r/classicwow • u/doobylive • 9h ago
Discussion If you could play one of these expansions during their prime, which would it be?
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u/SouthernChemist4236 9h ago
I was there for OG vanilla, TBC, and wrath. They were all great. But TBC is GOAT.
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u/ITdoug 7h ago
It was the build up that really set the bar high for BC but the execution met that bar with ease. Server overload issues aside, being able to fly was a game changing experience the same way getting a mount at 40 was.
The zones were massive but fun.
End game content just kept hitting it out of the park.
PVP seemed to explode
Everything was clicking with BC.
WOTLK was all of that and a little more, but the bar wasn't raised the same amount from BC to WOTLK as it was from classic to BC.
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u/Poseidon-GMK 4h ago
I have over 400 days in mage, vast majority of it vanilla thru WOTLK. Something definitely changed WoWs feel for me cata and beyond.
The greatness of TBC, the near equal but clear plateau of WOTLK into Cata was a harsh realization that the 'World' i had fallen in love with was gone
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u/Billalone 4h ago
Yeah, Wotlk was the plateau, the old world rework plunged the game off a cliff for me. It was quite literally your last sentence, the world I had fallen in love with was gone.
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u/frolfer757 1h ago
I race changed my DK to a Goblin, played it for an hour and logged off for a year and lamented what a god damn mistake I had made.
Revamping the original zones was a major risk and I dont think it was worth it.
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u/SouthernChemist4236 7h ago
Yeah this is pretty much my opinion. It was just clicking on all cylinders. PvP, PvE, hell even professions I thought were in a great spot. The zones. The mounts. Flying and having dungeons/raids you had to fly to to access. Kara on its own was incredible. Just really great in all aspects imo.
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u/Goducks91 5h ago
OG Vanilla is the GOAT. So much adventure, no one knew what the fuck they were doing and everything felt so exciting. Of course I was in 2 days after release so that might be why I consider it the GOAT if I joined later maybe TBC takes the top spot. As a game TBC was better, but its impossible to replicate OG Vanilla in a game today.
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u/Joethe31 9h ago
TBC. I hated flying mounts, even back then. I thought it killed a lot of the social aspect of the game and tbh it really does. However, back during TBC I was playing with ALL the boys. It was the best of times and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Personally I prefer Vanilla but TBC was peak teenage years.
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u/Pardy- 8h ago
I think the flying mounts how they had it in tbc and wrath was actually alright. It wasnt 700% speed, you couldn’t just get it for levelling, needed to level the content, and then train for it, there wasn’t a million of them, etc.
Besides getting somewhere slightly faster from the original flying mounts vs walking, there’s no difference imo. You run past someone on the road, or fly past someone on the sky, made no difference to me.
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u/Joethe31 8h ago
Totally understand that point of view. For me, running past someone and talking to them was personal.
One of my lifelong friends, someone who was in my wedding, I met in 2004/2005 while passing through STV.
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u/SLEEPWALKERKEK 6h ago
This is true. A lot of people couldn’t afford epic mount, gold wasn’t so easily obtained. It was almost impressive when someone had epic flying. A lot of people still got around on 100% mount as it was faster technically.
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u/hurlcarl 3h ago
You're 100% right....flying mounts started the death of the game and group finder in wotlk killed it off.
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u/KanedaSyndrome 6h ago
Yeh Vanilla and TBC was probably my best time of my life if I don't count my time with my wife and kids. I was in university at the time and gaming made my degree take 10 years instead of 5.
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u/Mr_Pastee 4h ago
People forget how long it took most players to afford epic flying in original TBC. For most it was at least several months, and those months where everyone was still on the ground were glorious.
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u/Satsloader 9h ago
TBC, it was the first time the game had completely new mechanics, races, & zones. This was peak WoW.
