Wrath of the Lich King... 10 Years Later | WoW's Greatest Success & The Seeds of Failure
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- čas přidán 20. 08. 2024
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Wrath of the Lich King released 10 years ago. In this 4 part series we will dive into the story of World of Warcraft's most successful expansion, beginning with the development process and the state of World of Warcraft through 2007 and 2008.
![World of Warcraft Cataclysm... 8 Years Later: The Beginning Of WoW's Decline [1/2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vz1AS8r1VAs/mqdefault.jpg)
I still get chills from the Howling Fjord music.
I still turn the music on in Howling Fjord whenever I go there.
Grizzly Hills for me.
My favorite zone Ever!
@@nicholaspetrovitch7925 The music in Grizzly is by far the best in the game. I love that zone so much. It brings back so many memories.
10 years ago... where did that time go :(
You were busy playing wow haha
Stop smoking weed lmao
@@Kostadin_Arolski preach
14 years ago now
I think the Ulduar patch was WoW at it´s absolute peak in terms of the game systems!
The perfect combination of casual friendly content and tryhard progression!!!
agree'd and I loved classes in wotlk.
Ulduar was one of my favorite raids.
Ulduar is my favorite raid so far.
Ulduar is by far the best raid they ever made. Preceded and followed by probably the worst they ever made...
Ulduar the pug killer you went from easy naxx to where you needed dec out raiders until it was made easier with people being able to out gear it with icecrown gear
"Blizzard used to design the games they wanted to play. Now they design the games they want to sell"
Who said that?
@@Fleshbag453 Stop giving Blizzard a free pass just because Activision has merged together with Blizzard. Almost the entire team of WoW back in the day has left on their own accord. Activision is shit, but Blizzard isn't the holy little angel that can do no wrong.
Activision controls what blizzard releases now they don't care about an emersive gaming experience it's all about profit for them
@@robh316 And this is why they are now standing on their heads trying to figure out a way to monetize WoW more. So far, they came up with the truly rock-solid idea to try and extend everything they can into infinity, slow down the combat so it takes longer, and force people into subbing for longer. It seems to have the opposite effect instead.
That state was so true and justice my mate !
starting with grizzly hills music... oh man those memorys
Can you even spell memories?
Easily the best in world WoW track
Best ever.
The wrath gate event and taking the UC back is still my favorite thing I've ever experienced in this game. Such fond memories of this expansion.
Arthas: father..is it...over?
King Terenas: the instance resets next week.
win
Savage xD
I miss this expansion most because it was literally the xpac that brought people together and probably one of the best gaming experiences I've enjoyed in my 25 years of gaming. Hail to the (Lich)King, baby
Anyone else actually cry seing this? I miss this more than anything else in my life! I just want to go back in time 😭
Didn't cry, but definitely had a swell of old memories. Now I'm just left feeling angry that these a-hole developers came in and forced their will onto our beloved game. What we're left with is an empty shell of what was. All the possibility and potential squandered, all the great systems & social aspect of what was, gone. BFA is just sad.
there are private servers available! Feel free to join Warmane 3.3.5 x1 exp rates realm, I myself am enjoying enormously
Michał Lxxa I will play warmane tonight thanks!
You know I was sitting with some of the same kinds of emotions/thoughts, this really was some apex period not only for WoW but apparently also for many of us in general :).
However private servers do nothing for me, it was all about the time and the experience with the people when it was all new, that has made this insane piece of nostalgia (for me at least).
@@antygoniusz yeahp i'm on the exact same server, almost brought tears to my eyes lmao
Well done video. I remember a friend told me at the end of the expansion "ok, I retire now. I have seen everything in WoW , this is the peak and its good to quit when you are on top".
Had to watch this while I'm at work as soon as I got the notification. It's Bellular and my favorite expansion, how can I not?
Same, thankfully I got good wi-fi on the bathroom.
Same here too! 😁
watched on my break at work...love this stuff
Frost DK was once the best tank, never forget.
Dual wield frost DK was the most fun tank. Taking it away was a mistake.
I agree, I died a bit when they ended up "fixing" dk the way they did.
The change to dedicated specializations isn't exactly bad. Just sad what had to be given up for it
@@ryvrdrgn16 Removing blood,frost,unholy stances was mistake :-((
Dont think the problem was with Frost Tank, it was blood DK Pvp.. You just couldnt die and still put out a shitload of dmg
Unholy tanks were the most fun.
