I bought it, and I subbed to the game to play it, but beyond the first zone and 2.5 levels, I find myself going back to Hearthstone. Yes, WoW can be enjoyed casually, but there are far better MMORPGs for that. WoW is supposed to be the “hardcore” MMO.
At the same time, Hearthstone makes me enjoy Warcraft characters, leading me back into WoW to see what happens to them. Spoiler: Khadgar dies?!!@
I moved to Hearthstone over it, because WoW is a total time sink. I want to play mythic raiding for example; nope you’re not “playing mythic raiding” for at least 80% of your time in that game; a) you’ll have to do braindead levelling and braindead post-end-game gear levelling for many hours a week b) you have to spend many hours a week developing your guild and training your guild and discussing strategies with your guild c) WoW end-game is for ~20 year old students who have abandoned their studies.
Truth. I’m just mad I blew $55 on it.
Nothing hardcore about WoW lol
As for the question, not playing it yet anyway
It’s hard core if you want it to be, but you have to spend your life in there a) leveling the gear of your character b) creating a network of socializing with high end players c) developing your relation with your high end guild, in order to open the gates of high end mythic raiding; you could pay guilds to carry you there faster; but that’s by definition anti-hard core anyway.
I have played WoW for 8 years in total with only 1 maxed out character, Paladin Tank and that was enough. I always purchased the new expansion and then left after 3 months… I have seen everything I wanted until that time of the content. It just wasn’t interesting enough to pay my account further. The story was always the same after a while they released a new expansion, it had a new location, a few instances and raids and a lot of daily quests to farm… I barely had time to do the dailies and then started to raid… it was taking a lot of time thats why I stopped playing eventually. After work shift ended, I found myself start the 2nd shift called… WoW… and that was not healthy for me at all. I enjoyed beeing one of the best Paladin Tanks on my server, helped a lot of ppl… but had enough of the game. Mainly when item levels got toned down. They have sent back everyone into the stone age because they didn’t wanted to go above item level 1000. This will be the 4th expansion I missed out… I couldn’t believe I quit that long time ago… already missed out 4 exps… but not missing the game at all. Last year downloaded it and started to play a little because got a free week game time gift… checked my character and all of it’s stuff, memories… but thats all. I am 40 years old now with a family. All I have left of WoW is Hearthstone… because HS based on WoW originally as we all know… Even the title of Hearthstone is connected to Wow… Everyone must know what is a Hearthstone in Wow who ever played it. 
I paid for two WoW subscriptions from 2004 to 2016, but that game is dead to me now. I pretty much burned any bridges back to that game to keep me from ever going back to it.
I played WoW for the better part of 20 years pretty consistently. I was an altoholic who raided three sometimes four nights a week. I was invested hard
I simply don’t care about it anymore and the only time I even think about the game is when I see an ad or somebody brings it up. If I’m honest with myself, it’s been bad for about three Xpacs and I’m not buying another one
I’d gladly play wow (again) if I had 15 dollars to spend every month +the expansion price, and a better computer than a 3-4 year old laptop to play it on
Alas, reality hits hard, I’m relegated to endlessly replaying Dark Souls 2
I would play wow again if i had the time, jut dont have the time
i already have
thunderfury blessed blade of the windseeker
what more am i to do?
if it was free to play, id do it
Seems I am the only one in this thread that is, in fact, playing again. I dropped the game in Battle for Azeroth and only went back occasionally to check out the content. I am having quite a bit of fun this time around tho. The storytelling is massively improved, gameplay loop is interesting and rewarding while respecting your time and there is tons of progression to do solo at your own pace, which is ideal for my inconstent schedule.
I actually recommend giving it a go. It’s a great time to get back to it.
another reason i left
solo in a mmo
Well, it’s a choice. You can do the same content with people instead if that suits you. I can’t be doing raids in a guild so doing the new delves on my own + mythics and pugs is good enough for me. Each has something for their preferences
I doubt it ever had a truly bad expansion or a truly perfect expansion. It’s just that some of us move on; others get addicted and they don’t want to admit it so they blame the game; the game was always addictive but also problematic.
I have identified very consciously what drove me away; it’s just a gigantic time sink; the main thing I cared to play is end-game raiding/instances and in order to do that you have to spend 80%+ extra time to grind gear levelling.
it’s been bad since wrath patch 3.3
Wow is like a job that you pay to do.
It’s simply way too much time and money for the endorphins.
I quit in BFA and haven’t gone back.
Agreed, top comment… I think the same… After work shift ended I found myself starting the second at home… called World of Warcraft… and I had enough of this even without a family… now I have one, so won’t return into it. Wow was good for me to escape from this word to another and forget all of my problems until that… But eventually, I had to get back to reality and face all of them.
Exactly. It’s fun sometimes to see the basic Lore. E.g. it was fun to play the Dragonflight Beta for a week since they had this funny new flying mode fully playable.
I’ll try it, but I’m not going to pay for it. The last 3 expansions before this are progressively worse and worse. They’ve butchered the story and lore. I’m not sure if there’s a going back. I’m also not really a big fan of many of the new creature and character models.
It now just gives the same feeling as any other MMO I tried after WoW: bland, uninteresting, no real reason to care about what’s happening in the quests/story/land in general.
I gave them 3 chances after legion, all of them were disappointing. I’d try it if I got it for free since I buy tokens with gold now, but I do not have any reason to believe they’ve learned anything from their downhill trend, post-Legion.
edit That being said, Classic Cata feels great. It still feels like WoW.