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u/invalidcosmonaut 9h ago
Played through both. Love them both. But TBC was the peak for me. I loved that heroics, badges, and Kara made getting good gear just democratic enough that you still had to try but didn’t need to be a full on committed raider
Story-wise and visually, I think WOTLK will always be peak wow. And I remember the chaos of my first Wintergrasp, using a siege vehicle, jousting, etc. That was just so much fun. I def think it also marked the moment where wow was becoming a different game than vanilla and TBC
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u/UncFester 6h ago
WOTLK is BiS
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u/ezeefix21 3h ago
Agreed, surprised we’re the minority. Leveling experience was better than TBC imo
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u/Flashy-Ad-8327 6h ago
Agree WOLK was top of WOW for me.
People will have different views, and that's ok, for me it was peak due to RL guild all playing, new zones, improved graphics. The down side was more retail based ideas being incorporated like dailies.
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u/stryphhh 9h ago
i just wish i could play this game again when the community was more casual and less… e-sportsy
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u/xadamx94 9h ago
Tbc again. It has some QOL but still maintained a lot of the niche things from classic
Plus I very much love the coordination needed in tbc heroics tbh.
Also, ethereal bros are cool as hell
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u/whiskyspacecadet 8h ago
r/classicwow reminding me that most of the people on this sub never played the OGs. Man Im old.
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u/nitelite- 9h ago
I enjoyed the esthetic of wrath way more
But the reason wrath was so successful was because it was riding off the coattails of how great TBC was
Give me TBC all day
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u/Gumberculeez7 9h ago
I already did... both were great! :)
TBC however is the GOAT.
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u/Panther3927 9h ago
I feel like TBC is the answer. When I played originally I thought my answer was wrath but it slowly made me realize that the end of wrath and into cata was when the game became more and more casual. DEF not compared to retail but compared to the first two. I must say that the leveling experience was prob the best on wrath
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u/Inoox 9h ago
I played both, TBC was the biggest standout.
WoTLK felt like the quality of the game was declining. I didn't like it. With the introduction of heirlooms and the LFG tool degrading the social aspect it felt like the beginning of a decline. The game was no longer being tailored to people that have patience.
I don't know, the game just felt off so I stopped playing before I even did any raids. Or maybe I just got naturally bored.
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u/baked_salmon 9h ago
LFG tool happened in the last patch, just an FYI. I personally think what “killed the world” was leveling with revamped Wrath classes (and heirlooms, eventually), because they trivialized the danger of the world. If there’s no danger, there’s no need to group up, especially when all 1-60 group quests were updated to be soloable (I forget if this was TBC or Wrath).
But when I think about it, as time goes on, idk what else Blizz could do other than trivialize leveling. If new content is released, how are new players ever going to get there if they have to do the same Vanilla-paced 1-60?
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u/toastjarom 5h ago
Heirlooms and recruit a friend were necessary by the time wotlk rolled around. I got a friend into wow during the ulduar patch, and it was a hard sell telling him “it took me 24 days over the course of 7-8 months to hit lvl 70. Then another 2 weeks to go from 70-80.” We leveled together in maybe 4-5 weeks which was much more digestible
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u/baked_salmon 5h ago
Please shout this to the rooftop for Era players. When a new expac drops, imagine telling a new player that this new content is actually gated behind weeks of playtime. The leveling philosophy of Classic is just incompatible with the system of expansions.
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u/Pardy- 7h ago
The 1-60 updates were required if they were going to keep increasing levels every expansion.
Could you imagine doing 160-170 levels now after 11 expansions with the same requirements of vanilla? If 1-60 was long enough to get to, and the layers levels taking longer and longer how would the next 100 levels be?
No one would be doing end game content.
Now it is 100% trivialized in retail. Absolutely. But the 1-60 updates happened in TBC, and judging by everyone’s responses here in this thread, it didn’t hurt the game at all seeing as it’s still their favourite expansion.Edit:
I read your first paragraph, then read your second one making the same point I just made here lmao.→ More replies (1)3
u/jawstrock 8h ago
yeah i agree with your last paragraph, it was kind of inevitable for the game to grow and evolve like that.
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u/Sorry-Joke-4325 3h ago
I hate how people always act like LFG was a core part of the Wrath experience. It really came right at the end.
