Typical irrelevant response…so “old school”.
The MMO world has, for quite some time now, recognized and acknowledged that MMO does not mean one is required to do dungeons and raids with others in order to “qualify” as a legit player in an MMO. One of the reasons for this is, undoubtedly, the hostility that exists among many of the more elite(ist) players who are not exactly welcoming to new players who are not already geared and skilled enough to satisfy them. Many new (and old) players just do not want to pay to be frustrated and needlessly abused any more.
Once upon a time, long ago in the WOW universe, dungeons were actually split among the hard core and other players who still treated an MMO as a game and just had fun…yes…even in dungeons and raids. I have been around long enough to remember, so I guess that makes me very old.
I no longer engage in a lot of things that I did in my earlier years, so I can wholeheartedly relate to the OP. For those who have nothing better to retort than “You do know that this is an MMO, right?” just do not seem to be able to accept that there are more than one type of player in this game and that their archaic definition of an MMO is absurdly outdated. They can’t see past their bias.
Take a look at the numbers of players left in this game. A lot of those who already left are disappointed hard-core players. I guarantee you that as many, or more, who have left are casual players who loved the FUN, loved the lore, loved the characters and heroes that they felt connected to. They actually loved the stories and being a character playing through those stories that are now so convoluted that most of them barely make sense any more in a world that has been so disconnected from it roots .
In an attempt to make the world easier and faster for the dungeoneers and raiders to reach their goals, the things that many casual players became enamored of, in Warcraft, were chopped up, disconnected, purged of it’s most loved characters, reconned, killed off and left to be ignored.
We don’t need them any more. They do not get us where we want to go faster, so we can just dispose of any extraneous content that does not serve the purpose of speeding the process of getting to dungeons and raids. I “get” that this is how some feel, but it just seems that the solution has been so severe that this game is now practically a shell of what it once was.
I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who are just trying to figure out how they are suppose to level now. Many new players are totally confused. None of them will every know what this game once was, since it is no longer a continuum, but a very choppy series of disconnected short stories now.
For some of us, the fun is gone, even though the love of what WOW was remains.
I will never understand what it is that drives any player to NEED to make someone, who plays the game and loves things in the game differently than they do, feel bad. I have no problem with you playing the game anyway that you want. I have no problem with the players who do the hardest content getting the best “stuff”. I can, however, understand why some players feel that everything that they loved in the game has been abandoned in favor of a fast rise to the highest content with little regard to those who just want to have fun in the game that used to offer them much more opportunities to do so.
I miss the purged heroes, the destroyed cities that now only exist in a past time with no relevance in the current world. I miss lore that makes sense and the trust that we once had that those who create this world would not totally mess it up just so they could write a story that they could not make work the way they want without retconning the life out of the Warcraft we thought we knew.
I am barely here any more. 14 years with not one break in pay, or play and I hardly recognize the game I am playing any more and I am not liking the direction that things have been going in for the last few expacs…this one probably being the worst.
This is the first time I have not even tried to get flying…my usual biggest desire to accomplish just isn’t worth pursuing this time around. I stopped playing my Allie and Horde mains as soon as I hit max level, because I was just not having fun. I have been playing my alts, playing BC and sometimes not playing at all.
I am not sure where I will be when the next expac is released. The excitement is gone for me. I now only do the things that I like to do…and there is less of that in retail, which is what drives me back to BC. This is not a perfect solution, but it is better than what retail currently offers for players like me.
The MMO is all around me. It is evident in the convos with those that I still quest with, fish with and interact with every day. I have not done a dungeon or raid in a very long time, yet the MMO is still there as evidenced by the numbers of people that I quest with, trade with sell and barter mats and items with nearly every day.
I really hope all of the raiders and dungeoneers are having a good time. I hope they continue to feel that their investment of time and money is worth it. It would be nice to know that they would wish the same for those who just want to play the game the way that is fun for them.
It would be nice if they simply recognized that lots of players just want to enjoy this MMO world their own way and that may not include dungeons and raids like they used to…like I used to.
Yes, I talk to much 
Just my own extremely long winded opinion.
Read, or not. Like, or not. Matters not really.
It is your world, play it like you wish.
