With regards to the Battle for Azeroth positivity... this video had not aged well lmao

Cataclysm was the finest xpac for PvP for me. Ret paladin and fire mage were insanely fun. It was memorable too - in the dark of night just before I sleep I sometimes can still here ice lance.

Cataclysm was legit my favorite expansion. PvP was good, the leveling was fun, the dungeons were hard (until 4.3). People bitched because they only played endgame content. If Cata had more side activities like pet battles I honestly think people would look back more fondly.

I loved Cataclysm. I loved valor system. I loved Tol Barad, I loved the storyline. I loved dungeons (all) and raids. I don't understand why people left wow these times....

One of the biggest problems with Cata was Deathwing. He is such an amazingly cool character and they did not do enough with him. The ending cinematic was just embarrassing. Instead of something cool with Deathwing realizing he was dying or something he just poofed into sparkles and we got to find out Thrall and Aggra smashed. I wish deathwing could come back and they could give him a proper role in an expansion.

Unpopular opinion: Honestly, cata was my favorite expansion. Not because of anything you talked about, but because of what you didn't. The class abilities/spells/techniques during cata was the height of what they had ever been before and they have been watered down and discarded since. The way it rewarded you for paying attention to what your spells said and how they worked with and boosted other spells was just amazing. The content was so so at best, but I had never before, nor have I since, had as much fun playing wow as I did during cataclysm.

I mainly pvp'd in Cataclysm. Season 11 which was the last season in cata and lined up with Dragon Soul was the golden age of arena - besides triple DPS.

The thing about Cataclysm that irked me the most was the changes to professions that occurred. Professions used to be a bit more detailed. They had specializations (weapon smith and armor smith for blacksmiths for example), and they relied heavily on making things for other professions to use (belt buckles for cloth and leather workers). Professions were an in-depth form of gameplay different from questing and raiding. They were a lot more fun than they are today.

I absolutely loved my time during cataclysm though I preferred wrath, I adored the zones and the firelands was absolutely amazing.

I'll always have a love-hate relationship with Cataclysm. Poor... poor Deathwing.

Thank you Bellular I pre-purchased Before the storm so excited for it to come out, but I shared the video with my friend to get the link as well and surprisingly enough he was actually saving up money to buy an audio book and a pair of headphones to listen to his book at work and you saved him $30 his reaction was priceless and the only thing he could say was "Wow!"

I've played since Vanilla and personally feel that Legion at this moment in time is the best version of WoW I have played overall. Argus is a good raid with Norm, HC and Mythic giving good variety of challenge to varying levels of players in terms of skill and time commitment to master and gear a class while learning more complex mechanics. Mythic+ Dungeons mean you can do a dungeon that is actually a challenge still even if you have great gear and not be bored of facerolling through HCs. Dailys / World Quests give some variety and options of which rep you do/don't want to grind some rep for each day too. I'm glad that BfA doesn't look like it will be messing with those 3 major parts of the current game.

"With Legion, the developers finally have the template to take the game forward." And now 6 months later we know that copying & pasting that template with a few tweaks was a huge mistake.

Really enjoy these documentary-style videos; it's fun to look back at WoW's progress over the years. Hope you do more in the future!

You pump out a lot of content, much appreciated.

10:10 datamined Deathwing model? dude no, he was part of the quest-chain in Badlands where that dwarf said he punched him on the face. That model was used there.

Really happy you did Cata retro! As a Cata Baby its interesting to see how more seasoned players view the expansion and what was really going on while I was still in my baby days learning how everything worked.

Nice video man.The Cataclysm period was my least active time as a player. It was a rather busy time for me personally, but I pretty much spent the majority of the time playing on a WOTLK private server. I started playing again 3 or 4 months before MOP dropped, so I didn't really have enough time exploring CATA content to critique it on my own.

I love this series covering all the xpacs, I think it's brilliant. I might be alone in this but I would also really enjoy if these types of videos could be a bit longer. Some of them feel a bit rushed. I realize alot of people these days have very minimal attention span, but I feel like a longer 30-45 minute video that covers these expansions could be really great. It could maybe be a podcast-type format with a "History Lesson" feel to the series that we could have in the background while playing or doing something else. Anyhoo, just my thoughts. Great series though. : )

As always, tremendous work! Keep up the awesome job!