*"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." - Dr. Seuss”*
No king rules forever my son.
But this one did.
Even Bellular one day will die.
FFXIV is the new king.
"Blizzard citing a desire to further polish the game." I miss those days.
Imagine the shitstorm in the forums if they did this nowadays.
@@MrShadowThief Those shitstorms would be nothing compared what Diablo mobile received though.
It truly boggles the mind as to how each expansion continues to offer less than it’s predecessor. BC and WOTLK were so jam packed with content that it was difficult to keep up even if you were fairly hardcore.
Slow progression....fixed difficulties... sounds like dream land from nowadays.
It was, friend. Wrath was legit.
With slow progression came a feeling of accomplishment. Every level felt meaningful and significant. Having to buy your ability ranks meant prioritizing your growth, setting goals and accomplishing them. It made your character feel unique and significant.
There also used to be class-specific quests, and sometimes different dialogue more than "hello, %race. I have a job for you, %class."
There were also quests that told unimportant world-building stories.
I remember one from Eastern Plaguelands that had you track down the members of a (now scourged) family and learn about their final days, which ended in finding the last family member in an outhouse he'd sought refuge in only, instead of a dead body (from starvation) we find a feral zombie and blood-stained fingernail claw marks on the inside of the locked-from-outside out-house. The whole thing was told by a ghost, cursed to walk EPL forever
All these people that left, Jeff Kaplan, Ghostcrawler, etc. If they would come back to WoW and rebuild the team of old, this game would be so much better.
Kaplan yes, Ghostcrawler no.
@@DRourk Ghostcrawler was amazing at community interaction though. I remember actually having my questions answered on the forums by Ghostcrawler. That kind of communication is really missing in modern Blizzard. When he left, Blizzard became aloof and distant. You can't even ask Blizzard a question now, questions are screened and approved beforehand, even at Blizzcon.
Wotlk and mop were the perfect game designs. My god blizzard bring it back!
I was born in 2000 and i grew up around WoW and Wrath was were I started
MoP is when they added the new talent system and ruined all classes
Great video! Wotlk is still the best expansion ever!
And, let's be honest, it won't ever change either.
MoP was better.
MoP FOR LIFE
Debatable. It improved a lot of things over TBC, but it's also where the rot started. Class homogenization, dumbing down of content in the name of accessibility, giving away top-tier loot for doing content you could sleepwalk your way through... it all started in Wrath. They tried to walk some of that back in Cata, but it was too late. An entire generation of players had gotten accustomed to having it easy, they quit in droves when they actually had to work to get good gear, and Blizzard had to back down. Some mistakes can't be fixed.
Raiding was equally hit-and-miss. Naxx 2.0 was simply awful. Such a slap in the face of the pinnacle of vanilla raiding. I didn't know it was possible to desecrate a necropolis of the undead, but there you go. It was so dull that many raiding guilds fell apart because people just couldn't be bothered to turn up for yet another night of drudgery. Mine was one of them, which is probably why I'm less inclined to think well of Wrath in general. Ulduar was excellent, and we managed to reform as a 10-man raiding guild... only for Ulduar to die before its time as it was superseded by TotC; the worst raid instance in the history of the game but with much better loot for far less effort. Cue guild collapse nr. 2. ICC finally I would rate as okay to good, depending on the boss, where generally the end-of-wing bosses were the latter and the rest the former.
Agreed
Zombie invasion event was the highwater mark for WoW.
The Lich King cinematic and subsequent Raid was truly the best content that ever existed in this game. A time where I simply could not wait to get home from work and continue my own epic journey, meeting the Lichy in every zone while questing, the emergence...just bloody brilliant! Getting the Heroic LK achievement and riding my drake...man EPIC!
I started in Wrath and that eerie log-in screen music intro always gives me nostalgia chills.
WOTLK is still my favorite expansion and I've been playing since Vanilla. Every time I level an alt I zoom through most of the content, but always slow down when I reach Northrend and savor it all over again - it just never gets old for me.
Remember when you made it to the level 50 bg bracket? Dks were the only class decked out in all blues and they tore every other class to shreds. Man those were the days. Still not sure how I even finished college because all I remember doing is playing wow.
Incredible video! Been following your channel for about 6 months now, and this is by far my favorite video that you've released. The production is excellent and you're a natural narrator. I was very immersed in the video and can't wait for the next one. Keep up the great work!
