Poll: What is/was your favourite "era" of WoW

[tharglet]

As a lot of members on this board seem to have played WoW, I was just wondering what expansion was their favourite, or if "vanilla" is where they want to be.

For me, I liked the TBC "era". I don't play any more, but I was in the Cata beta, so I did get to see a good chunk of the content, even though I didn't do any raiding and only went in one of the instances. Game became too fluid for me, and therefore less interesting.
TBC was my favourite as it was before the very paint-by-numbers questing, and there were hidden places still in the world. Also I was in a guild I really liked and got to do a lot of instancing, raiding and things with people. Also the classes felt a lot less "broken" than they did in vanilla, as people weren't so pidgeonholed into one role.
Wrath, for me, was not so fun as after I did the levelling process once, Northrend was just boring for me. Didn't really like many of the zones there, so... it made me quit for the first time.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

My favorite era is the one where major characters aren't just huge pinatas. The Warcraft era.

 

[Orks da best]

wrath of the lich king, easily.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

Although I started playing the game around the time of my 16th birthday, two months before Burning Crusade came out, I am going to have to say that Wrath of the Lich King was my favorite "era" as you put it.

This was the time period when I really learned to play the game, exceed at my class, and experience all of the content I could.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

The era when it didn't exist. Ohhh how sweet it was!

 

[Greatjusticeman]

Probably 'Wrath of the Lich King'.


That's when I really got into raiding, diving deep into 10 and 25 mans and earning some of those rare titles. I was really good at my class, had my professions leveled up, and all of that good stuff...

Though, I also liked TBC a lot as well. I loved Outlands and the raids there. Only thing is is that I couldn't enjoy it as much as other because I started to get real good towards the end of the expansions life and most people were just focused on waiting for Wrath.

 

[ShenCS]

The era when it didn't exist. Ohhh how sweet it was!

Dammit! I came here to inb4 that!

 

[Amnestic]

TBC had the best raiding scene (give it some non-binary hardmodes from WotLK and it'd be damn near perfect). Cataclysm has the most streamlined and best designed classes and quests.

Vanilla was, to put it simply, badly made. If one looks back at all the weird choices with the benefit of hindsight, the boring raids (for the most part, though it got better towards the end), the terrible class balance (Can you heal? You're a healer), the retarded honour system...

 

[LiL'Tic]

i started playing in vanilla and played through TBC and had fun with it, but WOTLK the content became too watered down and frankly bored me to death, Cata just makes me shake my head, ive been done with the game

 

[Seventh Actuality]

Hrrm...for nostalgia, probably TBC. For objective quality, Cataclysm. The only reason I'm quitting (and the real reason behind most people claiming that Cata ruined WoW) is that there's only so long you can play one game before it gets dull, regardless of how many expansions get released.

That said...I might come back to try the monks and pandas at some point.

The era when it didn't exist. Ohhh how sweet it was!

Dammit! I came here to inb4 that!

"I have no reason to be in this thread, but PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEE!"

 

[teqrevisited]

TBC. I arrived too late for the classic top end experience, so when I hit my peak TBC was already in full swing. I'd heard all about places like Karazhan and Tempest Keep and Black Temple was on the horizon.

I knew my specialization inside out, with only one person to match me. I remember him and I giving the main tank one hell of a job keeping aggro, riding at 120% threat all the way through the Azgalor fight.

That was when I played because I enjoyed it. My goal was the confrontation with Illidan. Once we'd done that it was all just a hollow chore. Looking back on it now I can see how Maiev must've felt.

Ulduar was a great return to form and I still speak to people from the guild I did it with, but everything before and after in that expansion (Bear in mind I quit before Icecrown) was just awful. Naxxramas was a bit of fun when you were buggering around trying to get your friends killed but the Crusaders' Coliseum was pure arse gravy. That's where I left it.

 

[Dizeazedkiller]

I'd say vanilla. Unfortunately i didn't get to experience it because i was barely level 30 before BC came out, but i've seen videos and my friends playing back when the world PvP was insane. Its the same for alot of new MMOs, the first year or so is the best time because its when th most PvP action is happening. My second choice would have to be Wrath because druids were OP in wrath and it was fun being OP, for a while. Then it got boring. Then cata came along. Now play Darkfall and i'm kinda wishing i'd never started WoW and i'd found out about this game sooner, when its playerbase was bigger.

