4) Cataclysm

3) Lich King

2) Vanilla WoW

1) Burning Crusade.

I see about 80% agree with me, good to know i'm not the only one who feels this way. I miss my group gatestones in BC. :(

without trolling ..

the de -install window is the best version!

Been thinking about this all morning. For me, Cata is an obvious choice for #4. I didn't even play it until recently because it didn't hook me.

Burning Crusade is my choice for #1 because I'd only been playing for a little over a year when it hit, so it added cool new stuff and filled me with a new sense of wonder. With a new land to explore, new races to play..........I just had fun back then.

2 and 3 are where I waffle a bit. On the one hand, Vanilla was great, huge, fun and new. But on the other hand, revisiting Northred was, for me, a completion of a long journey that began back in WC3. The feeling I got stepping off the boat in Northrend and finally being able to take the fight to Arthas was really cool.

Honestly, after Northrend, it's like sequelitis. All I wanted from WoW was to see WC3 finished. MoP looks cool and all, but I've seen the story end. Everything after Wrath just feels artificial to me.

1) Burning Crusade

2) Cataclysm 

3) Original WoW

4) WOTLK 

:)

From first to last for me it's:

#1 Original

#2 WotLK

#3 BC

#4 Cata

Like many here, I've played MMO's since the beginning. What has always drawn me into the genre was the virtual world aspect and Vanilla really did a wonderful job in that category. I fell in love with the world, the dungeon's and the Horde vs Alliance, the open world pvp, the comradery of the server only bg's and just that feeling of an awesome epic adventure.

I pick WotLK second again because of the virtual world aspect, I absolutley loved the zone designs and learned to live with a few things that really turned me off, that were introduced with BC. I loved the world design but hated the direction the game was continuing to follow.

When BC released I absolutley hated it. I hated them for bringing the whole E-sport thing into the game. I hated the idea of Shaman's for the Alliance and Pallies for the Horde. I hate the idea of two sworn enemies sharing a capital city, I could go on and on. I quit shortly after BC released and didnt return until WotLK.

When Cata was released, I bought into the hype. Revamped world etc. etc. I leveled my main to 85 in a week, tried all the dungeon's. Tried to level a new toon through the revamped content, got to about lvl 30 and was bored to tear's with the ease and the no challenge of the leveling game.

I wont be picking up MoP. I hope the expansion is enjoyable for those that do. WoW is not a game that cater's to what I want in an MMO and that's ok.

#1 Burning Crusade. YOU ARE NOT PREPARED. Karazhan.

nuff said.

Originally posted by deniter

1. Burning Crusade (pre-2.3)

The biggest amount of non-watered down content for a casual player like myself. Did some raiding too and liked it a lot.

2. Vanilla/Original

End game was way too hc for my taste, but numerous alts kept me busy and i ran lots of  5-mans and 10-mans.

3. Wotlk (pre-ToC)

Nice theme and immersive zones. The hero class mechanism was badly thought and heroic dungeons were too easy. 'Vehicle' quests were introduced and i didn't like them at all.

4. Cataclysm (or whatever)

Played for a while in pre-launch patch doing the new quests and find them absolutely horrible. Also, the dungeon finder tool had changed the gameplay drastically to worse turning WoW to a lobby game instead of a living breathing World. Quit very soon after.

nice list and agree

Originally posted by Ozmodan

I did not like Cataclysm so that has to be my worst.   The ocean zone was dumb, it had no real point to doing it.  Changes made to the skill system were a big negative in my book.

I skipped Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.  Neither peaked my interest.  

IMO, Mist will head to the bottom of the list.  The destruction of the skill system by Blizzzard is my sole reason.  There is no more character differentiation anymore.   Why I will not purchase the expansion.

 

If anything the new system has made players more unique. Everyone had the same old tree before, There was always a better spec and everyone took it. Now you get to mix up your spec and be unique.

Originally posted by JRRNeiklot

Wow.   Just  wow.  Let me give you your opinion for you. 

