TBC

Wrath was the beginning of the end for me. It took a lot of the cancer that TBC added and amplified it.

BC made only three mistakes:

1) stat scaling so that a level 60 character in Naxx gear would be stronger than a level 70 character in the exact same gear
2) Breaking the link between item rarity, item level, and required character level, which in turn paved the way for greens being better than purples at the same required character level
3) removing the original level 60 Kazzak

Wrath made exactly three, completely different mistakes:

1) Removing the original level 60 Naxx and Onyxia
2) Heroic raiding
3) adding teleportation to the dungeon finder.

EDIT: this is obviously not counting garbage instances like Black Morass, Mount Hyjal, The Purple Prison, and the Argent Tournament.

Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.

@Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.

And I have the same issue with your posts. :biggrin:

Cataclysm was the best expansion.

@Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.
:confused:

Wrath was the beginning of the end for me. It took a lot of the cancer that TBC added and amplified it.

BC made only three mistakes:

1) stat scaling so that a level 60 character in Naxx gear would be stronger than a level 70 character in the exact same gear
2) Breaking the link between item rarity, item level, and required character level, which in turn paved the way for greens being better than purples at the same required character level
3) removing the original level 60 Kazzak

Wrath made exactly three, completely different mistakes:

1) Removing the original level 60 Naxx and Onyxia
2) Heroic raiding
3) adding teleportation to the dungeon finder.

EDIT: this is obviously not counting garbage instances like Black Morass, Mount Hyjal, The Purple Prison, and the Argent Tournament.

Wrath made more then that.
Class homogenization.
Dumbing down of world content and dungeons.
Started the modern "this patch invalidates last patch".
Greatly amplified vendor epics. To the point you could buy tier gear.

All this is somewhat irrelevant to whether or not they should release TBC servers. A lot of people don't prefer TBC or WOTLK, and if that's the case, you could just stay on classic servers. People worry about the classic community fragmenting, but they have been forced to open more and more servers just for classic. I think they could easily keep servers populated for each of the most popular expansions if they wanted to without killing any of the others. But maybe I'm just optimistic.

Class homogenization.
Dumbing down of world content and dungeons.
Started the modern "this patch invalidates last patch".

How would you quantify or empirically evaluate any of those claims?
Greatly amplified vendor epics. To the point you could buy tier gear.

Using currency acquired from raids. Nowadays it's all purchasable with gold because Blizzard briefly tried to cut down on the number of in-game currencies, but that wasn't always the case... was it?

As long as most of a player's gear is dropped from bosses, and purchased gear is just used to fill in the gaps caused by bad RNG, I don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly nowhere near the horridness of farming Timeless Isle trash for ilevel 496 epic tokens to send to alts...

From my "How would optional TBC/Classic+ servers look like" fan ideas from few months ago:
Fan-made content below:

Time for a new adventure?

Welcome back, adventurer. I am known as Chronormu, but you may call me Chromie. I am comfortable with such familiarity.
I am one of the bronze dragonflight, forever attuned to the ebb and flow of time. You could say that we have met before. Or is this the first time we've met?

I'm in so many places and times right now, I sometimes have a hard time keeping track of all of it!
I recently came across two oddly shaped discombobulators. They both allow one-way travel through time!
If you like, I can show it to you.

A Curious Discombobulator allows a level 60 character in a World of Warcraft Classic server to transfer to a World of Warcraft Burning Crusade server.
This is a one time, one way transfer. Characters who are transferred to a Burning Crusade server will not be allowed
to go back to the Classic servers under any circumstances. Your character will get to keep all equipped items and gold,
as well what is in their bags. Bank contents will NOT be carried over.

A Curious Discombobulator is available for purchase from Chronormu for 500 gold.
Going forward, you will be able to create characters directly in a Burning Crusade server 2 months after its initial release.

A Tempered Discombobulator allows a level 60 character in a World of Warcraft Classic server to transfer to a World of Warcraft Classic+ server. Classic+ servers will be updated with new content; raids, items, battleground and more! Characters who are transferred to a Classic+ server will not be allowed to go back to the Classic servers under any circumstances. Your character will get to keep all equipped items and gold, as well what is in their bags. You can opt to transfer the bank contents as well, although this will remove all bank items from the original Classic servers.