Oh how I miss those glorious days, when I aspired to be one of the lucky few to get Shadowmourne and when I finally achieved my goal in doing so it was one of the best feelings in the world at the time. Oh how things have changed....
I played a night elf druid in Wrath, so Shadowmourne meant squat to me. There was no equivalent polearm or staff. Now, I had a blast in Wrath, and ended up getting the top tier pvp weapon and gear. But they should not have locked the majority of the player base out of even the possibility of one day getting that sword.
as someone who started playing late legion but kept hearing about the golden eras i gotta give a massive thanks for the in depth coverage
Always love your background music choices. Great video once again.
I think LickKing was the pinnacle era for WoW. All expansion have their own charms but Lich was a special jewl.
Back in the days, i was just 13 years old and therefore too young to get the beauty of this expansion. Now as I play wow active without any pause in my subscription regardless of whether there is good or bad feedback of the current situation, I wish taht I could have been some years older that time. Especially because of the Pre-Patch to WOTLK.
Thank you for this masterpiece of documentary Bellular! Can't wait for the second part :)
going back into this expansion every so often to do stuff, levelling alts, hitting old raids for transmogs, whatever it is, Wrath of the Lich King never seems to get old for me
Also I heard that during TBC's lore writing there were 2 different teams. And one of the teams has screwed it up by thinking that Illidan was the demon lord of the Burning Legion. So that didnt help with lore. Also that was why Kael'thas was the villian all of a sudden.
What an incredible video. Definetely one of the best pieces of content you've ever done!
Can't wait for part 2 :)
Great Expansion, Great video! Loved the high production value and insight. Cant wait for more!
Best expansion ever. When I looked over the WotLK talent tree and the DK in particular I was reminded just how shit and dumbed-down modern day WoW is.
I still remember the day I brought home that blue box. I went to GameStop with a friend who didn't play wow (but was still a good sport). On the walk back he would glance at the xpac box art and exclaim "leeeeevel EEEIGHTY"
Skipped school the next day (8th grade) because I was having so much fun. "Should I build my dk or have my main set sail for the North?" So much content. So much wonder to it all.
Bro.. you made my cry.. this xpac is what go me through high school not that it was always a good influence since i punched a kid in the face to get 3 days of oos when the xpac dropped so i could hit lvl 80.. and i was talking to a guildie yesterday of that plague and it is still my favorite memory of the entire game... my guild building raid groups to fight back.. my friends and myself getting infected intentionally to raid stormwind.. the utter chaos it caused in starter zones as zombie armies ran in killing everything, The enemy capitals getting raided by hundreds of zombies in world pvp.. i got chills three or four times watching this video so i just wanted to say thank you for putting this video out and i cant wait for the next one! (and sorry about the horrid run on sentence i was say too excited when typing this and im now too lazy to fix it!)
I miss the old glyphs, cuz there was one that turned the demonology warlock into an actual tank. With a taunt and everything. It was awesome
I’m a newer player that just started at the end of Legion, I love these videos, I’m really into the lore and it helps seeing the past like this since the storyline is hard to follow now. Great work man!
It couldn't have released at a better time either. For me, I was just finishing up High School and had so much free time that I could sink my teeth in for a good chunk of time and not feel any remorse. Man, those were the days.
i don't mind paying $50 to play WOTLK again
@@mateomazar7153 Sure there are, BUT 98% of them are either pure shit or very low populated servers.
Warmane have 15k players everyday.
Brave Dragon yeah, I want to return again. Lol
Just to RP and Quest because it’s been a year since I’ve last played.
Omg this is like reminiscing about childhood. That's how fond my memories of Wrath are! No expansion since has ever measured up.
I still remember Wrathgate taking me by complete surprise. I had turned in the quest and alt-tabbed when I heard WoW making a LOT more noise than normal and my jaw dropped at finding an in game cinematic. By today's standards its really dated looking but back then, and as a complete surprise, it blew me away.
This long form content is just amazing. Like, I saw this notification and instantly booted up WoW to bang some levels out while playing this. LOVE your content Bell
Bellular, I think a revamp wrath fixing a lot of things like difficulty of raids at launch, difficulty mode, gear progression ulduar/toc, get rid of catchups mechs, get rid of too much casualisation, get rid of Lfg,etc.. could be the best follow up to classic and classic tbc if wz reach this point. But we cannot trust activision as of today...
