With the insanely longer grind in Shadowlands compared to BFA, WoW has fueled my obsession and addiction so much to the point that I feel like I’m a hamster running in a wheel. When the quests and content feel so repetitive that you feel like you’re just pressing buttons on a keyboard like a braindead to get a visual response to eventually see “creatures slain 10/10” in a quest log pop up on your screen with cool visual and sound effects makes me feel like I’m a test subject being conditioned in a psychology experiment. The game has lost its immersion and fantasy, and now the game has become a chore that I don’t look forward to every day even though I obsess about it constantly to become a better player. Also Shadowlands is much harder than BFA not only because of the reduced loot and lower ilvl from the more accessible end-of-dungeon chests but also the content is harder itself, so you’re actually getting punished and not rewarded appropriately for trying harder which makes absolutely no sense. Another reason for the difficulty of completing Shadowlands content is the spec-specific borrowed power balancing (some specs have covenant abilities that can one-shot ppl with one or a few buttons *cough druid dps). This constant negative feedback and emotions are the reasons that I thought about quitting in the first place. The worst part of it all is that this gets repeated in the next expansion.
Mainly I’m quitting because I’m wasting my life away. For me to get decent in Shadowlands I would have to commit 4 hours daily and with some weeklys adding up to 36 hours weekly is such a sad realization for me, and it’s doubled if I play my 2nd alt making this hobby a full-time waste of time. What’s even worse is that even after completing my chores, I have the urge to keep on playing because of the high I feel from the positives of this expansion (pvp wins are so much more cheesy-satisfying, dungeons and raids are challenging in a good way, and the visual and audio elements from WoW in general and this new environment and characters in the shadowlands are so gratifying to witness).
Here is a breakdown of my current time usage in the beginning of Shadowlands (I know it gets much easier later but I don’t care at this point):
Dailies 3.5-4.5 hrs, 24.5-31.5 hrs per week from dailies
- maw .5 hrs to get item sockets (even when I have the maw mount the long respawn timers of some bonus elites and quest adds are what makes this task 30m instead of 15m)
- dungeons 2-3 hrs to get the baseline 210 ilvl (have to make up for untimed runs due to carrying noobs that are cheating the raider io system, and no loot because of reduced loot this expansion compared to BFA)
- pvp 1 hr to get the mythic ilvl weekly chest AND vendor/conquest loot and upgrades (dealing with losses from my mistakes and my noob teammates with 2k rating; for instance I’ve had 2k warrior teammates that don’t intervene, cc, or do low damage that it drives me insane)
Weeklys 11-11.5hrs; altogether with dailies is 35.5-43 hrs per week (w/ 2nd alt is 71-86 hrs per week)
- maw weeklys to get item sockets .5 hr
- torghast 1 hr to craft legendaries (tank is easily the best spec to do layer 8s, it takes time to ramp up your damage since you have no borrowed power at the start and tank dps is low without it)
- pvp 3 hrs to get mythic ilvl weekly chest AND vendor/conquest loot by reaching 2100 rating (this is by far the best way to get mythic ilvl with the least amount of effort vs mythic face-palm raiding)
- mythic raiding 6 hrs w/ guild to get BiS loot that never drops
- renown/covenant weekly questing to unlock more passives in your “2nd talent tree” .5-1 hr
I could be spending all of that time learning many new things, making a ton of money, finding a soulmate, or playing other less time-consuming games/hobbies to entertain myself to get the similar high we all get from playing WoW. Instead I’m just tunnel visioning and obsessing over just this one game that it has become an unhealthy addiction that I similarly used to have when playing League of Legends, and the only way I dealt with it was quitting cold turkey while replacing it with something else to give me the similar high. Playing an alt and doubling your game time is necessary in WoW because like in League of Legends you had fun with character/spell style variety and playing just one character is so boring. Moderation has never worked for me so I have no choice but to quit WoW for good. My recommendation is to avoid MMORPGs and other games that take up more than an 2 hours a day of your life. If you’re still in middle/high school you should definitely get a taste of WoW if it’s manageable.
WoW is the best game that I’ve ever played and I’ll still log on randomly for inspiration for 3D art design, animation, and GUI. I’ll still be watching the WoW cinematic/in-game cutscenes on YouTube to catch up with the story and state of the art visuals. If I become filthy rich, disabled, or an elderly I’ll come back to this game but by the time that I do return the WoW franchise will probably be concluded. Anyways GL and farewell WoW community and hello adult life! 
**After 4 weekly chests (12 choices of weekly PvP chest loot), there is still not a single PvP wep to be seen even with the 3 PvP slots unlocked every week. This super low RNG is not helpful sigh
ok byeeeeee 