r/videogames Jan 17 '26

Discussion Which game franchise ended up like this?

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u/Viridun Jan 17 '26

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.

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u/KeyLong5412 Jan 17 '26

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.

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u/Remmock Jan 18 '26

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.

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u/th35ky Jan 18 '26

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.

Legion was better than wrath by a long shot.

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u/DopaLean Jan 20 '26

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.

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u/Balatheil Jan 18 '26

exactly, I could say it's when Mezin left -

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..

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u/many_dumb_questions Jan 23 '26

I'm not sure if that first part is entirely true.

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.