I specifically remember quitting because Firelands required you to have quested in Hyjal, the one zone I didn’t do, and I was so burnt out on questing that I couldn’t make it far enough for the attunement and just quit

Yay! I've been waiting all week for this. I love these explorations of the xpacs. You did show End Time as one of the pre-4.1 dungeons, though.

As a HUGE Deathwing fan, honestly one of my favorite characters in all of WoW (Deathwing in the novels is awesome)... and then seeing the Cata cinematic.. I was so hyped but so incredibly disappointed at the end of Dragon Soul.

Great Cata series, Bellular! Keep up the great job. Personally didnt much like Cata but did, painfully, play through it.

Loving these retrospective videos. My favorite so far is the MoP one (mostly because it's my favorite expansion) but the way they're presented is all interesting. Perhaps a WoD one next?

DAMN BELLULAR BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH THE QUALITY VIDEO!

Awesome as always Bell

As much as it gets shit, I still remember the 4.1 Patch. Something about the trailer is stuck in my head to this day.

As someone who took a massive break from the beginning of Wrath until WoD, Coming back like 7 years later and having the Cata world changes was kind of amazing. I got to experience the entire world again, in a new way. The questing was all very much improved. I think a lot of those cata changes are hugely beneficial now that the game has smoothed out the rough edges around it.

These videos really make me respect Blizzard as a company - even when they screw up, they always keep trying new things and learning and developing new strategies

Heavily disagree on the m+ system. If I wanted to play Diablo, I'd play diablo.

I CHECKED WHETHER THIS VIDEO WAS OUT YET LIKE 30 MINUTES AGO, WASN'T THERE, BECAME SAD PANDAREN, AND NOW I FOUND IT IN MY RECOMMENDED VIDEOS THANKS BABY

But man the Cata cinematic was amazing, it still remains as one of their best and omg the music.

I like this type of content, its nice either nostalgia or for new players, gj.

What he said about the leveling was super true for me. I loved it. I leveled like 5 toons to 80. I didn’t even get to 85 til end of February and that was with very consistent play. What they did to Deathwing was an absolute shame though.

I loved some parts of Cata. I loved the Hyjal areas and questing. I wasn't a fan of the dungeons or the raids. I regained my love for WoW during MOP, but then lost it again for Warlords. Legion is magnificent. BC and WotLK are still my favorites though. I am really looking forward to BfA. More than I was looking forward to Legion, honestly. Thank you so much for this series. Because of it, I watched more of your videos and subscribed!

A great series! Incredibly well made :)

Some of my best memories of the game come from my time in Mt. Hyjal and specifically the Molton Front. I actually love grinding the dailies there and especially the way the patch of purified ground grew as you progressed. It gave me a feeling that my actions had real meaning. Also, how could you not love Mylune? She was such a ditzy demigod.

When the gearing up process is faster and there are few tightly tuned gear checks we consume the content faster. Vanilla and TBC didn't have massive patches coming out rapidly, but it took time to work your way through the content because of gear gating. When they started showering us with gear is when the problems with rapid consumption started.

ICC 10H and 25N didn't drop the same loot, even if they had the same iLvl.

I started playing WoW during Patch 4.2, and I loved every bit of Cataclysm. Many will disagree, but I really liked the bosses in the Dragon Soul raid (except Spine was a pain in the ass).

Didn't play this expansion but great job summarizing it. :) Please keep these coming with a MoP one next.

I found myself liking Cataclysm a lot. After having had a 2 year break from the game, it was cool to come back for Cataclysm and level up a brand new character in the revamped zones.

I like the new format with you talking in a cosy room, and cutting to warcraft video. Better them just constant warcraft video with you in the corner with green screen

Once deathwing killed me when I was mining right next to the gatea of SW. I don't have the finest idea how was that possible.

Loving the recent videos dude 🙌🏻 So hyped for BFA

The launch of Cata was the beginning of the end for me playing on a consistent basis. I’ll be back in BFA, but I’m mainly looking forward to classic!

