Poll: Poll of the Day #14: Best WoW Expansion?

[V da Mighty Taco]

We're now on two full weeks of PotD's now. Seriously, thanks to everyone who's been a part of this so far, especially all of you that helped make the Rule #34 thread so successful. It may not seem like much, but I'm happy about it nonetheless.

With that out of the way, we're going with a WoW poll today. What's your favorite WoW expansion, and why? Vanilla WoW does count for this poll as well, though the yet-to-be-released Warlords of Draenor won't. Keep civil, explain your opinions, yadayadayada. Let's get nostalgic in this *****!

Captcha: "well done" Why thank you, Captcha!

 

[Remus]

WotLK. It had meaningful quests revolving around preventing the zombie apocalypse, what's not to like? Phased quests had just been introduced so the outcome of your leveling can actually be seen on the game world. And the LK himself would make appearances setting up for boss fights from the beginning of the expansion up through to the end when you finally face him. Throw in a mad elder god and tiered content releases, so that players didn't march on Arthas' doorstep a week in, and you have an overall good experience. Too bad that this type of story telling was more or less homogenized and milked for all it was worth with the next 2 expansions. But when the ideas were new and fresh, they were so good.

 

[prpshrt]

TBC because it introduced flying mounts :3

 

[WWmelb]

Give me Vanilla. An epic world, epic quests the took you on amazing adventures across two continents, massive raids, and HUUUUUGE world pvp.

When crafting (which makes or breaks games for me sometimes) was worth it for more than stats. High end crafters were highly sort after by players. Before cross-realm crap when everyone on the server knew everyone, and people were respected for being good people, feared for being amazing players or reviled and spawn camped for being douchebags.

I miss those days.

TBC was destroyed for me by the horrible questing, that and i wasn't in a position to end game raid through that one.

WotlK Loses for no other reason than that fucking goddamn circle of last forever fuck i hate that goddamn trial of the crusader shit. I loathe, hate, spit upon that circle that kept me trapped in it forever.

How could they make Ulduar, and follow it up with that piece of shit? Ulduar was the highlight raid experience for me.

Rant rant rant old i am. *sulks in an old curmugeonly way*

 

[Evonisia]

Seeing WotLK ahead of TBC makes me smile, the nostalgia isn't strong with this forum (at least not for another hour or so). But yes, WotLK. Loved Northrend, loved the questing, loved the new class changes, I even found the healing not boring and I liked the story besides it's absolutely awful ending (and reasonably OK epilogue).

 

[leberkaese]

WotLK, I guess.
TBC and Classic were great back then, but are somewhat unplayable today, imo: MMORPG is a genre that doesn't age well.
WoW reached its peak in things like boss design, raids and gameplay during Wotlk and is stagnating since then (with downs during the last content patch of Cata - the first raids during that addon were okay, though).
Story and atmosphere were at their best during WotLK.

MoP has done a lot of things right, but I couldn't play it for very long. I think the passion for WoW and MMORPGs has finally reached its end for me, WoD is the first Addon I don't want to check out.

Wotlk > MoP > TBC > Cata. Don't know, where to put Classic, started playing WoW only a few weeks before the release of TBC.

 

[LetalisK]

I liked the overall story of wrath more, but they've become so good at the technical aspect of telling a story with their game that I give it to MoP.

 

[Muspelheim]

Wrath certainly feels like the peak of the series. It had a few problems (Wintergrasp being a bit of a mess and the crusader fairground nonsense), but it was lovely, nonetheless. Northrend is one of the most beautiful things Blizzard have ever done. Even Dalaran, that got away a bit from the airport feeling that plagued Shattrath City throughout Burning Crusade.

By killing Arthas, it really did feel like history was in the making, in terms of the lore. We had been fighting his minions and tendril operations since day one, and it felt like putting an end to things, a feeling rather unusual in mumopugers. Even Ulduar felt a bit like tying up lose ends, set in motion in Uldaman and in Ahn'Qiraj.

Of course, then came Cataclysm. It started out on a high note, I must say. Breathing some life back in the neglected Old World and pushing the story a bit. Even if a lot of the story being pushed was rubbish.
The new approach to mechanics was nice, and it all had a breath of fresh air to it. The new zones were great, and it was just so wonderful to feel that the capital city was the new hub of the game. I'll gladly trade that feeling for some lagg. Hell, just the Worgen felt like a peace offering intended just for me.

Of course, then it fell apart a bit.

Deathwing was not and never would be a very interesting threat, and the enviromental disasters didn't really feel like the world-shattering they were meant to be. My favourite zone was the underwater one, because it made you play in three dimensions, so to speak. And all the payoff that the quests were building up to was just dropped. Hell, I wonder if there was some sort of financial emergency at Blizzard, because a lot of stuff simply felt like it didn't recieve the payoff it should. Except bloody Firelands, that kept going and going, like revenge of the Crusade Fair.

And then of course came the stupid "No, Garrosh it totes awesome, guys! We're mean again! CRUSH PUNY HUMIES FOR DA HOARD" business. Alliance really got the short end of the stick, getting their arses kicked on every front at once (because superior Orcish tactics, no doubt) and losing rather cherished settlements left, right and centre. I defected to the Alliance by that time just in spite, more or less. They did say that the Allies moment of awesome was coming, but that is about as likely as them releasing that dance studio of theirs.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Wrath of the Lich King for me mainly because the ending of W3 The Frozen Throne was the main thing that made me want to play WoW and see how the story would continue from that point.