4 Cataclysm

3 WotLK

2 Original WoW (I hate the term vanilla)

1 Burning Crusade

 

BC was by far the best expansion.  Beautiful zones  Challenging dungeons, TEN levels and a ton of stuff to do besides grind dailies.  No lfd/lfr and no CRZ.  And a real talent system.  Anyone who thinks otherwise needs their head examined.  And there were two new classes - the paladin and shaman.  It's not opinion.  It's fact.  WoW has been declining ever since.   And MoP looks to continue in that direction.  It's sad, really.

Wrath of the Lich King was indeed the worst. We got a rehashed Nax and were stuck with that for MONTHS before any new content. This expansion also added the looking for group tool, which while extremely convenient, was the catalyst that caused much of the community to become uninvested douchenozzles with no fear of reprecussions.

Burning Crusade was absolutely the best, mainly because of Karazhan, arguably the best raid Blizzard has been able to generate. Beyond that, the raid content in comparison to vanilla, and in fact all other subsequent expansions, was extremely high quality. Many of us will never forget the intensely complicated fights such as Kael'Thas and "Hot Potato" Lady Vashj.

Cataclysm made for a great leveling experience, but raids, at least initially, were a bit too challenging for too long and caused many players to quit due to an inability to progress or guilds to fall apart because of the intense focus required to down the initially un-nerfed bosses.

Vanilla was extremely buggy and grindy for far too long.

I will never play WoW again. 

My list is almost the opposite lol:

1) Burning Crusade

I absolutely loved this game.  I saved up my gold before the launch just so I could go flying around.  I spent hours just flying, doing absolutely nothing, but flying.  The zones had fun pvp aspects to them.  i can't count the hours I spent capturing and fighting horde in hellfire.  Then there's The Black Temple.  Next to Onyxia, it's the best dungeon I've ever played. Period.

2) Orignal WoW

This is a close second.  If the original had flying mounts, it'd be number 1.  There was so much to learn and do.  I can remember my first time into deadmines.  I was instantly hooked.  the Onyxia and Ragnaros fights are both in my top 3 of all-time best boss fights.

3) Cataclysm

I have to admit, when Cataclysm came out, I wasn't playing WoW much.  I would log in to talk to friends, and that was about it.  I missed the initial raids and really didn't get back into WoW until MoP was announced (I'm a pandaren fanboi, go ahead and flame me).  The reason I really liked this expansion was that it made leveling alts fun again.  The old world was stale and I could tell you almost every quest word for word.  Cataclysm changed almost all the quests, or made them a little different.

4) Wrath of the Lich King

This was by far the worst of the expansions.  It suprises me to say that, because I love Norse and Norse-like Lore.  Which, let's face it, Northrend is like the old Norse world.  The biggest mistake was only including a one role class.  I know that DK can dps very well, but I hate DPS...so that only left tanking for me.  I suggested a million times that Blizzard should include a Necromancer class, that got multiple pets (they finally listened when they made demonology warlock get 5+ pets lol).  It would've been simple to include, as the DK and Necromancer could've easily shared the same starting area, but oh well, it doesn't end there.  The great pvp games from BC were missing.  The zones and quests in Northrend barely ever had Horde and Alliance crossing swords (or whatever weapon you use).  There were really only two good things I liked about WotLK.  First was the Death Knight starting area.  I liked the storyline, and it was fun to be "evil" for once, and the climatic end battle was simply fun. The second was fighting Arthas.  Now I think it was just too simple to kill probably the worst baddy since archimonde (in WC3).  I did like the fight though, and it was fun.

1.BC

2.Vanilla

3.Cata

4.Wrath

WOTLK was best expansion for me and worst was vanilla wow. I don't even know how somebody can say that vanilla wow was best part of the game, classes was not very good balanced and i can remember how weak was feral druid compared for example with pala. With Cata we got finaly class balance and today every class can be competitive. Also i think that after WOTLK  CATA have best story, i enjoyed so much to play with ''Indiana Jones'' :)

1-WOTLK

2-CATA

3-VANILLA

4-BC

4. Cataclysm, this is the only time I had a real long break from wow, was away for 9 months of it.  Been back since december, the launch of cata was hideous.

