[adamkittelson]

The fact that Diablo 3 needed to be "fixed" supports the narrative. Also the fact that executives didn't realize it had been fixed and cancelled the 2nd Diablo 3 expansion. The Warcraft III remaster was a disaster. Three out of the last four World of Warcraft expansions have been poorly received. There does seem to be a pattern of decline.

[brailsafe]

Which 3 of the last 4? Legion, BfA, and now SL have all been received quite well I think.

[blibble]

BfA and WoD were universally panned

and SL is hardly loved (it's now being compared to WoD)

[brailsafe]

Well, I think SL is alright. I wouldn't say I love it, but I do that's more of a symptom of core gameplay mechanics rather than particular content. What do you dislike about SL?

[blacktriangle]

of the last 4, (ie WoD, Legion, BfA, and SL), Legion was the only one that you could call well received. WoD, BfA, and SL are all utter shit.

WoD deserves a special place in game design hell for choosing to implement garrisons over another tier of raid content.

[brailsafe]

This is a common sentiment I hear from people who bailed during WoD and have just been looking at public commentary about the rest. Everyone I spoke to in-game were at least meh about BfA, loved Legion, and were still stoked on SL until the new patch just took a bit too long. There are legit criticisms of all of them, but to say they're shit is just silly. Those same people also tended to love MoP fwiw.

My only real criticism is related to the majority of all game content being kind of irrelevant, because there isn't a long road to max level and no scarcity of exp. However, I did level through BfA content, and it was really well done.

[Accacin]

I'm odd in that I actually loved WoD, aside from Garrisons. Legion had it's moment of greatness, around the fourth patch it was great.

BfA and Shadowlands are incredibly bad, for casual players there's really nothing interesting to do, and raiders and stuck behind meaningless time gates. It's quite sad to see my friends list now, no one is playing - and a new patch has just been released.

I'm a huge fan, but I've also stopped playing. Blizzard feel like they've been ahead for so long they forget what made their games great. Saying that though, it only takes on incredible expansion for everyone to jump back.

[brailsafe]

I've gone back to level through WoD, and I was very impressed with Draenor and HFC. I have no personal qualms with that expansion other than what I hear about.

I think I agree with your commentary about SL, but I just said the same thing in a different way. BfA had a bit more interesting content though in that respect. They were not 'incredibly bad' by my estimation, just have their various flaws.

With regard to friends list, I stopped playing shortly before new patch drop, but mostly because it's summer and WoW in general just makes it way too easy to spend time indoors. I was following the world first race though, and would love to raid SoD and do BGs. But, before letting my sub expire I went and farmed out all the Mechagon mounts and most interesting rare drop mounts, had my fill of Nathria, and a bit of Mythic+ as miserable as that is. Could have been more fun with a proper gaming setup and guild, but I knew summer was coming up and I'd want to dial my playtime back to zero.

This is all after a decade long hiatus.

[blacktriangle]

In fairness to WoD the leveling experience really was great. However they utterly gutted combat mechanics which I think is a big part of why people coming from MoP into WoD hated it so much. And then the content drought...