Dude how do you find the time to make these great videos and still play wow lol. I really enjoy your videos and hard work. Thank you.

just wanted to say thanks a ton for the beta key giveaway from last video, was a very pleasant surprise to get that email.

Cata was one of my Best exp! I really loved it!

I think one thing that's always dismissed when looking retroactively at Cataclysm is the vast changes to characters. I don't remember the specifics but I remember starting in Wrath and living a life of grinding weapons and buying individual spells every level up...ya know, classic. Talents were also a standard mechanic used in other games that most people didn't experiment with but instead just looked up "the optimal talents". Specialities weren't really a thing in terms of picking and choosing as it was a case of being locked into one, so you'd only pick the best one. Cataclysm added a lot of quality of life mechanics in the beginning which I was excited for but I know the majority of people felt like they were dumbing down the game for casual Wrath babies. When people talk about "Back in classic" they mean before Cata usually and a lot of the features were aimed to make the game less of a arduous grind for which it was famous for. That's Cataclysm's legacy for me, for better or worse. They tried to simplify EVERYTHING and they didn't really consider the consequences of doing so.

I remember Cataclysm very fondly because its where I had gone from what could essentially be described as a warm body to fill this specific raid need in ICC 10. To a full blown raid leader with friends who was pushing heroic content. It was also the point in time where I had the most IRL friends playing with me. So I *know* for certain my experience was colored by that rosiness. But even with that, I think parts of Cataclysm get a bad rep when it wasn't earned. Yes dungeons were hard (and perhaps should have come with a warning label...) but it cannot be argued that it didn't make the player base a little smarter with their class.

The most fun I had Lore and Content wise in WoW, since playing from Classic onward, is MoP and Legion. MoP was a huge step forward from Cataclysm and it helped I really did like the Far Eastern feeling of the Lore. Legion got much better for me once the AP grind was adjusted.

Cata in a pve standpoint was lack luster, but on the other hand the feel of pvp was great. IMO the health pool was just right and no class was crazy overpowered. As a warrior main i felt like i could stand my ground with most classes (except frost mage if one mistake is made). Probably the most fun ive had in pvp to date.

I don't know why but the Hour of Twilight dungeons are my favorite. I've never felt as excited for dungeons as I did for those instances.

I was a heroic raider from the start to the end of Cata. (Obviously I was a heroic raider in the last expansion also but that doesn't matter for this comment) You'll hear that a lot 8 years later. As I remember it, there weren't that many of us; However the few of us really seem to like comment sections apparently. I digress. What drove me to quit in the middle of Heroic DS, was from start to end I HATED the class changes. These changes rolled out before the expansion. When they did we set the forums on fire. Most players did as my memory tells it. When I coupled the fact that I hated my classes gameplay with the fact I was no longer having fun progressing and being admired by my peers because I'm doing something they can't do, I quit. I stayed to continue raiding because even though I hated the gameplay, I could still do it, and I could still do what most people couldn't and it was the admiration and the respect of my contemporaries that kept me killing bosses. By the end of H dragon soul it wasn't enough anymore. This is just one raiders possibly faulty memory. Was a long time ago.

I like these videos. You should look into doing reflection vids like these for each Xpac.

Thanks for this video, it's interesting to see the highs and lows of development in WoW. I enjoy transmog runs, just wished it was bind to a slot not to an item and no level lock. Still not sold on the azerite grind tho.

i actually really liked cata. I started playing during TBC but I didn't hit max level until wotlk. I wasn't a quote "wrath baby" i did the hardest mode of raiding at the time and was top dps in my guild by the time arthas came around (name: lust, shadow priest, exodar server, guild: turmoil (horde)) I actually really enjoyed the difficulty spike in dungeons. People actually had to use their crowd control instead of just easy aoe like in wrath. And as a spriest i brought a lot of cc. I did feel bad for healers and mana changes early on but i didn't heal so not my problem lol. Green jesus didn't bother me at all. I actually thought it was really cool. Granted I love dbz, and thrall is one of my favorite characters. Heck as a wc trilogy fan i love almost all wc3 characters. I actually think until legion/bfa wow kind of sucked at good storytelling. Kind of hidden and vague. Not at all like the great storytelling of gw1 and gw2 I was used to. Cata had some storytelling which was cool and a step in the right direction. New story too not just borrowed wc3 stuff like fight illidan, fight kael, fight arthas etc. I know deathwing is kind of mentioned lore wise but many people didn't know who he was. Or cared. They finally killed arthas and they were happy. I think that maybe was a large part of the sub drops. Along with the difficulty changes and wrath babies weren't happy with that. The world revamp was really cool. Leveled quite a few alts. Had fun. Since I started playing in tbc yes i did experience the old world but i didn't quite have the same attachment as say vanilla players did. I do remember the controversy with the pandaland announcement and was like omg... and i did quit playing for quit a few years after that. Didn't come back till briefly in WOD and loved it until the content drought. Then planned on never playing again till legion b/c well

