This was the expansion that was supposed to redefine WoW. And, it did...for the worse.
The it came. We all logged out and back in, and flew over all azeroth! some of us power leveled that very night. New zones that were wonderful, new dungeons that were challenging, new mechanics.
We did hard modes that were...hard! It was awesome! Pushing healers and tanks to save us through damage we had no excuse to take, pulling packs we had no right to live through, learning the new gimmicks to overcome them! It felt rewarding.
Even early raids were wonderful! Granted, the settings were a little bland, but the mechanics were fun and kept us busy for months.
And then, somewhere in there, around the time Firelands came out, the fire kind of went out.
I didn't mean to pun there. But all the fun of new raid mechanics from the first dungeons, just kinda crept away. Content from only weeks before became meaningless. Still no sign of Deathwing. Ragnaros again? Really? Whatever, I really wanted that legendary staff, so we banged away.
And every day got a little more dreary. We ran out of things to do. We could go anywhere, but why bother? We could just sit in Stormwind all day and wait for cues to pop for the same 2 heroics, over, and over, and over again...
Finally, Deathwing, and here, at the end, we saw the least creative bosses in the entire expansion.
The LFR tool probably helped this acceleratd process, but as an example...
Tier 11 content took my casual, 7 hour a week raid guild 3 months to complete.
Tier 12 took 2.
Tier 13 took 3 weeks!
Three
Weeks!
Seriously? I waited 4 installments of this game to fight Deathwing, and we killed him in 2 nights!
four of us quit right after the kill.
The world didn't feel like a world. The raids felt like, well, a joke. And the hampster wheel of raid/loot just didn't matter anymore. It was just passing time.
This game was great once. I lost sleep, sick days, and sanity playing it, and didn't apologize to anyone for it. I enjoyed logging in, and living in my other world where there was always content on the horizon to look forward to.
Somewhere after Ulduar, I noticed the downhill slide, and Deathwing was bottom.
I don't mind easy mode. I enjoyed WoTLK, if only because there was never a shortage of things to do. finish your 10, do a 25 pug, or another 10 on your alts. Hell, Arthas was a fun fight, even if the instance sucked a little, yet felt was good enough to copy/paste the circular layout for BWD.
Cata, passed tier 11, was uninspired.
Leveling was great! dungeons and hard modes were great. Raids were how they should be.
everything that followed felt tacked on. Pointless, even from a lore point of view.
Maybe we got too good at everything, like the devs said. But that seems like a cop out. We'd seen it all by Ulduar, and that was still a fantastic zone!
It's hard to define where the end came in Cata, or for players I loved playing with, and miss talking to now. some of them still play, and are bringing their 3rd alt through Deathwing as I type this.
I'm happy for what Warcraft created for me and tons of other players. But, I'm happy to be done with it, all the same.
I remember boss kills from every expansion, and how I felt when we finally beat them.
The way I can sum up Cata, is the moment we killed Deathwing, I just said "Ok guys, it was fun while it lasted, but I'm gone."
I wasn't proud. I wasn't pushed. I was just happy it was finally over. Cause, I knew that everything I loved about raiding, was long gone before I was.