Cataclysm. It took away everything I disliked about the game up until that point and made the level experience way more fun and focused for me. Having to run back and forth between zones looking for quests to do and having to grind levels because of badly done quest progressions never struck me as particularly fun, just annoying busywork.

I was never a raider or PVP player though. I played more for the world and the atmosphere than the gameplay, so when the gameplay finally began to catch up, I was pretty much in throes of bliss. Haven't played Pandaria, so can't comment there.

Burning Crusade. Had the most fun in every aspect of the game during that expansion. Going through the Dark Portal the first time was awe inspiring, all the zones felt really unique, the raids still felt epic even though the player limit was dropped, arena was new and exciting, the community was less of a cesspool than it is now, etc.

Vanilla would be my second pick primarily because everything was new.

I never cared for the idea of Hard Modes/Heroics that was introduced in Wotlk, it always struck me as a money/time saving mechanism so they could artificially elongate content and not have to keep releasing more bosses/raids. Epic gear seemed to lose it's meaning around this time since it became so easy to get.

Cata just didn't stick out to me at all. It just felt like more of the same from Wotlk. LFR was a unique idea but it's too easy and is basically a loot pinata (Welfare epics).

MoP still feels like an open Beta and I hate the theme. Valor gear locked behind reputation that you need to grind dailies for is retarded. PvP balance is possibly the worst it has ever been (or at least tied with S5). The item upgrade system is ruining pvp because catchup is impossible if you start late or want to gear an alt/offspec. The PvP Power stat, while a good idea in concept, makes the gear disparity ridiculously large to the point where if you don't have a pvp weapon you'll never be even close to competitive. Only being able to get rep through dailies is dumb. This is possibly the most alt unfriendly the game has ever been (at max level).

And I hate to be "that guy," but after BC it has felt like every change to make the game more "accessible" has removed part of its uniqueness.

Sunwell Plateau is the exact moment that WoW hit its true peak. After that, it was always going to be difficult for them to make a raid that could equal it in terms of difficulty, strategy, teamwork, and overall excellence.

Lich King was a tank 'n' spank joke that felt like a tricycle ride compared to the dirt bike MX craziness of BC. Cataclysm was a nightmare in terms of content release and quality. The revamp of the world was a cool jarring moment for those that knew Azeroth left and right, but beyond that, it was shallow as hell.

Pandaria has brought back a lot of that flavor and fun that BC had in it, and the new zones feel solid all around. I hope that Blizzard doesn't screw the pooch on this like they did the last two expansions.

None of you guys link your WoW characters to your GB profiles.

Did you know you could even do that?

How am I supposed to measure my e-peen up against you?

TBC - played it like a madman back then.

Early vanilla and early Cata. The former because, despite all of the broken stuff, there was so much to do since everything was new and there wasn't anything quite like WoW out there. The latter because it's when I got back into the game after a long hiatus and everything felt fresh, again.

Vanilla.

It's not just that the game changed. I changed. That was 8 (!!!!!!!) years ago. I was 18. I'm 26 now. My relationship is more serious, my job demands more hours, and I don't play as many video games as I used to. I can sit back and whine about how vanilla was the greatest, but frankly it was a point in time where the stars aligned. My girlfriend at the time was little more than someone I had sex with occasionally. My job was only on weekends, and college was a joke. I had all the time in the world to do whatever. I had a real life friend I played with a lot that was in the same situation. We found 38 other people in a similar spot in their lives, formed a guild, and rocked Azeroth. I had friends in WoW that were better than most of my real-life friends. They were faceless confidants. They wouldn't judge me for playing this game every single day for hours. They were doing it too. I was an officer in my guild and it gave me purpose. I had power, unlike in every other avenue of my life. It was euphoric and intensely fun. If, right now. they opened up some special servers that were "classic" servers (servers that used the last vanilla patch and would never update) I still wouldn't go back. I'm just not the same person anymore.

I come back for every expansion to hit the new cap, try the new dungeons, and survey the world I spent so much time in, but not more more than 2 months. I just finished my Pandaria time. No interest in coming back. I saw what I needed to see. I think the talent changes are great. I think the glyph changes are great. I like the raid finder. Monk was an OK class, but felt like a Rogue a little too much. But I really didn't dig the Asian motif. It just doesn't do anything for me. Visually, I loved Lick King, anything in Blackrock Mountain (BRD is still the coolest, and Grim Batol was AWESOME looking, too). Like the Burning Legion stuff, too.

When Wow reached its peak, I was playing Runescape, I find it is more complicated than Runescape, so I just play it for fun.

Lich King.

Ton of dungeons.

Quality of Life features such as Looking for Dungeon.

Not having to rep grind to do heroics.

Hard call to make.

Vanilla was a magical time of discovery and nothing can truly compare to that and exploring that single cohesive diverse world. The lack of understanding of everything and not having all information easily available also added a degree of mysticism and wonder to huge parts of the game (as did convoluted progression unlock requirements). Multi day Alterac Valley matches, hmmm.