That would be amazing! Keep the progression aspects from TBC in the game and Wrath would have been a better game. You start at the bottom and work your way up. Not only does it give you a sense of accomplishment and progression but it extends the life of your xpac because you have to go through every tier of raiding. TBC hit the progression system perfectly for an mmo.
The game ended when The Lich King died. I could cry watching this. Literally the best gaming experience and possibly the best social experience I’d ever went through.
You missed the original Naxx the 4 horseman were known as the guild breakers. We took it down before Wrath, but it was a really rough instance. The original Naxx could be a whole video itself. No shards for warlocks, no spare heals for lifetap, nothing gave soul shards. Every person needed health stones (handed out one by one) for Lothab. Then the gave locks the new talents and we all went from bottom of the DPS to the top..
During the Scourge Plague, my Best friend's youngest son...got to Shattrath, infected then he turned and he stayed a ghoul. He killed the guards in Hallaa...by himself. I think he managed to stay a ghoul for days. I remember I was quite impressed because , you had to feed on the dead to stay a ghoul and everyone either wanted to kill you on both sides or cure you. I remember you also couldn't hearth or transport. It was awesome to watch.
I still remember waiting in line for my Collector's Edition of WotLK & the queue to get logged in to make my DK. Wrath was when I was getting even more into raiding. I play on a pserver now because I enjoy it so much.
No king rules forever, my son. Unless your name is Belluar.
No He'll die in time as Will All of you mortals.
As someone who started playing Wrath of the Lich King, and still playing BFA, one quote springs to mind: How far the mighty have fallen.. What made me play the game back then was the lore, the continuation from Wc3, and above all the feeling that you are working to something greater in the end, virtually envisioning fighting the Lich King. Now as a person gripped in the death throes of quitting wow for being genuinely boring, the original quote is replaced with: "Tell them that the Lich King is dead, and World of Warcraft died with him". Very, very sad indeed to see the game become what it is now.
Oh man the sheer buzz and excitement I had over this. Growing up playing the rts games and finding my favourite fictional characters in the heroes of them, this was a big deal for me. The Frozen Throne was all I played for hours every day and the campaign was amazing. To finally be able to enter Northrend and see the Lich King was just amazing. I don't think I've ever captured such hype and excitement since! Loved this video Bellular, it's made what's been a shitty week a bit better!
WOOT WOOT! My favorite expansion (the one i started in) explained by one of my favorite CZcamsrs. Merry early Christmas lol.
wrath was the last expansion i actually qued up on a school night to get my copy and enjoy the community event that came with it.
At the risk of sounding like an old geezer, this brought back a lot of memories. I started during TBC and remember all the fun this was. Wrath is still the best expansion.
WELL DONE PIMP... I REMEMBER THE JOY I FELT WHEN I SAW THE WOTLK BETA INVITE IN MY INBOX... GOOD TIMES
Back when Blizzard was doing things right. *sigh*
It was hailed as the casual easymode game by TBC enthusiasts.
I still kinda wish Arthas wasn't gone for good.
Oooohhh we'll get into that one!
@@Nightstalker314 TBC was for nerds. Very few people saw the end-game content.
I concur - I doubt Blizz is done with the LK.
Man login music at 2:20 brings back so many memories, shit....
WotLK and especially Arena Tournament. The greatest memories to date for me.
By far the best PvP experience I've ever had. The only time PvE progression was actually fun to me and the only time I ever felt a real sense of community within a game. All of the classes were awesome, especially Rogue. I fell in love with that class due to WotLK. The release of insane PvP movies of the likes of Hydra, Klinda, Unmercey, Kamiky and so on made me visit WarcraftMovies on the daily - even just to dream and witness, what a Warrior with Shadowmourne was capeable of doing in Arenas and BGs. Not to mention all of the frequent content on CZcams.. No phasing and only Battlegroups. I used to know people of both mine and the enemy's faction by their ingame name. Interesting talents. The list just goes on and on.. I would give everything to be able to go back in time and experience all of that again...
I absolutely loved Wrath. I had just built a pally tank to 60 as the Sunwell became available, and was having a blast of a time with him, and then the Wrath changes to the class, making it into a strength based class at last, and merging it with other tanking classes. The pre-expansion patch forced me to change a lot of my gear, but I did it gladly. Once released, I found I was able to properly tank everything. I was welcome in raids and able to see more of the game. It was just SO MUCH FUN! I miss those days so much.
