08-01-2015, 05:41 AM
(07-31-2015, 02:12 PM)Tal Wrote: I'd be interested in hearing why you feel MoP was the best?
MoP basically had it all. It was by far the most feature-rich and story-rich expansion, with a well-written cohesive storyline. Blizzard used it to innovate on the game and provide just a ridiculous amount of NEW content and game modes never done before. Running down the list quick in my head:
- New race - with a new feature to pick your faction dynamically.
- New class - Monk.
- New continent with a leveling story only beaten by WoD's - but of course you'd expect that to improve as time goes on. The story was innovative, too - for the first time, Blizzard was really making up NEW lore, as opposed to WoD...
- Innovative feature - Brawlers' Guild. Fun!
- Innovative feature - Proving Grounds. Fun!
- Innovative feature - Scenarios. Didn't pan out, imo, but they took that tech and built it into WoD's in-world scenarios while questing.
- Awesome raids. Throne of Thunder especially stands out for being "Ulduar 2.0".
- Timeless Isle. Some liked it, some didn't, but they really tried something new there.
- New Battleground - Deepwind Gorge.
- New Arena.
- Permanent world changes (Siege of Orgrimmar breaking the Vale of Eternal Blossoms).
- Expansion-wide Legendary. Maybe you didn't like how they handled it, but it was something new.
- Innovative feature - Challenge Modes.
- Innovative feature - Flex raiding sizes.
- Innovative feature - Pet battles! Holy crap that's a rabbit hole that goes down forever if you let it. Some people still play WoW just for that.
- Probably more but can't remember...
MoP wasn't perfect, of course. Its extremely daily-driven focus in the beginning was cumbersome due to it not really being optional for both raiders and more casual players alike, but Blizzard corrected that with the Throne of Thunder release and of course Timeless Isle. Then they went dumb in WoD and killed dailies altogether. Scenarios in MoP were also a pretty meh addition and they realized that.
Even just a few weeks in I was saying MoP was the best they've ever done. Many people didn't like the Eastern theme of the expansion, and I get that. But looking at the sheer content and new game features they added and no other expansion even comes close.
Compare it to WoD. There's nothing NEW in WoD. It became readily apparent to me just two weeks into the expansion that Garrisons were the only real new feature to WoD, and everything else was rehash. There was NOTHING NEW! No innovation anywhere! Hey, remember the Brawlers' Guild? Do it again, we changed the boss kill order! Remember the Proving Grounds? Never mind that you got Endless Tank, Healer, and DPS last expansion, do it all over!
Do Challenge Modes again! No new battlegrounds, no new arenas, very few dungeons, but Garrisons, Garrisons, Garrisons! It was a phoned-in expansion; at some point in the dev cycle they realized they were really in trouble and just put out what they had - much like Cataclysm.
If the announcement comes next week and it's basically "hey, new dungeons and raids! Level cap to 110! New class! That's about it!" it will essentially signal that they're done innovating the game and are just monetizing it now. I have no idea what happened between MoP's dev cycle and WoD's, but I can only hope it was a one-off.
Maybe WoW expansions will be like Star Trek movies? Every other one is "meh?"
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.