I highly recommend you go and read the original here, as I go into a lot about the expansion there, and make a lot of references to it here.
So the original raid tier was divided into three parts, the easier Mogu'shan Vaults, the slightly harder Heart of Fear, and the hardest, the Terrace of Endless Spring. It was a nice tier system, and it allowed for groups to hop to another instance if they finished, or if they were having trouble with a particular mechanic. The numbers of bosses in each instance helped for a pyramid-like system, with 7 bosses in Vaults, 6 in the HoF, and 4 in ToES. Factor in the heroic difficulty, and raiders had plenty to do. This plus the aforementioned daily grind meant the player was never bored, however, as brought up, the players often felt overwhelmed. Which is why 5.1 was a refreshing breather.
Landfall was the 5.1 patch. Released only two months after the launch of Pandaria, it was a nice break from all the PvE (Plaver vs Environment) that Blizzard had released with the release of Pandaria. There was a new scenario (think a mini-dungeon), and the release of the Brawler's Guild, a fun fighting arena for people to square off, but the bulk of the patch was PvP (Player vs Player) content. They transformed a whole zone into a real-live battleground, with generals and commanders in each base for the opposing faction to slay, and players could stay and defend their general if they wanted. It was a neat concept, and it allowed for Blizzard to play around with World PvP. I view this patch as a nice predecessor to the new Ashran, allowing objectives and PvP to happen together. Brawlers Guild was a fun PvE addition, allowing players to showcase their skills in front of their peers. It was like a Fight Club inside the game, where the sleaziest and more despicable creatures were gathered to duel with players. A fun addition.
This patch was important to help give PvP some substance and to help players get adjusted to the raid content. Allowing players to finish and get geared helped with the pacing of the story, and making the Landfall into a event helped the player feel connected to their faction, which was a neat feeling in a foreign land.
The Thunder King patch, released in March 2013, six months after release. The trailer is pretty awesome. Check it out.
This was the first time they had really delved into the lore of a patch (minus Firelands, which is another awesome trailer). It was pretty exciting to have the story told to us, because it was needed. There was a lot of mogu lore that had yet to be revealed, and The Thunder King patch did a great job with it. The biggest change in The Thunder King patch was the fact that there was a whole new island to explore. Similarly to how Firelands had been done, this new island started out as a scouting mission, and then expanded into a full exploration over time. The big difference was that this expansion was fueled by the whole server, not just the individuals progression. This was a neat way to encouraging people to band together to unlock the new content. The raid itself I didn't get to experience much of until the end of the patch, but I thought it was a very quick raid tier. The instance had 13 whole bosses, and it was only six months long. Many people weren't able to finish the bosses on heroic before SoO came out, our guild included. It suffered from Ulduar syndrome, where the next raid tier is released before people are necessarily ready for it. The developers agree, saying that they wish they had extended Thunder King a few more months to prevent SoO from lasting a year. But it was a wonderful raid tier, with tons of unique mechanics, and an island to support the story
Escalation, released May 2013, two months after The Thunder King. Like Landfall, this was a progression patch. Not a lot of new content, but there was a new battleground for PvP fans, new scenarios and Brawler's Guild fights for the PvE fans, and new quests to help build tension between Vol'jin and Garrosh. It was a great setup for the Siege of Orgrimmar, and although it didn't last long enough for
The Siege of Orgrimmar, released September 2013, a little less than a year after Pandaria's release, was the crowning feature of the expansion. Everything had built up to this. We really hadn't had a huge buildup in Cataclysm like Escalation was for Pandaria, so it was great to have all this buildup to the final patch. Plus, this is easily the best trailer for a patch ever.