 

[Barry93]

I don't really have a favorite expansion, they all had their flaws. I enjoyed Tier 8 and Tier 11 content the most.

 

[Keava]

With all the issues it introduced (flying mounts, Arena, Blood Elves, Space Goats) TBC was actually the only good expansion. There was plenty of multi-layered raids to start with, Black Temple probably still is one of may favourite with Teron encounter, they had decent level of difficulty, Karhazan was actually nice alt-run place on off days.
It was, in many ways improvement over core game-play compared to vanilla. Sadly the following expansions didn't live up to it. Wrath launching with recycled raid instance, and stupidly easy content. Cataclysm starting decently but overusing the phasing and nerfing everything way too soon, as well as not delivering the promised content on time (or at all)...

Waiting for GW2 is all that really holds my interests in MMOs these days.

 

[Gluzzbung]

I'm going to say, mists of Pandaria is going to be aweful.

Panda Monks? We can;t be running out of Intellectual property that fast, can we?

 

[Amnestic]

Ulduar was a great return to form and I still speak to people from the guild I did it with, but everything before and after in that expansion (Bear in mind I quit before Icecrown) was just awful. Naxxramas was a bit of fun when you were buggering around trying to get your friends killed but the Crusaders' Coliseum was pure arse gravy. That's where I left it.

To make a long winded story short, WotLK's raiding suffered from not enough variety.

Spoiler: Now for the story

The game launched with Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and The Eye of Eternity. Those latter two contained only a single boss, a la Onyxia/Magtheridon's Lair meaning that for months on end, you were stuck in Naxx for the vast majority of your gear. It was long, it was tedious and not really all that hard if your raiders could tie their shoelaces properly. The only real challenge was achievements or Obsidian Sanctum 3 Drakes, but even that wasn't that hard.

After far too many months, Ulduar gets released. Just Ulduar mind, not any other instances. This means that for your T8/T8-equivalent gear, you'll be running just Ulduar. It had the benefit of actually being varied in its areas, it had more non-binary hard modes and they were actually a real challenge. What it suffered from though is that there wasn't any alternative and that there were far too many 'compulsory' bosses to reach Yoggy at the end.

In essence, raiders would be running Ulduar 2-3 times a week and just Ulduar. You might spice up your week with a raid to the T7 instances, but at that point you may as well just drag your alts along for the ride.

Don't get me wrong, Ulduar was a great raid experience. Possibly one of the best instances Blizzard ever developed. There just wasn't an alternative to it, which meant it could get rather stale.

Following that we got the Argent Colosseum. A new five man, a new daily hub and a new raid instance. Bonus: No trash in raid instance. Minus: Little variety in the area. It was a circular arena and that was it. And once again, it was the only raid instance for T9 gear. How many bosses? Five. Well, eight if you count the 'northrend beasts' as three bosses, but it only dropped five bosses worth of loot. Contrasted to Ulduar which had...14, I believe.

Argent Colosseum was, in contrast to Ulduar, one of Blizzard's worst raid instances eever. It's sole redeeming factor was the lack of trash mobs.

Icecrown Citadel was last, and represented everything that we had missed from Ulduar. Varied, interesting bosses. Lots of them. Large sprawling dungeon. A rep grind which elicited fond memories of TBC's raiding scene...ICC was great...but again, it was the only one. It did have the benefit of three new (really quite good) five man dungeons though.

It didn't help that there was so much time between each patch. TBC had a lot of its raid content front-loaded into the game. It was buggy, sure, but it was there for raiders to tackle. They weren't running Naxx for months on end.

 

[kortin]

Frankly, I enjoyed Wotlk waaaay more than I ever enjoyed TBC. So my vote goes for Wotlk.

 

[Temple Guard]

I don't have a favorite expansion. I go between phases of loving the game and being bored of it. No matter how tired of WOW I get eventually I return mainly due to the stories, and characters that developed in Warcraft 2, 3, and the Frozen Throne.

 

[teebeeohh]

TBC, best combination of hard and accessible.
it was also the only time i had fun end game raiding.