Expansions · Cataclysm to Draenor
Three expansions that each spent the goodwill of the one before it — the world rewritten, an expansion rehabilitated ten years late, and a private base that emptied the shared one.
3 pieces · all eleven expansions
BlizzCon is where the announcements land, and where several of the decisions documented on this site were first stated out loud.
Photo: Tahir Xəlfəquliyev / Pexels
The 2004 world was not extended in 2010. It was replaced, and the version eleven million players had learned stopped existing.
Photo: Alexey Demidov / Pexels
Start here
The December 2010 expansion didn't add a new continent — it overwrote the base game. That choice echoed for years.
ExpansionsMists of Pandaria and the Expansion That Took Ten Years to WinDismissed on announcement, praised a decade later. The reversal is documented in the same outlets that panned it.
ExpansionsThe Garrison Gave Everyone a Fortress and Emptied the WorldThe garrison was the most efficient thing in the expansion, and it meant the optimal way to play a massively multiplayer game was alone at a table for eight minutes a day.