I wouldn’t call myself a ‘forever-era’ player. I play a little of all of them. But I do still feel like Era is the best version of WoW.
I play for meaningful progression. And I don’t mean incremental stats on gear. Gear is part of the progression … but not the majrity of it. I mean that feeling when you get a new skill (or passive) that you FEEL when you use it. That feeling of anticipation for a couple levels before the next tire in the talent tree, or class trainer, where you’re just itching to get that powerful skill. And then your a MONSTER … for a couple levels. But, then you slowly start to feel that power drop off and then your looking forward to the next big payoff in a few more levels. It’s a similiar Idea to the retail hamster wheel. But each little i-lvl upgrade in Retail feels mostly insignificant outside of seeing slight increase in numbers on a damage meter. Not like when you get a shiny new toy where you can actually feel the impact.
Speaking of impact, another reason Era is so much more effective for the dopamine rush. Skills actually feel good to use. When I press a button on retail it’s just like any other button. They all kinda feel the same. When a major ability procs on Era it’s just simply satisfying to push it and watch the actual impact it has on the fight.
In the end I kinda play the game to level. The game is mostly over for me once I reach max. Often I will put in some time to get some better gear. But BiS gear grind is BORING. And with Era, the whole game is about the leveling process and world exploration ect …
I maxed out my available character slots YEARS ago. Every other version of the game just feels like an incremental devaluing of the dangers of world. It all just got easier and easier to traverse through the story. It became about this ‘end-game’ grind, which can be fun sometimes. But then fun of it has never been getting 2 more i-lvls. The fun of it has always been accomplishing impossible tasks. And Era takes the cake when it comes to feeling like you have done something amazing.