You can obtain a Tempered Discombobulator via a new, repeatable quest chain.
You will need the following reputation levels and items to be able to progress the quest chain;

Reward: 5 x Tempered Discombobulator

As the quest chain is repeatable, and Tempered Discombobulators are not soulbound, players will be able to trade these to their friends, or sell them in exchange for gold. Players will NOT be able to create a character directly in Classic+ servers, and can only transfer from existing Classic servers by using a Tempered Discombobulator.
The long and difficult quest chain with a steep time investment requirement is intended. This gives the guilds who have cleared all PvE content something to work for, and as the quest reward is 5 Tempered Discombobulators, players can set and work in teams.

Classic+ Stage 2

Classic+ Stage 3

...and many more!

Saying Cataclysm was the best WoW version is like spitting in my face. How could anyone say that.
Everyone I know who played in early WoW stopped with Cata, because it was so very terrible.

There is a reason why people are called "Catababies".
Kevin Jordan, one of the creators of the original WoW told a story about how he created the greatest and best game of all time,
but then Activision took it away from him and unleashed a "cataclysm" upon it.

They took away class identity, talent trees and everything was so streamlined it was like driving a car. Total monotony.

Class homogenization.
Dumbing down of world content and dungeons.
Started the modern "this patch invalidates last patch".

How would you quantify or empirically evaluate any of those claims?
Greatly amplified vendor epics. To the point you could buy tier gear.

Using currency acquired from raids. Nowadays it's all purchasable with gold because Blizzard briefly tried to cut down on the number of in-game currencies, but that wasn't always the case... was it?

As long as most of a player's gear is dropped from bosses, and purchased gear is just used to fill in the gaps caused by bad RNG, I don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly nowhere near the horridness of farming Timeless Isle trash for ilevel 496 epic tokens to send to alts...

How do i quantify homogenization?
Equalization of dps.
Classes without cc got cc
Classes without self healing got self healing
Classes without aoe got aoe.

How do i quantify world content/dungeons.
Leveling made even faster then before. I leveled up from 70 to 80 far faster then i went 60 to 70.
Furthermore dungeons is easy. We were clearing heroic dungeons in wrath, at launch, without cc and via just chain pulling and aoe.
It was laughable after burning crusade.

The last one is the easiest
When ulduar hit you could buy new badge gear + tier pieces that let you just skip naxx.
Same with when toc let you bypass naxx and ulduar.
And icc same thing.

Using currency from raids AND dungeons.

I feel like they're going to come out with BC, perhaps even Wrath if people are tired of BC's content, but that'll probably be it as Cataclysm was the start of its downfall. They'll just have to make "WoW 2" at some point as there's only so much they can do with retail as they're already heavily pushing their engine for the very limited things it can do.

I want BC!

Actually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.

> citation needed

You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.

Cataclysm was the best expansion. I am convinced it would be the most popular if brought back.

:lol:

You mean the game that launched the steady downward spiral of subscriptions?

Honestly, I really enjoyed Cataclysm until Dragon Soul came out with 4.3. That was an atrocious raid and the Caverns of Time dungeons weren't much better. In fact, I'll rate DS as top 3 worst raids in WoW. Only good thing in that patch was how they removed Reforging.

TBC and WOTLK are pure nostalgia.

I cannot understand how so many people who are excited about classic scream for *insert personal favourite expansion*. Like other people have made clear in this thread, the first expansion after vanilla started the awful formulaic experience that WoW became so quickly. Vanilla has an immense world that none of the expansions come close to, and this to me is what makes WoW so amazing.

I do, however, understand why people would be excited to replay the expansion in which they saw their own WoW prime, so to speak. The nostalgia and happy memories are great, and for me this would be TBC. Still, the way expansions insta-invalidate the rest of the world with their bigger and better numbers and somewhat contained zones is downright toxic to WoW, and TBC laid for foundation for every awful expansion that ever came after.

The cool thing about redoing vanilla with classic is that we can look back, and realise exactly what things steered WoW off the line in the beginning and try to correct these. Simply going down the preset path of already made expansions is missing the point by such a longshot that I'm impressed with how many people want this.

I can only compare to OSRS when talking about Classic+, and obviously Runescape is a very different game with lots of sidewards content which can more easily be added or changed. WoW is more about progressing upwards (bigger, better numbers again), so while it is not clear to me how Classic+ should be executed, I am convinced that the best way to preserve what we love about the vanilla game is to stay with vanilla but modify it slowly and carefully.

EDIT: I also do not believe in having multiple servers which are on different expansions. This will only confuse new incoming players and lessen the player base for all games.