Cataclysm got rid of the Defense stat, and Pandaria forced haste on pally tanks and taking away the chance to have every hit mitigated by something, screwing up the whole method for the class. WoD screwed up the social side of the game, which completely broke the game for me. Legion recovered it some, but I never was able to make it back to where I was before.
Now, I play solo. That's it. I'm not welcome in dungeons because they've become nothing but races, rather than a careful, tactical situation. The usefulness of tanks, particularly pally and warrior tanks, has bottomed out now. WoW just isn't fun anymore, certainly a far cry from Wrath of the Lich King.
me and my whole guild pretty much quit a month after cata came out, i feel like that's what ruined wow
sounds like little rage kiddys hope u have fun in classic xDDD
cata was the end of "classic wow" imo
Incredible video, very well written and edited. Very much looking forward to the continuation!
To this day the plague event is still one of my favorite times in wow.my whole guild on stormscale made it our mission to spread the plague as far as we could.good times.....i miss the good days of wow.oh and ulduar is by far one of the best raids wow has ever had.i raided 7 toons through that place wvery week lol
I can still remember farming the undead slaying set pieces during the scourge invasion as if it were yesterday. Scary how time flies.
My best years were spent playing it and maan do i not regret it, oh how i miss wrath...
Awesome trip down memory lane, thanks Bell. Sadly I don't think the game will ever feel like that again.
My favourite memory of Wrath of The Lich King is when it launched I everyone created a DK and went to Alterac Valley and instead of rushing or doing objectives player were just fighting like crazy in the middle.
Man oh man does this bring back memories. I started in TBC but "played WOTLK". Can't wait for next week!!
Ahh the days when WoW was great and the Music is just
I would haft to agree wrath was the only expac I use to play the wow music on in game while I was in northrend now I only use iheart now in background to my local channel as I play wow now still.
Loving the new logo-thanks Bellular. This is the most professional video I believe I’ve seen from you. Fantastic.
I can't stress enough how much I love these kind of videos from you Mr. Bellular, keep up the great work!!
Now thinking back wlk had a LOT more content than bfa
I'm not too sure about that. More, maybe. Not really "slightly more", but not "a lot more".
BFA is only 1/5 through and ur comparing it to the totality of WOTLKs lifespan?
WotLK had a bit more at launch - two more zones, three or so more dungeons, a few more raids, etc.
But that's largely cancelled out by the fact BfA zones are much larger and have more content in them, BfA dungeons have an extra progression mode, and most of the launch raids in Wrath were one boss or a slightly updated raid from Classic, while BfA's one raid (so far) has 8 bosses and was made from scratch.
WotLK also had an extra zone in Wintergrasp, but that was more an outdoor BG with some profession materials. BfA compensates by having way more world content to do at max level.
Honestly, I think they are basically the same, but BfA looks like it'll have as many zones (but bigger) as WotLK by 8.2's launch, and while there will be less raid bosses it should have just as many decently-sized raids.
Though, honestly, I think more single-or-two boss raids at launch wouldn't hurt.
Objectively false. Was stuff more fun to do? Sure no doubt, but BFA has more stuff to do, and will have more overall based on what was revealed during Blizzcon.
How can you make the comparison of a full expansion and BFA hasn’t been out longer than 4 months?
I only started playing WoW when Wrath was announced, and I still had trouble leveling when the expansion came out. But I did get hit by the zombie plague and I remember infecting the Defias brotherhood while leveling a warrior in Westfall. That warrior never made it past level 30.
Bell, you're my favorite channel on CZcams.
But Taliesen and Evitel rank right up there with you. Tally has got the market on dry wit and quippy commentary cornered!
But are they multiplicative?
Awesome video mate, it's easy to forget how important this expansion was to the overall WoW game.
Oh those old days of fun. The many hours I spent in Northrend with my guildmates, the random battles with Alliance players in Grizzly Hills... all those long nights spent raiding. It always felt so rewarding, even when those damn Four Horsemen didn't drop the right set token for the umpteenth time, I can't remember ever logging out thinking that I just wasted several hours of my life for nothing. Today everything just seems like a timesink with no real reward, even though back then everything was so much more grindy. I will always remember the end of TBC and Wrath as the best time I've ever had playing a game. Both because of what the expansions gave us and because of the people I enjoyed this with. Miss the days when Wow was a multiplayer game where you talk to people to do actual content...
