Nicol Bolas
Terrarian
Well, with 1.3 out now for many years, let's look back and answer the question being asked: Which update do you think was/is the most important one so far?
Before answering, I want to note that the question is not which update is the "best"; it says "most important". With that being understood, I say that the most important update is:
Version 1.2
I have several reasons for that:
1. It revived Terraria after development on it seemingly shut down. The 1.2 update proved that Terraria was viable again during the long dark times when 1.1 seemed like the end. 1.3 didn't really prove anything. Oh, it was good, but it wasn't a signal that the game's development had escaped stagnation or anything.
2. It defined a fundamental direction for how Terraria updates would work, which later updates would use as templates moving forward.
Terraria 1.1 was clearly designed to allow a player on an existing world to experience most if not all of the 1.1 content without having to start over. It added content almost exclusively to the end of the game through Hardmode. It refreshed existing worlds.
But 1.2 didn't. While it added plenty of Hardmode content, it added plenty of content throughout the various eras of play. But the only way to experience that content was to create a new world, since much of said content was world-generation-based.
And that difference in direction is a big deal. Playing a 1.2 world is a vastly different experience from a 1.1 world, in a way that 1.1 worlds were not compared to 1.0 (until you get to the new stuff, of course). We also see that 1.3 kept this holistic approach to its content. It added more end-game content, but it also added content throughout the game. Just like 1.2.
3. It solved one of the biggest problems with Terraria 1.0/1.1: a general lack of diversity of content. The underground areas in 1.0 could get really samey-feeling. Just an endless series of room after room after room of the same dirt and rock, occasionally interspersed with some random ores or gems. Occasionally, you'd encounter a ruined cabin or something, but for the most part, one place in the underground was the same as another. The overworld, by contrast, has a fairly decent number of biomes, even in 1.1: desert, corruption, jungle, and even snow.
But the lack of content diversity goes farther than just the environments. Terraria 1.0 and 1.1 just didn't have all that much stuff in it. Oh, it had some stuff, but not a whole lot.
1.2 changed all of that. It added tons of stuff underground. It added the frozen underground to spice things up, as well as a number of mini-biomes to encounter along the way. It added early-game magic weapons, making early mage builds possible. And so forth. 1.2 created a diversity of experience that 1.1 lacked. And we can see that 1.3 added more to this, with more mini-biomes and the like.
All in all, 1.3 was like 1.2, only more. And while "more" is good, the originator is ultimately the most "important".
Before answering, I want to note that the question is not which update is the "best"; it says "most important". With that being understood, I say that the most important update is:
Version 1.2
I have several reasons for that:
1. It revived Terraria after development on it seemingly shut down. The 1.2 update proved that Terraria was viable again during the long dark times when 1.1 seemed like the end. 1.3 didn't really prove anything. Oh, it was good, but it wasn't a signal that the game's development had escaped stagnation or anything.
2. It defined a fundamental direction for how Terraria updates would work, which later updates would use as templates moving forward.
Terraria 1.1 was clearly designed to allow a player on an existing world to experience most if not all of the 1.1 content without having to start over. It added content almost exclusively to the end of the game through Hardmode. It refreshed existing worlds.
But 1.2 didn't. While it added plenty of Hardmode content, it added plenty of content throughout the various eras of play. But the only way to experience that content was to create a new world, since much of said content was world-generation-based.
And that difference in direction is a big deal. Playing a 1.2 world is a vastly different experience from a 1.1 world, in a way that 1.1 worlds were not compared to 1.0 (until you get to the new stuff, of course). We also see that 1.3 kept this holistic approach to its content. It added more end-game content, but it also added content throughout the game. Just like 1.2.
3. It solved one of the biggest problems with Terraria 1.0/1.1: a general lack of diversity of content. The underground areas in 1.0 could get really samey-feeling. Just an endless series of room after room after room of the same dirt and rock, occasionally interspersed with some random ores or gems. Occasionally, you'd encounter a ruined cabin or something, but for the most part, one place in the underground was the same as another. The overworld, by contrast, has a fairly decent number of biomes, even in 1.1: desert, corruption, jungle, and even snow.
But the lack of content diversity goes farther than just the environments. Terraria 1.0 and 1.1 just didn't have all that much stuff in it. Oh, it had some stuff, but not a whole lot.
1.2 changed all of that. It added tons of stuff underground. It added the frozen underground to spice things up, as well as a number of mini-biomes to encounter along the way. It added early-game magic weapons, making early mage builds possible. And so forth. 1.2 created a diversity of experience that 1.1 lacked. And we can see that 1.3 added more to this, with more mini-biomes and the like.
All in all, 1.3 was like 1.2, only more. And while "more" is good, the originator is ultimately the most "important".