Adios my beloved
Plagued by instrumental play, you either play at the highest level which is not very high as the content is solved but all sense of community is lost. Game design in 2009 was heavily dependent on community but gamers in 2023 shame you for playing any different than what they read online.
It's a shame you can't enjoy these games how they were designed and are forced by others to put unnecessary addons and scripting languages to get a .1% increase in performance.
Any merits of design or artistry from the game itself is ruined by the abhorrent playerbase. Good luck finding a guild with normal functioning human beings running it.
Also if you think im some casual playing this game here are my logs:
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/pagle/somtaaw
It's a shame you can't enjoy these games how they were designed and are forced by others to put unnecessary addons and scripting languages to get a .1% increase in performance.
Any merits of design or artistry from the game itself is ruined by the abhorrent playerbase. Good luck finding a guild with normal functioning human beings running it.
Also if you think im some casual playing this game here are my logs:
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/pagle/somtaaw
Hindsight is 20/20, and this truly is the beginning of the end.
Burning Crusade made the giant world of Azeroth much smaller, but still had a lot of that Classic "heart". Wrath made WoW even smaller, and eventually become a weekly raidlog simulator.
Wrath had, in my opinion, peak class design in all of Warcraft's history--and I love the lore and story of Arthas, like many Warcraft fans--but the game itself really began to suffer. When it released, it was a 10/10 in my heart; but as time marched on and end game became the only point to logging in for many, my alts slowly died in the old world, and Azeroth closed off forever from that point on.
Thanks to the retrospectives of Classic's releases, I now realize how much of what I loved in Vanilla was lost each time they "expanded" the game. I appreciate the opportunity to finally play Wrath (I began with Cataclysm in 2011), but I could never go back to this release cadence for MMOs.
If Classic+ disappoints or never releases, I'll at least have Turtle WoW, Era servers, and maybe some others like LOTRO. And if all else fails, sleep well sweet prince.
Burning Crusade made the giant world of Azeroth much smaller, but still had a lot of that Classic "heart". Wrath made WoW even smaller, and eventually become a weekly raidlog simulator.
Wrath had, in my opinion, peak class design in all of Warcraft's history--and I love the lore and story of Arthas, like many Warcraft fans--but the game itself really began to suffer. When it released, it was a 10/10 in my heart; but as time marched on and end game became the only point to logging in for many, my alts slowly died in the old world, and Azeroth closed off forever from that point on.
Thanks to the retrospectives of Classic's releases, I now realize how much of what I loved in Vanilla was lost each time they "expanded" the game. I appreciate the opportunity to finally play Wrath (I began with Cataclysm in 2011), but I could never go back to this release cadence for MMOs.
If Classic+ disappoints or never releases, I'll at least have Turtle WoW, Era servers, and maybe some others like LOTRO. And if all else fails, sleep well sweet prince.
A trully special few months where the wrath baby silithid hive could collectively gather to reminisce about them olden days and how "they don't make em like they used to"; WotLK is one of them weirdo expansions where virtually every class feels good to play, so obviously it's a massive trash heap (people play moonkin for the bullying experience not the fem blood elf dk stroking their beaks telling them what a good job they did). Naturally, like a really old dog Blizzie had to take it behind the shed to put it down, WoW token feeling like the dad that left for cigs a long time ago only to come back to use their child as an ashtray. Can't wait for the inevitable CataClassic SWEEP, the one and only savior to herald the REBIRTH of the mmo genre from its ashes (friendship ended with ally now goblingirl erp is my best friend).
no RGF lol
I have no nostalgia for playing this when it first came out because I didn't but I gotta say, Ulduar Kinda Fucking Rules, they were cooking in 2008
Endlos grind der durch Nostalgie aber dennoch funktioniert
I think its safe to say Im done with Wrath now.
Overall I have quite mixed feelings about this expansion. It started out really strong, leveling through Northrend was a blast to 80, and Naxx was a solid raid. First patch was quite enjoyable. Then phase 2 hit, and... I did not like it. At first I hated Heroic+ dungeons because ppl were so bad and messing up simple mechanics, and Ulduar is too long a raid in my opinion. Then phase 3 was actually pretty decent, TOGC was a perfect length raid and I enjoyed it a lot, and by this point ppl had the mechs down for heroic+ dungeons so running my daily dungeon was a breeze.
Then phase 4 hit... I was always in the camp of not bringing RDF to classic because it makes the game feel way too retail like. Guess what, thats exactly what happened. Now I had zero reason to ever leave Dalaran, it felt more like a lobby simulator than an MMO. Then ICC is just, eh. Again its too long in my opinion, I dont like 13+ boss raids they take almost 3 hours to clear.
So yeah, 2 good phases, 2 bad phases for me. Im not going to even get into GDKPs, fuck those dude. Everything was way more expensive than it needed to be on the AH. Not to mention people being ridiculously anal about gearscore, I was always decently geared dont get me wrong but I had zero incentive to level alts because good luck finding grps as a fresh 80. On a positive note, I did enjoy that wrath was a nice hybrid feeling between classic and retail, implemented a lot of nice QoL missing from classic but also not being as bloated with content as retail.