I see that blue eyed high elf model you're using there And it may be unpopular, but I loooooved the late-game Cata heroics.

Unpopular opinion, I actually enjoyed cataclysm. I disliked dragon soul, but as a whole I enjoyed cata. Loved the difficulty spike in dungeons, and I started in wrath.

I hope you will do one of these with Mists of Pandaria, just to see the followup :D

So basically, Cataclysm was what you should never do as an expansion.... until WOD came

Absolutely LOVED cataclysm

HORUS HERESY!! Ty Audible

Great video! I think cata falls into the same bucket as WoD. On launch they were both amazing for the majority of the playerbase, because the content itself was great. However it seems Blizzard overloaded themselves, and the content was too hard to make quickly, leaving cut content (Abyssal Maw, Well of Eternity, Shattrath raid, Farahlon) and content droughts. I'll look back on the start fondly, I had so much fun at the beginning of cataclysm, and that's what I'll remember.

I loved Cata, the time things was hard, not just easy like now.. Cata had all I wanted in a wow exp.

Dude, you should make a video on how Wow staff changed over the years and how this changes could impacted expansions like Cataclysm, Pandaria and Draenor

good stuff

Cata was a high point for me... every expansion is a high point, but Cata just had a special feel to it.

your audible link closes itself right away? Got a fix?

Man. Had someone told me there was going to be an expansion worse than Cata i'd have laughed them in the face. 4.3 is what i consider the "apology patch", Mists of Pandaria what i thought of as the "apology expansion". Life was sooooo good until 5.3.And now i look back at Cata and go "well, it sucked, but at least it wasn't WoD, Legion or BFA."

Link to the audible doesn't work, tab just opens then closes. Very much interested in getting before the storm

Do more of these

I quit during Cata for 2 1/2 expacs after until I came back in Legion after Nighthold was already out. Also I believe Cata is when WoW has most the new competition in mmorpgs releases. If I'm remembering right, EQ2, Rift and Vanguard were all released during Cata and all were pretty highly anticipated yet we know how those games fared.

If they do a Cataclysm classic it would be a fantastic opportunity to add the vashjir raid in and even an improved dragon soul raid. I also think it would be really cool if they added mythic+ to cata classic OR they added mythic versions of all old dungeons to retail

I started playing during Cata and didn't understand why everyone hated it. I've played every expansion since and now I totally get it. I still had fun though

I'm sure you get loads of comments so I might get lost in the sauce but I loved part 1 because it talked about wotlk Any plans to do a perspective vid on wotlk?

My second favorite expansion!

Lets be honest here. Cata was the rewamp of the world. But it was a smaller world - Orgrimmar/Stormwind was the hub. The have group will travel guid trait was a blessing in disguise. Cata had no farming or daily content at launch.

Cata is my least favorite xpac that I played through (I skipped Warlords outright). That said I did enjoy the difficulty of the dungeons early on as frustrating as it was I remember sticking with a group in LFD if it went well for hours so that was cool. I think the biggest problem for me is WotLK is my favorite xpac so it was already against an uphill climb. Storywise I remember how persistent Arthas was and how it felt like everything was leading up to him. Whereas DW started off with a bang and then showed up at the end.

Transmogrifications even to this day with All The Things addon provide more content then legion itself. If you choose to do farm all transmogs in ATT of course.

speaking of darkmoon island...they have added new stuff to it, hell made a CAVE ...BUT THE DAMN TENTS STILL REMAIN EMPTY that pissseees me off so much

Forgot to mention the revolutionary class changes.

