it will.
Anyone who canāt grasp this simply canāt learn from past and future.