3.5/5 might seem high for this much crap talk but it is still good ol WoW fun at the end of the day.
Overall I have quite mixed feelings about this expansion. It started out really strong, leveling through Northrend was a blast to 80, and Naxx was a solid raid. First patch was quite enjoyable. Then phase 2 hit, and... I did not like it. At first I hated Heroic+ dungeons because ppl were so bad and messing up simple mechanics, and Ulduar is too long a raid in my opinion. Then phase 3 was actually pretty decent, TOGC was a perfect length raid and I enjoyed it a lot, and by this point ppl had the mechs down for heroic+ dungeons so running my daily dungeon was a breeze.
Then phase 4 hit... I was always in the camp of not bringing RDF to classic because it makes the game feel way too retail like. Guess what, thats exactly what happened. Now I had zero reason to ever leave Dalaran, it felt more like a lobby simulator than an MMO. Then ICC is just, eh. Again its too long in my opinion, I dont like 13+ boss raids they take almost 3 hours to clear.
So yeah, 2 good phases, 2 bad phases for me. Im not going to even get into GDKPs, fuck those dude. Everything was way more expensive than it needed to be on the AH. Not to mention people being ridiculously anal about gearscore, I was always decently geared dont get me wrong but I had zero incentive to level alts because good luck finding grps as a fresh 80. On a positive note, I did enjoy that wrath was a nice hybrid feeling between classic and retail, implemented a lot of nice QoL missing from classic but also not being as bloated with content as retail.
3.5/5 might seem high for this much crap talk but it is still good ol WoW fun at the end of the day.
quite possibly the most fun I've ever had and ever will have with an mmo
Wrath was a goat expansion.
This review contains spoilers
Ah, Wrath of the Lich King. WotLK for short. This expansion was once the peak of World of Warcraft subscriptions, so perhaps its no surprise that its also around when I first started playing; I can never remember the exact year, but I know I started playing in-between WotLK and the previous expansion (The Burning Crusade). Fans like to refer to people like me as "Wrath babies". Nonetheless, when WoW Classic was first announced, there was uncertainty of if they would revisit the other expansions and not just World of Warcraft in its original 2004 state, but most people I saw were excited for the mere idea that they could play WotLK (officially) again. Now that its been back for a while in the form of WotLK Classic, I've been playing this on and off. I've mostly fallen out of favor with World of Warcraft in recent years, but this was enough to bring me back and level a character to max. Despite my long history with this game and my love for it, I've always been very casual with it, so I didn't do any endgame content (raids) or dungeons. Nonetheless, I did enjoy my time with this one.
As essentially an emulation of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, WotLK Classic is pretty much just like how I remember Wrath being, aside from some modern things like level boosts and the surprising omission of Dungeon Finder. Dungeon Finder was part of the original expansion, but I suppose it was removed in Classic to encourage players to group up themselves rather than through a queue. Despite my fond memories for WotLK, though, I have to admit that I had never even gotten a character past Level 30 during my time playing a ton of WoW as a kid (I was a hopeless altaholic that couldn't get anywhere), so this was actually my first time really experiencing all WotLK has to offer as distinct from the current retail WoW. The new (at the time) continent of Northrend is a huge place with interesting area design and some cool quests. Whereas Outland - introduced in the previous expansion - was the bizarre continent warped by demons that generally had more desolate landmasses that almost felt alien at times, Northrend feels more high fantasy, yet grounded to earth in comparison. I think Pandaria will probably always be my favorite WoW continent just because of its wonderful aesthetic, but Northrend is great too. Nonetheless, I find WotLK Classic to be a good imitation of the original expansion, and that sold me on this being a great idea.
I felt more involved in the quests and stories in WotLK than I did in The Burning Crusade's, and certainly much more than vanilla WoW. There's something so cool and interesting about the things going on, from the resistance against Arthas and his wretched Scourge faction to the story of the Death Knights that once fought for Arthas but broke free from his control. Unfortunately there's a good amount of context in the main plot that is lost if you don't at least know how things went down in Warcraft 3; I imagine I'd care a ton about characters like Arthas and Muradin if I played those games, since their appearances here are relatively unexplained in WoW itself aside from one quest in the Dragonblight area that briefly shows how Arthas got corrupted into the Lich King after wielding the cursed sword Frostmourne. I've never been a WoW lore buff, though I'm still rather familiar with the stories of the more famous characters like Thrall, Varian Wrynn, Malfurion, and Arthas. Regardless of your lore knowledge, though, the various stories you get to see questing throughout Northrend would still be pretty engaging in my opinion. There's a common theme of fighting against the Scourge that was pretty cool, and each area typically has some kind of unique storyline to drive interest. WoW quests (and I suppose MMORPG quests in general) are infamous for being uninteresting and formulaic, but I think WotLK Classic still managed to have quests with some unique fun goals or interesting story flavor to break up the monotony.
