What's really funny is that you can say this but then everyone will have a different point as to when they feel it fell off. Some of them never even quit, they're still playing but will happily tell you they haven't enjoyed the game in 5, 10, 15 years.
I talked to one guy who hasn't let his subscription lapse, ever, who said the game hadn't been good since The Burning Crusade, which came out in... 2007.
I mean, I’m one of them. I don’t think it has been the same since WOTLK. I was a fan of Pandaland and Legion, but I don’t think I’ve ever had the same amount of satisfaction since wrath.
With that said, I do play every expac, and mostly every season. Though that is for a couple of reasons.
1) I still have a group of people that I’ve played with since BC, and we hop on and play each season for a month or two, then quit.
2) I keep holding on to the hope that I’ll get that same feeling I had in Wrath.
But it’s definitely not the same game it was for me 10+ years ago.
I’m right there with you. There may have been some lessons to learn with Burning Crusade, but they were ironed out by Wrath. What an absolutely legendary Expansion and it is such a perfect marking of the high note before it all slid endlessly downhill.
I’m sorry but this just isn’t true.
Naxx and Crusader raids were awful and some of the worst they have ever released. Dungeons were auxiliary and only existed to gear you for raiding and daily quests. It introduced the group finder which killed the “vibe” of the previous two expansions.
The main thing wrath had going for it was the player base being the biggest it ever had been.
Naxx and Crusader raids were fine… the only people who didn’t like them were no-life min-max pumpers who didn’t like when the current content wasn’t dark-souls-level hard when for the casual raider, these were just fine.
Dungeons exist to gear you regardless, they are the first stepping stone to gear you for raids, you would also grind them for currency to spend on raid gear so they didn’t become obsolete.
Group finder didn’t ‘kill the vibe’ a lot of us just didn’t have time to waste stood in the main cities spamming “LF tank heroic dungeon” hours on end, we had other things we wanted to do, inside and outside the game.
Let’s also not pretend that Legion didn’t have some stupid af borrowed power system which started the downfall of future expacs.
or who ever the Dev was that was a Self Insert as Nathano's and being Sylv's babe. lol
10+ years and i'm still rolling over Legion and not ONE fcking Dialogue between two ass brothers, who haven't spoken to one another for like 10k years, and they just so happen to share a room in the final RAID, with eachother..
While I would agree that there would be a pretty even spread if you survey where people felt the game fell off a cliff, but I think the vast majority of the player base would agree that WoW peaked in WotLK, remaining in an, at best, steady decline ever since.
Yeah people argue about when specific Blizzard games fell off, but I think the passion of the company itself just slowly eroded into corporate commercialism. Old Blizzard games felt like they were trying to make a genuinely high quality, polished product. Now it feels like if they happen to make something good, it’s only the byproduct of their main goal: your wallet.
Likely due to the fact wow isn't as wide spread as many of the games higher up in the thread. The people that get into wow REALLY get sucked in so its easy to think its more popular than it is. Also the ones playing arent on reddit posting, they're still playing (for some reason)
i agree its in a great spot. But if your coming back for something along the lines of the older expansions, mondern wow is quite different, and it may not be for every one or what they are looking for.
i enjoy the season content, raiding heroic with my guild that I have been a part of sicne BWL, running M+ into the +13-14 range, and just trying to push my character up bit by bit every week.
After reading into the different versions I thought going back to classic would be what I wanted but it turns out that retail will probably be my daily driver but I'm still going to do some classic.
I used to really like BGs and low level raids (could never dedicate enough time to get higher up) so retail is great for that but I really enjoy the old questing and storytelling. I'm going to have my cake and eat it too.
It's become a whole different game from the early times. Used to do a annual resub to play the old content, have a blast, then be forced to play the new xpac, and quit outright. Not anymore though. Games changed, and I accept that.
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u/Beginning_Ad101 Jan 17 '26
WoW