I started playing right after wrath was released ...
I miss those days 😭
It took me literally 6 months to level from 1-80... playing nearly every day for many hours
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the best game of all time.
I started wow one week before this expansion released. I still love this expansion. I still say it is the reason I love World of Warcraft.
Even though I never played Wrath, I can still feel how big it was.
The login music alone brings back many memories
Wrath was and always will be my favourite expansion. Can't wait for classic wrath
That intro music made me tear up. Such great memories..... Sad that the game will never be that good again.
Those 3 week before wrath of the lich king with the zombie event were some of the most fun times in WoW I ever had as far as world pvp for sure. I took my kids level 70 shaman and completely cleared area 52 of all players and NPC's. Shaman at the time had cure disease and could cure and heal past the bugs and zombies. Warlocks had it too, but they could not heal enough to stay alive. It took many casts of it over and over and you were taking damage. So resto shaman was able to stay alive and watch everyone else turn into a zombie and die. Literally no NPCs, no vendors, no bank, nothing. Just me and a bunch of yellow bugs. People would fly in and be like uh.
The launch even of WotLK (the plague) along with the opening of AQ are the 2 biggest events in World of Warcraft history we been able to take part in. They NEED to go back to that style, and make massive, server wide events. I honestly could not be happier to have been part of both of them. Imo the plague ranks higher, because i myself was a paladin, hold back the hordes of ghouls that plagued Stormwind. And along a few friends, we managed to survive for a long time near the gates to the harbor. Never in the history of gaming, i had felt more immersed, feeling the danger, feeling the exhaustion, feeling like a real adventurer, holding the line, repeling waves of undead. It wasn't just epic... IT WAS LEGENDARY!
Best time for WoW. I had so much fun with this game, especially after being let down by Burning Crusade. I miss my Fire Mage, I was a beast in both PvE and PVP. I remember making a bucketload of gold teleporting people into Dalaran early. Even after all these years, and the several times I've left and gone back to the game, I still take the time to visit Northrend. It's the best content the game ever had.
I still maintain that “Wrath Of The Lich King” is the very best of the WoW soundtracks, with “Warlords Of Draenor” being a close second...even if the WoD expansion itself was not deserving of so brilliant a soundtrack.
Had to pause the video at 13:02 to remember the times when players had choices how their class could be. And for you too mention the wotlk pre event brings back a lot of fun memories of flooding capital cities that people got irritated a lot which lead to great times.
Though I am only 28
Watching these kinds of videos makes me feel old.
It's sad that this vision of WoW is only a memory now. This game was so amazing.
I've been deep into a WotLK private server these past few weeks. It's been a lot of fun reliving my favorite times in WoW with friends.
Didn't miss the whole gearscore + achievements requirement thing that players came up with, though..
Gearscore ruined actual prestige..
Do you remember the meme? Raid leaders recruiting, asking for 5.5k GS and achiev.
I started on retail during the prepatch. Idk about anyone else but I thoroughly enjoyed that prepatch. The expansion overall was great, big improvements in questing and to this day, Ulduar is my favorite raid.
Good times. I went from a Warlock main to DK main and never looked back. Also spent way too much time hunting the TLPD and finally got it after a couple/few hundred hours.
Tell them all that the Lick King is dead ... and that wow died with him!
The Lick King? You mean Arfus?
Bolek Lolek - I mean LK
@@Golemoid Mr Owl is the Lick King - he knows how many it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.
Who is the Lick King? The Lich King's perverted cousin?
World of Porncraft, The Lick King.
This video made me so nostalgic. So many amazing memories. My guild was at its highest during Wrath of the Lich King too. They should do a plague like once a year because it's just that fun. Just a day long event, the day before Hollow's End.
I stopped playing in TBC and didn't know about that pre-patch zombie invasion. That is such a cool idea!
Best extension to date IMHO. It's interesting to see that the once popular systems/game mechanics have now been removed (talent trees, currency, etc.). Back then it used to be an actual MMO set in the Warcraft universe; now it's just an action game with characters from an anime.
You really captured how we all felt just prior to launch. Good job.
The Wrath cinematic song.....chills everytime. Best cinematic.
Justice and Valor weren't added with WotLK. They were added at the tail end as a Cataclysm feature. WotLK stuck to the badges, which would change based on the Tier.