And boy that expansion didn't disappoint. Icecrown Citadel was one of my favorite instances.

How I would rate the expansions: WolLK > TBC > MoP > Cata.

 

[Asita]

Well I'm disqualified from the poll proper because I've never actually played WoW, much less its expansions, but I do rather like Wrath of the Lich King's cinematic opening a great deal more than those of the other expansions...that, and I do love me a fallen hero tragedy.

 

[anthony87]

I'm still tentatively looking forward to WoD. The new models are cool and flexi-raiding may solve some of my problems.

You know Flex Raiding is in the game now right?

 

[NortherWolf]

Good question. For the quests and content Pandaria, but because I hated the new Skill-system I'll say TBC.
Wrath had some fun raids, and I did like the Argent Tournament but every other questing area was paint-on-wall dull.
Cataclysm had the best Underwater part of any MMO I've played, but ultimately was rather forgettable.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Vanilla WoW was the only one that managed to hold onto me and it did that for years.

I think that should prove its weight and strength to me, as I left during TBC and came back recently, but then left again after not really enjoying the later 3 expansions.

I won't be getting Draenor. I'll just have to remember original WoW.

 

[faefrost]

Wrath of the Lich King. Coherrant story running through it. Wonderful gorgeous environments. Haunting music and environmentals. And they started with the single best Raid Dungeon WoW had yet produced, retuned it and used it as the Raid starting point,a nd it just got better with each step up (ok the arena of dull sucked). And those ending cutscenes. Poetry!

Cataclysm was by far the worst. Pandaland takes second place just from how good it all looks.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Another vote for WOTLK. Environmentally it was a visual upgrade on older zones, there was strong lore tie-in and narrative push (finally dealing with Arthas), and it probably struck the best balance between being casual friendly while still providing meat for the hungry hardcore. There were missteps (Trial of the Crusader most prominent amongst them) but it was a solid, solid expansion.

Burning Crusade next, for having tighter quest flow than Vanilla and some huge, impressive zones. Karazhan is still arguably the best raid of all time, with only Ulduar giving it a run for its money. Was HEAVY on the end-game though. This is the expansion the hardest of hardcore raiders will remember the most fondly.

MoP introduced a lot of nice content breadth and quality of life features, but continued some of the dubious design decisions instigated in...

Cataclysm. Easily the worst expansion. The zone reshuffling was nice and they did some good things with storytelling through quests, but they overreacted badly to complaints about dungeon difficulty post LFD.

Fortunately WoD seems poised to undo a lot of the systemic harm caused in Cataclysm and MoP, whilst retaining most of the virtues.

 

[Ryotknife]

Burning Crusade for me. It was the best expansion for feral druids. Dont get me wrong, from a practical point of view ferals had massive problems to the point where they were unviable in arena and even in pve in the very late game, but they were one of the funnest specs ive ever played.

In pvp ferals were the epitome of "jack of all trades, master of none." Bear form gave great survivability with little dps or utility. Cat form gave....underwhelming dps with little utility or survivability (probably our weakest form). Caster form gave utility with zero survivability or dps. However, weaving these three forms together was a masterpiece of art. While feral were kinda crap in arena (as in, out of millions of players there were only a handful of ferals to make it to gladiator), they were masters in battlegrounds filling whatever role the team needed, especially as flag carriers.

In pve, ferals still maintained their role switching (albeit without caster form). In many boss fights i would switch between tanking and dpsing, which made the fights much more enjoyable than just tanking or just dpsing as i get to experience the fights from two sides at once!

Warlocks were also a lot of fun in pvp (and even pve as affliction) as they had very high survivability turning them into battlefield commanders.

Raiding was also pretty good. There was always new content available to you once you finally beat that boss. Compare this to WotLK where you blow through content real quick and then redo the content at a harder mode (although its still the same fight). I found hardmode to be underwhelming. Some fights completely change the fight and turn it into a new encounter, but far too often its just more hp and more damage. Also in BC all content was pertinent, whereas in WotLK once a new dungeon came out the older content became useless.

BC also introduced arena, and the first few seasons were really fun. I remember seeing some crazy combinations (and even playing as some) and it was hiliarious. Feral/rogue. triple warlock. Feral/rogue/shadowpriest. Then the arena meta-game happened in S3 and 4 (and beyond) and sucked all of the fun out of it.

WotLK was good too, dont get me wrong. The atmosphere and questing was amazing, but pvp took a hit in terms of fun. Although affliction warlocks in battlegrounds were fun. Pve, other than the problem i already mentioned with content, had some really good boss fights (twin valks, yogg-saron, lich king, professor, sarth +3).

Cataclysm though....egh. I quit after a few months. Im seriously contemplating about returning for Warlords as ive been clean for.....4 years?

 

[Fappy]

I spent most of my time playing WotLK, but I started in TBC. In the end, I voted TBC simply because I just loved the content more. Karazan, Black Temple, Sunwell... just some fucking cool stuff there.

Honestly, I have no clue why they haven't introduced Legacy servers yet. Could you imagine how many subs they'd get back if they introduced forever Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, etc. severs? It would be fun as shit to progress through end game content of an old expansion again.