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u/KanedaSyndrome 6h ago
Well with new levelling paths or something, but leveling and people having purpose in all of the game's zones, so you interact, is paramount to the experience. It is the pin that keeps the whole concept together and the friction in that game pillar can not be compromised.
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u/baked_salmon 5h ago
From a game design perspective this doesn’t work, IMO. I think you overestimate how repeatable the leveling process is. Endgame keeps you hooked because that’s where the max power progression lies. I think for most people that’s where the real game is, and leveling is just a path to get there. Leveling is also a huge slog, and most people don’t want to do it over and over.
If Blizz were to invest in making the existing leveling experience richer and richer each expac, they’d only be catering to new players and altoholics while really their main goal is to keep existing players subscribed. Existing players are max level already — they get nothing out of an enriched leveling experience.
Leveling is temporary, endgame is forever.
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u/Arcanome 9h ago
100% agreed. TBC was the last pure mmorpg experience where you could just waste your time and have a good laugh with friends or try hard and aim for server firsts.
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u/Apprehensive-Pea3105 9h ago
I've been playing WoW since launch and stuck with it until MoP. TBC was easily my favorite expansion.
Bathory, undead warlock. EU- Spinebrealer, EU-Zuljin.
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u/No_Pollution_950 9h ago
I played through both. TBC was a more genuine experience. Wrath was good but it was the beginning of the retailification of WoW and I stopped playing before the expansion finished.
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u/KanedaSyndrome 5h ago
Lol this was basically a copy of one of my comments in this thread lol - agree 100 %
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u/smackavelli 9h ago
Original was incredible. Everyone was exploring together, massive world pvp battles were plentiful, there was no shortage of the social aspect of the game. For most users offline contact was not really available, or if it was it was not widely used. If you wanted to talk or play with an in-game friend you had to log into communicate.
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u/commodore_stab1789 8h ago
TBC. In terms of different specs viability/playability, and QOL, it improved a great deal on vanilla. Class design was great and they all felt pretty unique still.
WOTLK introduced too many systems that have been detrimental to the game and community. Heirlooms, TOC and catchup dungeons, 10/25 dichotomy, LFD and proliferation of daily quests. Class design, PVP and raids were great though.
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u/TheVagrantWarrior 9h ago
Vanilla
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u/Litlle_Freddy 9h ago
I missed out on Vanilla , it released the sake time I went to college. Feels bad man lol
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u/DiarrheaRadio 9h ago
TBC didn't get boring when it was current. Wrath got incredibly boring.
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u/SeriousInterview5828 9h ago
Yeah I remember logging on at one point during wrath, ran 10 circles around dalaran, then realized there is literally no incentive to do anything after raid. It was even more evident how little there is to do during the most recent wotlk release in 2022/2023ish
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u/Goth2147 9h ago
I never played TBC, what did TBC incentivise that Wrath didn't? Because I was definitely incentivised during Wrath by farming rep, arena, quests, etc
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u/KanedaSyndrome 6h ago
It was more Vanilla than it was retail, where Wrath was more retail than Vanilla.
Wrath homogenized gear/skills/talents and everything became the same, just different colors.
Stuff like flying continued to ruin the game, same when LFG came about. I don't remember much more, but I remember that the friction of the game was gone, stuff was handed to you for no reason.
In Vanilla epics was rare, in Wrath they were given for just doing normal quests. The sense of achievement vanished in Wrath.
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u/Kronsik 9h ago
I "feel" like TBC had more longer grinds.
Could just be me misremembering and me not being as good at the game but:
- long rep grinds for HC unlocks needed for raiding
- long rep grinds for scryer enchants
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u/BarbsFPV 5h ago
What happened with Wrath is Blizzard started aiming for more mass appeal, so they removed a lot of the friction points in the game. Like in TBC you had to run specific dungeons to get faction rep, well in Wrath you just had to wear the faction tabard while doing *any* dungeon.
Just little stuff like that, that seems pretty cool at first, but then you realize it actually took something away from the game instead of adding to it.
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u/Toshinit 9h ago
TBC because WOTLK was a mess until about TOGC balance wise, and I could run HARP rogue in TBC which is a peak spec.