Yay another videoooooo

I disagree with the notion that the transmog system detracted from character identity. If anything, it solved my single greatest issue with numbers-based games like MMOs tend to be: you have to choose between wearing what you want and wearing what makes you effective. Sure, devs generally make an effort to improve the awesome factor of progressive gears, but maybe I really liked the look of the set I had back at level 60 or something? Maybe I want to keep the look of my T6 armor in place of the T8? There are substantial, immediately tangible differences between each level of gear, but being able to choose which aesthetic I preferred while still improving my character was a fantastic solution to a problem many people like me have had for ages.

I didn’t care that thrall took the lead in that expansion. It’s cool to see a characters that we are told is op, actually be op in the story

I'm kinda new to wow, i had some experience since WoTLK but i started playing in WoD and Legion. I like the video but the thing about deathwing...Ever since he got the Dragonsoul...He never was the PROUD character he once was...He was a mad but awfully well designed dragon .

Mfw I loved Deathwing and the Madness fight. I see the last two fights as one. Ripping off Deathwing’s spine and forcing him into Deepholm. Yes he wasn’t on a giant throne, but we were still forcing him out.

I was not the "loss of ICC" that lead to the implosion of tons of guids (like Bell claims at 1:40), it was the loss of 25-man-raiding. Making 10-man raiding "equal" essentially eliminated 25-man raiding because organizing 10-mans was soo much easier and every delusuional "elite" clique left their old guilds to "dominate" the new 10-mans. This left tons of guilds as dead wastelands and many players homeless.

I think one thing you're not taking into account is the fact that many people that were hard core raiders in vanilla just couldn't bring themselves to start at 0 again for a third xpac. I found that cata and mop were fine, and I liked lfg and lfr. It was WoD and what became Garrisoncraft that really killed it for me. Professions became all but useless at that point as well.

What's this "ilvl" when you speak of ICC? Back in my day, we had 5.2k Gear Score needed for ICC raids and at least 5K to get out of ToCR tier. :D

I really wish they could find a way to make old content more relevant and still challenging. Like, imagine if there was a tier system for gearing. You group a bunch of raids together for tier 1, 2, 3 etc. The highest tier will always be for the current xpac but for catching up you could do old raid runs

All things considered I greatly enjoyed Cata it fell flat at the end with LFR and the Heroic nerfs but honestly it's up there with Wrath in terms of how much I enjoyed it.

Wotlk had great content and could hold a large fan base. Raids weren't incredibly difficult at 10 man normal mode and people could get a set of end game gear without hitting a wall and some how actual raid guilds would get stuff others still couldn't touch. It had a little bit of everything. My hype ended after that, Cata was supposed to be a refresher on the vanilla WoW zones but in my opinion the feel that was once in those zones were long gone and the ability to insta que for dungeons got rid of really any care about doing the quest lines in those new "refreshed" zones at all. Also in my own opinion, but to get to the point where you kill Arthas and then the next game is a "revamp" it's like the story just kept dragging on. I've played since Warcraft 2 and when the hell am I ever going to be able to kill Sargaras? Or put an end to the burning legion once and for all? It has taken sooooooo loooooong they have ruined the experience and the story for me. All of this is why I no longer invest in WoW

I liked Dragon Soul for using old assets and recontextualising an old zone. I kinda wish they'd do that more. But they probably fit better as CoT dungeons or scenarios than major raids.

I kinda want cata style dgs back. It doesnt matter that much to me but it was fun to use CCs in PvE. Vash'jir's lore was something I wanted them to continue on and still want. To this day I don't know what happened to the Battlemaiden.

I honestly think Cataclysm suffered to the rise of popularity in MOBAs around that time, IE League

There was no dungeon named War of the Ancients in patch 4.3. There was End Time, Well of Eternity (I think you mean this one), and Hour of Twilight.

The comments on Dragon Soul are so weird. I really enjoyed it. I'll certainly concede that Spine wasn't a fun fight, but it was thematically appropriate, and I quite enjoyed the mechanics of Madness. I also really liked the Hour of Twilight dungeons, though not as much as the ICC dungeons, to be sure.