Normally I'd include a gameplay section here. For what its worth, WotLK Classic's was fun, but I don't really have a lot to say about it since, unless you're doing the hard endgame content, its going to be pretty simple. Each class generally has a rotation of spells they're going to use for each fight that doesn't typically change much. I was playing a Druid in the Balance spec, for instance, and I found my rotation in that was pretty easy: add any buffs you may not have already (usually Mark of the Wild), Faerie Fire for the debuff, apply damage over time effects with Moonfire and Insect Swarm, then spam Wrath or Starfire until you get either the sun or moon passive which just makes one of them have a higher crit chance. I did also have some useful situational spells I had to use sometimes, but, for the vast majority of the time, my rotation was the same. I think this sort of thing is probably present in any MMORPG, though, so I wouldn't fault WoW for it. It was still a fun time.
Overall, this was a nice trip along memory lane for me, as well as just being a genuinely solid MMORPG journey from Level 1 to Level 80. Very time consuming, but addicting. I think WotLK really was as good as people say it was and not just a nostalgia thing, which I was glad to see for myself. Maybe at some point I'll try raiding; for now, I'm satisfied just having a max level character.
As essentially an emulation of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, WotLK Classic is pretty much just like how I remember Wrath being, aside from some modern things like level boosts and the surprising omission of Dungeon Finder. Dungeon Finder was part of the original expansion, but I suppose it was removed in Classic to encourage players to group up themselves rather than through a queue. Despite my fond memories for WotLK, though, I have to admit that I had never even gotten a character past Level 30 during my time playing a ton of WoW as a kid (I was a hopeless altaholic that couldn't get anywhere), so this was actually my first time really experiencing all WotLK has to offer as distinct from the current retail WoW. The new (at the time) continent of Northrend is a huge place with interesting area design and some cool quests. Whereas Outland - introduced in the previous expansion - was the bizarre continent warped by demons that generally had more desolate landmasses that almost felt alien at times, Northrend feels more high fantasy, yet grounded to earth in comparison. I think Pandaria will probably always be my favorite WoW continent just because of its wonderful aesthetic, but Northrend is great too. Nonetheless, I find WotLK Classic to be a good imitation of the original expansion, and that sold me on this being a great idea.
I felt more involved in the quests and stories in WotLK than I did in The Burning Crusade's, and certainly much more than vanilla WoW. There's something so cool and interesting about the things going on, from the resistance against Arthas and his wretched Scourge faction to the story of the Death Knights that once fought for Arthas but broke free from his control. Unfortunately there's a good amount of context in the main plot that is lost if you don't at least know how things went down in Warcraft 3; I imagine I'd care a ton about characters like Arthas and Muradin if I played those games, since their appearances here are relatively unexplained in WoW itself aside from one quest in the Dragonblight area that briefly shows how Arthas got corrupted into the Lich King after wielding the cursed sword Frostmourne. I've never been a WoW lore buff, though I'm still rather familiar with the stories of the more famous characters like Thrall, Varian Wrynn, Malfurion, and Arthas. Regardless of your lore knowledge, though, the various stories you get to see questing throughout Northrend would still be pretty engaging in my opinion. There's a common theme of fighting against the Scourge that was pretty cool, and each area typically has some kind of unique storyline to drive interest. WoW quests (and I suppose MMORPG quests in general) are infamous for being uninteresting and formulaic, but I think WotLK Classic still managed to have quests with some unique fun goals or interesting story flavor to break up the monotony.
Normally I'd include a gameplay section here. For what its worth, WotLK Classic's was fun, but I don't really have a lot to say about it since, unless you're doing the hard endgame content, its going to be pretty simple. Each class generally has a rotation of spells they're going to use for each fight that doesn't typically change much. I was playing a Druid in the Balance spec, for instance, and I found my rotation in that was pretty easy: add any buffs you may not have already (usually Mark of the Wild), Faerie Fire for the debuff, apply damage over time effects with Moonfire and Insect Swarm, then spam Wrath or Starfire until you get either the sun or moon passive which just makes one of them have a higher crit chance. I did also have some useful situational spells I had to use sometimes, but, for the vast majority of the time, my rotation was the same. I think this sort of thing is probably present in any MMORPG, though, so I wouldn't fault WoW for it. It was still a fun time.
Overall, this was a nice trip along memory lane for me, as well as just being a genuinely solid MMORPG journey from Level 1 to Level 80. Very time consuming, but addicting. I think WotLK really was as good as people say it was and not just a nostalgia thing, which I was glad to see for myself. Maybe at some point I'll try raiding; for now, I'm satisfied just having a max level character.
Nothing could ever recapture what playing WoW felt like back then, but I had a good time playing this with my friends.
it do be chilly
fuck blizzard lol