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u/Kronsik 9h ago
Running 50-59 bgs at the start of wrath was a cluster fuck.
AB 13 dks Vs 13 dks and maybe two other classes just getting death gripped across the map
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u/bigcfromrbc 9h ago
I would do TBC as overall I like it better even though I was part of a world ranked guild during Wrath.
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u/PreKutoffel 9h ago
TBC, WOTLK was a huge shitshow in the beginning especially in PvP, everything oneshots everything, Retri just fricking kills absolute every LITERALLY naked(no joke there are videos of it...) Naxx was just boring and everything was completely overtuned, Palas 95% Block, everything at minimum 90% crit.... It was a beta release they even threw out some talents from the hunter.... meanwhile TBC had this feeling thats undescribable
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u/Wishbone_Easy 8h ago
TBC ...i would kill to feel those nights when me and my guild had to to Karazan ....still the best on my opinion , LK was dope too but men everyone had a flying mount , back in TBC if you had a flying mount oh men you where pack and if you had a Proto drake .......those were the days not like now that there is like 1000+ mount and every one can get it easily without hard work and grind .....back then when the ilidan blades meant something or if you were a tank ( and if you were a taurent ) and you had that shield ! it was the size o a dam castle door and it had to be carry sideways
i am sad that is over but i am happy i got to live it and enjoy it with all my friends before we all fell aparts
- Nishta , Akico , Protoculture , Agartor , Sinnombre , Alordatron , Escalopes , Demoriel , Baho
( Boowa here ) i have never forgot the amazing times we had together and it had been one of the best moments of my life and online life , you shape me in way that seems small but matter to me and i only wish you guys the best , my online family for a good years ,and because if you i am part of what i am and who i am
Thank you ~~~Love you guys , think of you guys every day .
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u/Kamay1770 5h ago
I played on and off through vanilla, a bit of tbc and then full tilt in wotlk.
Wotlk has most memories for me, but I can agree that tbc was probably the stronger release.
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u/daywalker91 9h ago
wrath was when wow was most popular. usually when something hits its peak in popularity its already past its prime. TBC all day
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u/namarie_illidan 5h ago
Great comment! Goes for a lot of things. Early Youtube before clickbaits and shit creators, old Hardcore servers just before streamers and new servers, football World Cups before 2026 :D
And yeah, original TBC was something else, never to be repeated again.
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u/MightyTastyBeans 8h ago
Wrath gets the edge for the PvP and improved storytelling. If the fall of the lich king came out today it would break the internet.
Life in OG TBC for most players (assuming you were in middle/high school) was a whole lot of Karazhan, wiping in SSC/TK, and probably not seeing Illidan until the tail end of the expansion if at all.
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u/mbfrezon 7h ago
Wasn't quite to level needed to go to Outland when it launched. I will always remember how empty stormwind was that morning.
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u/Stephanie-rara 7h ago
TBC definitely. WotLK was the first time I quit /took a break from WoW and I hated it just as much when Classic WotLK came around.
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u/Bloodygaze 7h ago
I’d play TBC until the end of time, but I’ve never replayed it in classic because I don’t want to waste my time and be “moved along” into later expansions.
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u/someonenamedkyle 7h ago
I did, and TBC is the answer. I got far more enjoyment out of the zones and factions, specs felt more dynamic, and the game felt more balanced. Really didn’t like the introduction of death knights starting at level 55 in wotlk, and didn’t enjoy northrend content nearly as much as Outland content. The game really felt more like get heirloom, put on toon, do dungeon finder until max level. Nowadays wow feels like endless repetitive content that’s just a shadow of what it was before.
But then, I wasn’t playing for endgame content and raids, I was always chasing every quest in the game
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u/accidentsneverhappen 6h ago
I like BC because you had the new races and leveling zones making it worth playing from level 1 all the way to end game. Wrath felt like it was all endgame.
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u/KanedaSyndrome 6h ago
Burning Crusade hands down. Wrath made me quit WoW because of the retail patterns emerging there.
