In The List today, we take a look at the various iterations of World of Warcraft in light of next week's release of the latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria. We rank order them according to our preferences. See if you agree before leaving your thoughts in the comments.

With Mists of Pandaria coming next week, we thought it was a good idea to rank World of Warcraft’s expansions. There are a few things to remember when reading. As Blizzard treats their expansions as almost full game launches, we will be doing the same here. So WoW’s initial launch is part of the list. Again this is just opinion. However I do encourage everyone to post their favorite releases and expansions in the forums. With that here we go. 

Read more of Garrett Fuller's The List: The Best WoW Versions.

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.

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.  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.

Though I largely agree with your list, you might want to rethink what you consider a fact.

I almost agree with this list 100%, I would list them in this order (1 most favorite 4 least favorite)

1. Wrath of the Lich King
2. Burning Crusade
3. Cataclysm
4. Original WoW

Originally posted by Betaguy
MoP is going to be the best for me, I am only coming back to do the battle pets.

 

haha friend of mine is creating a WoW account from scratch just for battle pets

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

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.  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.

Though I largely agree with your list, you might want to rethink what you consider a fact.

 

It is fact.  More levels, a better talent system, new classes, and a lack of idiotic lobby queue and console achievement features.  Convenience does not equal improvement.  What do Cata/LK bring?  Easy mode and lobby queues. 

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.

How was the Paladin and Shaman new in BC? They had both been in the game already... Unless you mean new as in the other faction could place them. Which I don't think that counts...

just....no.

Wotlk was very crappy actually. The only thing that kept Wotlk from being the worst wow expansion was Cata.

the only good thing was Wintergrasp and that wasn't THAT great.

BC was by far my favourite expansion, as far as features, dispite the fact that i didn't really like the whole "on a floating rock island in space" theme.

Originally posted by JRRNeiklot

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

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.  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.

Though I largely agree with your list, you might want to rethink what you consider a fact.

 

It is fact.  More levels(same as Wrath), a better talent system(agreed, but opinion), new classes(already in game), and a lack of idiotic lobby queue and console achievement features(lack is fact, rest is opinion).  Convenience does not equal improvement(opinion).  What do Cata/LK bring?  Easy mode and lobby queues. 

Best to worst

1.) Burning Crusade

2.) Vanilla

3.) Wotlk

4.) Cataclysm

Going off in general most of the time in the expansion. BC was going a bit in the wrong direction in BC and Vanilla was a bit to painful in a tedious way for much of the begining. Wotlk actually seemed alright and possibly getting better until the curveball after ulduar. People seem to glorify Vanilla but it had plenty of issues. BC did wonders in fixing a lot of those and making it more fun and less tedious. It wasn't perfect but they seemed to take 3 steps forward and 1 step back with what they were doing... while the future expansions seemed to do the complete opposite and then some.

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.

Have to agree with your list order.  I came into WoW with the WoW BC battlechest 3 years ago (?), enjoyed LK left for CATA and will see about Panda's.

Something about running BC level 70 raids in level 70 groups with level 70 gear that is win.

4.  Cataclysm - nothing new brought to the game, just revamps.  Stopped playing one month after this, that's a record for me.

3.  Wrath of the Lich King - Loved the zones and new class, hated the endgame grind and mentality of the community.  

2.  Vanilla WoW - loved the early game, but it took forever to hit cap and then the stupid gear grind kicked in and changed the whole pace of the game I had grown to enjoy during the leveling process.

1.  Burning Crusade - best expack for me because I felt drawn in and the endgame wasn't so hard to get into.  Finally got a chance to raid 10 man Kharazan, and had a blast doing it.  My favorite raid zone of all time.  

Mists of Pandaria, hoping all the new game mechanics make this shine and not turn it into "another WoW expack" where I level to cap and then unsub due to the annoying gear grind or elitist, rush rush rush community.  The pet minigame looks like a great side persuit as well as account wide mounts and pets and achieves.  We'll see.

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.

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.