The Burning Crusade however was goddamn feast for the eyes. The first time I saw the slanted Hellfire peninsula my jaw hit the floor i think. And the visual flair and variety (achieved by fairly simplistic graphical engine) of all it's zones has still not been matched in any other MMO I played to date. It's also when I finally got into the raiding scene proper which was a blast. As well as the introduction of so many new and brilliant mechanics, flying, finally the start of first serious work on class balancing.

Wrath pushed the storytelling and the worlds overall narrative forward and with much more zest then anything before it, partly thanks to the phasing partly by better/more work on the part of the writers. It struck a great balance between normal and heroic dungeons. And is also the time when I started to lead a few of my own easier raids, the feeling of power and accomplishment that came from doing so successfully was like a drug.

But towards the end of WotLK with item level calculators (gearscore), raid gear grinding, running way too many different difficulty versions of the same shit over and over, dailies, gear focused PvP. That's when I fell off the wagon and called it a day.

In the end I'll throw in my vote with TBC.

2005.

I stopped playing before WotLK came out, and rejoined before Cata was launched. BC was the high-point for me, really. But, I will be totally honest- I miss raiding Molten Core over two nights. 40-manning an instance, though insane by today's standards, was just way too much fun.

Definitely Vanilla. It has less to do with the state of the game and more to do with the sheer amount that I had played by the time the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, came out.

My fondest memories are of raiding vanilla Molten Core and the day the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj in Silithus opened.

@ProfessorEss said:

Definitely Vanilla. It has less to do with the state of the game and more to do with the sheer amount that I had played by the time the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, came out.

My fondest memories are of raiding vanilla Molten Core and the day the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj in Silithus opened.

Same here, and because of this I just destroyed PVP with my guild because we were the ones that opened AQ on my server and we actually had good players and the best gear. I played a reckoning paladin in PVP for anyone that remembers reckoning and that was just fun as hell. Holy paladin too, holy shock annihilated people with full T2 armor as a paladin. Fun times.

For anyone that hasn't played WoW I would equate vanilla WoW to Morrowind, BC to Oblivion, WotLK to Skyrim, each game got more refined and polished but as a result felt more hand holdy and lost the sense of wonder and adventure. Vanilla WoW felt like a parallel world at times.

@Benny said:

Vanilla WoW felt like a parallel world at times.

You hit the nail on the head with this one.

I voted Vanilla in the poll even though I recognise that Burning Crusade had better dungeons and raids.

wow so many aces, I'm so appreciate of you.

Yay necro. BC is the objectively correct response both in terms of the impact and success of the game and the strength of raid design (though I suppose there's an argument for PvP in Vanilla; but that was never WoW's strong suit). Granted it was also highly exclusive but Karazhan and Zul'Aman are both extremely well designed while being accessible yet challenging to the target audience. BC is by far the most successful expansion in the history of MMOs and the only one to grow the playerbase rather than shrink it.

Raiding Icecrown and Ulduar are some of my favorite gaming memories. Nothing in Cataclysm ever really lived up to the epic feel of having that final showdown with the Lich King and downing him as a guild for the first time.

I ended up burning out halfway through Dragon Soul Heroics. Resulting guild drama has assured I will never return to WoW.

TBC when I realized that all my friends had turned into DKP-hoarding poopsocker dramawhores who took the help offered and never gave any help back, and that dualboxing was as fun as it was going to get ever.

Shortly afterwards, insane people with more money and credit than sense and rationality began mega-boxing (10+, 20+, 40+, 50+) and making us dualboxers look bad. I just wanted to squeeze more fun out of the game, piss off enemy players in PvP spamming the most irritating attacks, surprise-gank in spectacular ways rather than instagib greyganks.

Those friends still play WoW religiously.

Naturally vanilla WoW always has a special place in my heart due to nostalgia, but I think TBC was the true peak. New content that felt so amazing and different in style when compared to the old world, even if unnerfed questing was a bit of a pain in the arse for a noob like myself. I also got to know some very special people during that expansion, with a good handful of them still being part of my life. Sadly the other handful also stopped playing shortly after TBC and rest, even if I interact with them outside Azeroth, also withered away from the game, now quite effectively killing my interest for the whole thing. I probably would be still playing actively, if that great community of friends would still be there, because MoP has been a great expansion otherwise. But things might change during this year. Sooner or later.

But...mneh. I suppose around seven years of playing is a pretty good time investment into one game in any case.

that's some good statistics right there

South Park of course.

Burning Crusade because that is when I played it the most.

The lich king was pretty fun!

Before the BC really. I really enjoyed my time with BC but vanilla was when I had the most fun. From 2004-6 to be precise.

Burning Crusade, I'd say!

Never because MMOs just don't appeal to me