Seriously, that fight scene though. If that trailer doesn't get you pumped I don't know what will. Although I said earlier about how the lack of a big bad was a bad thing, when he finally did emerge, it was nice to have someone to go after, and they did a great job of making him seem completely evil, which he was. About the patch though. It was one of the best patches ever, setting everything up here that is making Draenor great. I don't use that term lightly. In terms of post-expansion patches, it's easily one of the best, if not the best. Timeless Isle, even though the lore connection may be iffy, was a wonderful place to hang out. There was all sorts of exploring you could do, all sorts of rare mobs to kill, and of course the PvP combat that the Ordos charm allowed. Changing loot rules where any person who helped in a rare monster kill gets loot rather than only having the first person to hit it get loot was one of the greatest small changes in the game to date. Now people didn't have to scramble to be in a person's group in order to get loot, they could just march up and start attacking and be guaranteed loot. This is a mechanic that has prevailed through Warlords (although no one seems to understand it at this point still), and it is a wonderful way to encourage helping random people out in the world. The Celestial Pet Tournament added something new for Pet Battle enthusiasts. It was quite a challenge, and required for the pet battlers to level tons of pets to be able to match up against all the combatants, but the reward were adorable pets that I still get compliments for today!
But the actual Siege was the best part. They introduced a new mode called Flex. I've talked about Flex before, but a quick recap, Flex allows any group from 10 to 30 to come in, and they would automatically scale the content to match your numbers, so you didn't need to bring exactly 10 or 25 people, you could choose any number between that. This content was very easy, as it allowed for guild groups to being all of their members and get them familiar with raid mechanics before moving on to Normal. Flex had much more impact to the raid environment than LFR, Cataclysm's big Raid change, or the separation of normal and heroic modes that Wrath of the Lich King brought. Flex allowed for people to bring whatever comp they wanted and in this instance it was a wonderful thing to do. SoO had 14 bosses for you to down, the biggest raid since Icecrown Citadel. Spanning all sorts of incredible scenery, you start with a journey into the heart of Pandaria to find to last remaining corruption. Then you begin a march on Orgrimmar, and travel into the heart of the city where Garrosh sits with the Dark Heart of Y'saahrj. The fights were also much more varied than anything else leading up to that time. Each fight had it's own feel, nothing felt repeated, even the environments. From the add-based fight of the Spoils of Pandaria to the 9 bosses of the Klaxxi that you killed in your own order, it was a one of a kind experience. Why then, was this raid not heralded as one of the best raids? I attribute this to several factors. The first is one that hinders a lot of the end-of-expansion raids, it lasted too long. Siege of Orgrimmar lasted for 14 months. It doesn't matter how many bosses you have, people are gonna get tired of that. Our guild burned out partway through heroic, and without the incremental buffs of expansions past, there was little reason to continue. Yes, they allowed us to upgrade our items a few more times, but that didn't help enough to make a gigantic difference that the other raids of expansions past had offered. Another factor was that people were starting to come back. A lot of people weren't involved with SoO because they had left due to the daily shenanigans that had occurred at the beginning of the expansion. When Warlords was announced, people began to come back, but most of them were nowhere near ready. SoO gave a great chance to get geared quickly with the ilvl 496 Timeless Gear that you could get from the Timeless Isle, but it wasn't enough to get you into the highest level of heroic raiding, which is where most people were around that time. A final factor is that time hasn't passed yet. Many raids are held critically until after a certain time has passed, and then they are remembered once the impact has been set, and the raid is no longer challenging. I think Siege of Orgrimmar is one of the best raids in WoW, and people will enjoy revisiting it in years to come. The story is amazing, the fights are fun, and the final fight is nothing short of incredible.
So, as I said before, a lot of the lessons learned from the beginning of MoP were used to enhance the game later in the expansion, and it helped make Siege of Orgrimmar an amazing patch, which helped make Warlords the amazing expansion that it is today. As I look on my review for Warlords, a lot of stuff I wrote about experiencing on the big stage I first saw little bits of in the Timeless Isle. It was all a building block, and it helped WoW spring back to it's title as the best MMO on the block.
In a month or two, look out for my next Warlords review. A lot has changed on my stance. The expansion is still amazing, but there are some issues that have arisen with the direction. Will they still be issues in a month, or will new ones take thier place. Keep an eye out, and as always, thanks for reading!
-David
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