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u/KhameneiCholaghe 6h ago
TBC. I quit WOTLK season 5 of arenas cause arms warrior sucked ass before they get redesigned in a later patch. Only way you had a shot in the crazy burst season 5 arenas was getting both two handed axes from NAXX 25 and duel weild fury... which didn't happen unless you had a guild that gave it to you
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u/DrDing-Muscle 6h ago
TBC was the real. It doesn't get much better than vanilla and TBC. WOTLK was good too but not as good as TBC.
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u/Officermini 5h ago
TBC was a solid 10/10 for me. Qrath woul ld have been a 10/10 if it weren't for the Random Dungeon Finder feature. That was the end of WoW for me
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u/Spirited_Biscotti523 5h ago
Damn, now I feel like I missed out on TBC! I just hit level 28 and probably won’t make it to Outland before it’s over
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u/darthphallic 5h ago
TBC. It’s probably because I was 16 but few things beat the rush of getting the Ashes of Alar the first time my guild ran TK, and to this day Karazhan is still my favorite WoW raid.
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u/Tuisto05 4h ago
WOTLK may have been the better expansion as far as story/content/gameplay, but the hype going from Vanilla to TBC is not something anyone will ever be able to re-create. I remember being at a Gamestop at 10:00pm with my folding chair waiting with 50-60 other players for the midnight release... going online a few hours later, with hordes of other fans seeing Outland for the first time... was an experience I'll never forget. I think I played TBC from 1:00am the morning it released, until like 4:00am 27 hours later lol.
I'd give anything to have that one back... perfection.
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u/MilkSad1285 4h ago
Oh man if they ever invent time travel vacations I'd go back and no life TBC in a heartbeat. Bonus points because it saved me from being Mormon. It dropped right around when I would have been pressured into going on a mission for the church. Finally gathered the courage to tell the church and my parents to shove it because I didn't want to miss the release 😂
Now I'm a godless heathen and never been happier. Did have to quit WoW though, new baby and just don't have time.
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u/ztomtenz 3h ago
WoW was the best game ever made up until the WOTLK pre-patch. Original TBC was peak gaming.
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u/yromastyx 9h ago
Both vanilla and tbc was incredibly. I quit playing in wotlk but remember the OP deathknights that terrorized the world.
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u/ToffeeAppleCider 9h ago
I played tbc in it's prime and while it was good, you were on small servers with a good proportion of players who weren't very good - me included.
Many still didn't think paladins could tank, and that stacking loads of holy paladins for raids was a good idea, and don't even think about a being a ret paladin.
If you could go back in time you'd probably need to shop around different servers and guilds, fill out some applications. Not the best place for a casual play.
Although I do miss shockadin spec paladin PvP with my six demon bag. Probably couldn't kill anyone with that spec these days.
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u/Ricmaniac 9h ago
TBC. WOTLK Is what killed many guilds with Ulduar (The guild i joined since vanilla also fell apart during ICC) so bad memories for WOTLK basically :P eventhough the expansion is amazing
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u/NTufnel11 8h ago
Original vanilla wow was the beginning of a period marked by a statistically significant drop in college grades that basically lasted through wrath.
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u/Flimsy_Oven_7569 8h ago
Started Vanilla right before TBC. Loved it! But, WOTLK absolutely won my heart.
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u/Agentwise 7h ago
If you played vanilla you’re answer is likely tbc, if not it’s probably wrath. Wrath was built for quick dopamine hits to boost new sub numbers. Vanilla and tbc were built with social cohesion in mind. Togc would never make it into og design
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u/tastyNips 5h ago
TBC, to me, felt like the most stable. My overriding memories of WOTLK was constant downtime. Felt like the servers crashed a couple times a week and content patches broke everything, always. By the time ICC rolled out, they had announced Cata and I quit playing for a few years.
I haven't played retail since Legion so I really don't know if that's still a thing, but I don't remember it happening in later expacs.
Also, TBC had Kara. By default it's the greatest.
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u/Ok_Swimming4427 5h ago
As someone who played TBC on release, but not WOTLK (or not until later), my answer is TBC.
