Burning Crusade was far from the "best expansion ever". Actually, I'm not even sure any of them qualify for that. I detested TBC, for the most part, but it had some good points. Wrath did, too, before Ulduar was nerfed into oblivion and Blizzard added the abortion that was the Argent Tournament.

I have heard some players pining away for the "good old days" of Karazhan, but those number way fewer than the even older players who longer for the days of Molten Core, BWL and AQ.

That said, you are correct that WoW players are an enigma. I think most of the "XX was the best ever" might be indicative of when the player started playing WoW, and harken back to the days when the game was still new and exciting, and places like Tanaris or Hellfire Peninsula or even Sholazar Basin were things you heard people talking about, but could only picture in your mind as some exotic destination. Or, maybe that was just me...

BC raiding was where most current WoW players got a real taste of raiding... and much of it was amazing, between new mechanics to graphical design... but BC leveling was almost on part with original vanilla leveling as far as how horrible it was.... what most people don't take into consideration when complaining is the fact that yes they keep seeing the same zones over and over again, but it's due to their own choices... I personally like to mix it up, my next alt to be leveled will probably not touch Nagrand nor Terokkar forest... though hellfire is something I can't surpass... I will probably utilize my friends to help me to get 62 and bypass HFP

That's because the way things worked in BC were great not because we absolutley love the Outland zones, big difference in loving the expansion and loving the quest chains put in place for the particular expansions level range.

It's no enigma. TBC wasn't all about the leveling (though it was a big improvement over classic).

It was about the clownish gear we got to shed for some of the prettiest sets the game has seen (I'm sorry, but from T4 up until Sunwell non-inclusive was the better looking than anything that followed), the wide variety of dungeons, the superb raid structure, the attunement chains, the volumes of fantastic lore, the accessible PvP, the excellent encounter design, the beauty of Nagrand (still my favorite zone), I could go on.

Did TBC have flaws? Sure. At the time, the leveling wasn't one of them (later improvements have made them feel dated). Now it is, but it doesn't dethrone it as the best expansion.

@wutsconflag: I do believe you mean 'abomination', and not 'abortion'. #2 involves the netherregions of women.

http://smb.guildlaunch.com

Check us out, legacy raiding :)

Not to sound mean...but there's bound to be a few enigmas when you have 12 million people involved in the same activity. :)

I think that those that say such things are talking about how well the content was laid out. The questing in TBC wasn't great (I hated Hellfire when I first started), but the way the difficulty and gear progressed from questing -> dungeons -> heroics -> low tier raiding -> etc just had a great balance to it.

Beforehand, I would argue that the difference between dungeons and raids (no heroics back then) was a crazy leap that not a lot of people could make. In Wrath, I'd say that the difference shrunk significantly.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=10503

Levels 58-70 were fun once. So were 70-80

But. Not. Five. Freaking. Times. In. A. Row.

Our dissatisfaction comes from seeing nothing new and our run through 60 has become a slog, where there is no point in working to get anything there since it is going to be obsolete once you ding 70.

Thats why we would hope to see some changes so it isn't the "same old thing" over and over.

It isn't about 58-70 being horrible, it is about that span of leveling being a weird break. The quests weren't as polished as some current one are.

HOWEVER, the raids were incredible and had some of the most visually stunning gear around even if some of it was designed by a monkey that hadn't the faintest clue how the class/spec worked. (Looking at you Enhance shaman designer for BC, you moron)

Behold!
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32946#screenshots:id=174191
On a Tauren, even more badass.
http://www.wowhead.com/itemset=636#screenshots:id=26165

Onslaught, Thunderheart, I could keep going. These armor sets made you WANT to wear tier simply because of how they looked.

Here's the other thing. It's pretty easy to do two different things in WoW. Have a few 85s, raid with a guild a few nights a week, then switch over to an xp-capped alt at level 70 and go have fun in older content too.

Likewise, different players have different opinions. I bet most of the people complaining about 58-68 aren't the same people who are redoing Ogri'la rep for the heck of it. And even that isn't incompatible. Same dude can be sick of HFP and still love the instances. It's all pretty easy, once you accept that there's granularity to all things.

It's because we all remember the game era where we felt happiest and assume that that's down to the content. For me, I was in the best guild I was ever in during BC and got server firsts, so obviously I think that TBC was the best expansion. For people who maybe struggled to get into such guilds in TBC (from what I understand it could be difficult to make the jump up from Kara in 25s), WotLK was obviously better for them. And so on and so forth. People are all different and ultimately what I think is fun, engaging and aesthetically pleasing turns others off, and vice versa. That's fine, we're all gamers at the end of the day.

"They pine for BC as The Best Expansion Ever, but then cry about how horrible Level 58-70 is now."

The thing you have to remember is that the majority of the time spent in an expansion tends to be at max level, raiding and doing dailies and PvPing, etc.

So, sure, 58-69 was awful. However, it was a minority of time spent during TBC. The raiding? It was fun, challenging, rewarding... I enjoyed the gameplay of TBC raiding the most, even if I got further in Wrath and found the storyline more compelling.