3. Wotlk, only got into it when they launched the cross server dungeons that so many folks bitch about these days.

2. TBC, thoroughly enjoyed this for the cool raid bosses, very fond memories of running Karazhan every friday night, awesome.

1. Vanilla, got my cheap battleground titles, raided a little prior to that. 40 man raiding although painful was a blast once you was into them. Days when epic was really epic <3

Edit: As a foot note, the social side has evaporated with time, very few people are around that were there from the start, and the community is significantly worse than at launch. I'm not having high hopes for MoP.

Best to worst:

1) BC -> no easy mode raids e no lobby wait... lots of pvps in the world (meeting stones);

2) WoTLK -> nice story and zones... also loved the new raids, but BC was better;

3) Cataclysm -> terrible expansion... terrible end game raid (DS)... too easy mode and lobby wait... the world seemed empty. No epic fight...

I didn't play the original WoW, so I put it out of my list.

But I can say that MoP isn't going to be all that good. I tried the Beta for some weeks before GW2 was released and I think the game became too easy with the raid finder, JP farm in dailies, and the new talent sistem, that made the homogenization worst. The classes are very similar in CDs, etc. And pokemon game isn't my thing.

Think I am just tired of WoW and can't go back to the gear grind after playing GW2.

Suzie I think you been ganked to many times. Pls recover and try your list again.  And Im sorry have to ask a fair question how long have you been playing WoW? This is how it should of read:

4: WotLK Why?  They introduced us to a faild so called "Hero" class I mean look at the DK now so freakin nerfed it not even a decent class anymore. The only thing good that came out of this x-pac was Wintergrasp. One of the best BG to date. As far as endgame ICC was it and after the 20th time it got old.

3: CATA Why? Blizz tried to bring back CC but failed. They mixed souronding zones up which is not a bad thing but to totaly mess with South shore and give it all to the horde that is the stupidest move Blizz made with CATA only reason they did it was because all the hordies cried that allly was camping Tarren Mill. Acualy that is the main reason why Blizz nerfs anything is because of all the crying about OP classes etc they give into the masses. TB was the next BG but it failed. They should fo done something to spiff up Wintergrasp to make it a lvl 85 BG. They made it madatory to all go and idle at SW or Org and its like IF and TB are now barren to a select few and talk about a waste with Dala. So now you can fly anywere with your monts but why? Cata did give us nice lvl zones my fav is Vashj'ir one of the most beautiful zones created to date.

2: BC because short and sweet Blizz done everything right with this x-pac from gettting Attuned and keyed to endgame with Kara and BT being one of the best raids todate. To using CC from world bosses to one of the best  zone pvp quest that being Halaa let me tell you they did it right by giving the gaurds very high health it took team work and epic battles at times to control Halaa from the best into of new classes ya CATA gave us new classes also but BC was way better after all goblins and worgens only got starting zones. BE and Dranei got their own Starting cities. From the into to Aren pvp to very cool mounts. Not to mention the intro of dalies. Believe it or not but lvl 70 felt real for a cap not as fake as lvl 85 does at times.

1: Vanilla? I mean lol why did you even include it in the x-pac count down? its Vanilla for a reason.

Oh my creditals is the fact that I have been playing since Vanilla. When hunters used mana still.

My list:

#1. BC - Expanded Vanilla without destroying it.  My only complaint is the Draenei starting zones could have been better.

#2. Vanilla - Great fun, huge world, lots of dungeons, and slow grindy progression by today's standards.

#3. WOTLK - Huge world nicely crafted.  But use of phasing broke quest grouping and a tad too much storyline questing for my liking.

#4. Cataclysm - Destroyed much of what I liked from Vanilla.  Azeroth content became gimmicky and far too dense plus way too much storyline questing for my tastes.  Phasing almost everywhere.  Questing became a nearly pure SP activity.  Not that all that many players even bother with questing any longer.