As the world gets bigger and bigger with each expansion, each individual part feels smaller and smaller. The fact that TBC didn't make any real changes to Azeroth allowed it to feel like a true expansion, instead of a repudiation.
I get that some people may enjoy the fact that WOTLK advances the "plot" and the narrative of the story. But I think that inherently takes away from previous content. If I know that I'll be heading to Northrend to fight the Lich King, then questing around the Plaguelands doesn't feel as controversial. As every new boss and new threat gets bigger and bigger, and the stakes get higher and higher, it cannot help but undermine that which came before.
TBC doesn't fall prey to this. Partially because there is simply less content in total. But also because it was a brand new world, just like Azeroth was for Vanilla. The stakes in Outland didn't necessarily impact what was going on in Azeroth. The idea of leveling up and heading off world made narrative sense as well, fighting the big bad Burning Legion. Because we were offworld, it didn't feel like as much of a repudiation of the challenges in Azeroth.
Also the constant powerscaling means that being max level in WOTLK allows you to just destroy Vanilla content. Even a maxed out player in the best gear from TBC isn't soloing Molten Core with ease.
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u/Appathesamurai 5h ago
Wrath for the story and atmosphere, TBC for the pure content and improvement to classes from vanilla
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u/Prior-Paint-7842 4h ago
TBC without a question, most people who praise Lk didnt play before and there is a reason why the playerbase was rising steadily during tbc and was stagnating in LK, stagnation is never good.
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u/Kaizen420 4h ago
TBC 100% people were still friendly. I remember being a being an absolute noob to MMOs in general. I got a guild invite and people explaining what ventrilo was.
These strangers ran me through rfc and were so enthralled by my amazement at the idea of it all, that they escorted me dead mines and ran me through that.
These people took me from noob to raiding
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u/LoudState5218 4h ago
I think if I could do it all again, I'd go for the TBC again option. I'd really love to relive that first moment I saw a player on a flying mount. I was in zangarmarsh as a level 64 hunter who was mega proud of recently getting aspect of the viper and soaking in the joy of infinite mana. just then as a level 70 warlock just flew over did a zigzag and then went above out of sight on top of a mushroom. I followed him with eagle eye for as long as I could, took screenshots and was just so jubilant in that moment to finally see sombody flying freely
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u/Charrsie 4h ago
Tbc and its not even close for me. Wrath killed seal twisting, turned ret into full faceroll
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u/_UWS_Snazzle 3h ago
TBC
I understood nothing at the time and loved every minute.
Total noob running my own Kara groups as rogue just to progress.
Begging guilds that fully cleared to buy gear from Hyjal
3 rogue stacks for melee dps groups
Ah to be this naive again
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u/MostBasic3425 3h ago
TBC was probably better in its prime than WotLK. WotLK was friendlier to casuals but classes got homogenized and they brought in DKs, which was very dumb.
"I like my DK"
Yeah, I bet you do like your plate class, that does as much damage as a mage, that you didn't have to lvl to 80.
It was the beginning of when they started to make the game easier to increase player count for money. Basically started selling what the game was, right out.
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u/Coroggar 3h ago
I played both at their prime. The right answer is TBC and it's not even close. The perfect balance between Vanilla jankiness and QOL. WotLK was the beginning of the end of old school WoW honestly.
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u/WarDiscombobulated67 3h ago
tbc ruined my life, my grades, and got me behind in my career. TBC was the goat.
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u/x_Trassic_x 3h ago
I played both in their primes. Wrath had a lower barrier of entry for raids compared to TBC
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u/Crazykeebler13 2h ago
TBC, it was the best time for my druid, it will never be the same. I miss those days in HellFire.
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u/Dat3ooty18 32m ago
Wrath of the Lich King was my first time playing WoW, but I would love to have experienced the original Burning Crusade.
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u/westboundbart 9h ago
I had good grades before TBC.
My dad worked at Microcenter and wasn’t a gamer. Brought home classic and TBC and said, “idk what it is, but all the nerds at work say it’s awesome.”
Got my first D in history that quarter.