I started playing WoW because there were no more decent updates for Unrealtournament 99. A few people from the GTF-UT forum were talking about this new game World of Warcraft and I followed them buying the game in 2004. I keep playing WOW because my husband and I have been avid players since 2004 and we still enjoy our game time. I personally use WoW as an escape from the doldrums of RL.
I was initially introduced to WoW as a Hearthstone player. I don’t have ‘too’ much time in real life for games due to the nature of my work - but after having played Warcraft 3 and then unlocking Lady Liadrin, I felt it was worth my investment.
As a new player starting mid-2019 just before the 8.2 patch I found it a bit challenging initially to understand the mechanics but I really enjoyed the plot and the faction conflict (things like battle for Nazjatar are cool).
For me I like making goals and achieving them. In WoW currently it’s taking both 8.3 reps to Exalted on both characters I’ve taken into this patch. Once I accomplish that I will continue working on the Kalimdor loremaster achievement and work on getting better corruptions.
Although I don’t push very high, I value being useful to a party whether I am a DPS or a tank. Compared to real life where I can fail and it means a big deal (programming, deadlines for major projects we’re working on, paperwork) WoW is a release for me because I know if I work hard I can accomplish what I want.
Corruption in my opinion is a great concept because it gives people the concept of risk; you can go 58 corruption or 38 and how you manage it determines whether it’ll benefit you or hinder you.
Well initially it was just the lore that made WoW appealing to me. I kid you not but I didn’t even use Azerite when I initially reached 120 because my plan then was to only get current gear so that I could explore older content with ease.
Now it’s a matter of exploring my characters ability and playing to my strengths while still keeping the game enjoyable. A very satisfying feeling overall when I successfully do a M+ run.
Just wanted to say thanks, this thread kinda help me decide to go ahead and leave the game. I realized I should have left the game at Warlords and I’ve been just hanging on to something that I really shouldn’t hang on to.
So with that said, I’ve already started the account deletion process and wish everyone the best of luck.
Peace!
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I started playing WoW because of co-workers while playing EQ. They talked me into playing on a PvP server which I hate to begin with. Within a month of playing all my coworkers quit because the server we chose was Alliance dominated and they got tired of being camped, spit on, laughed at by the Alliance. I continued to play up through Cataclysm, but left when they announced MoP back in 2011.
I only returned for Classic and maybe if they go to WotLK. I love that EQ does time lock progression servers and hope that WoW follows through as well (doubtful). Will I keep playing, depends on the community. It’s been very toxic compared to what I remember.
Best of luck with your journey ahead, wherever the road may take you.
I started playing to have fun.
I continue playing because I have fun.
This is vidya. 
I started playing WoW because City of Heroes didn’t have a lot of end game content. Then I started playing WoW and realized I wasn’t “serious” enough for what raiding guilds wanted. I now play WoW for RP and the social aspect, but even that is not what it once was.
I started playing when I was 10 during Vanilla. My dad was playing it and asked if I wanted to try on his account. The first race I wanted to try out was the Night Elf because I thought they looked cool and class was warrior. I played it, thought it was cool but wanted to try a different class. Dad told me about the druid and when he said they can turn into any animal they wanted I knew it I wanted to play that. I love the idea of adventure and being a hero. The old man gave me his laptop and payed for my own account. My Night Elf Druid, Beastkiller on Nazgrel, has been my main ever since.
What kept me playing? Everything! When the old man let me play on his acocunt, it took almost 10 minutes to run from NElf starting zone to Darnassus. When he told me about how it takes longer to get across other zones I knew I wanted to keep playing and see how big Azeroth is for myself. Also the lore about it is just amazing. But really the main reason I decided to keep playing was that not after C’thun but after Yogg-Saron I decided to keep playing until every Old God was defeated. I was disappointed how BFA went from faction conflict, to fighting naga and then killing an Old God bcuz Blizz said this was the true Battle for Azeroth. Nazjatar could’ve been its own xpac and same with Black Empire. If there isn’t going to be a Black Empire xpac then I guess I’m finally done. 14 years of playing this game and I’m leaving it disappointed and angry when I should be relieved and happy. If you think about it every expansion has an Old God in it or has something that connects it to Old Gods. I honestly thought everything was leading up to a Black Empire expansion. Just like every Marvel movie finally lead to Infinity War and then Endgame.
Started to play with family, came back to play with friends. Now no one plays so thinking of taking a long break until people come back to the game.
There is a large gaming community where I work and, until MOP went live, it was made up of predominately World of Warcraft players. I would listen to their stories of combat and conquest during breaks and, for someone that remembers radio being the nightly family entertainment, I was mesmerized. Our then WOW master and requiter encouraged me to “just try” Wow. He and some other gamers assured me that Wow was, either intentionally or by happenstance, designed for all type of play styles. Just before Cataclysm went live I started my own journey and for several years found that what they told me was true: that even I, with the eye hand coordination of a turtle could spend many enjoyable hours traveling the lands of Azaroth.
Sadly, with the implementation of Pathfinder and mandatory participation of dungeons/raids to complete it and level professions, I have been looking for a new game. Much to Blizzards credit, I cannot find another game that has the same mechanics, allows the same amount avatars per account , has the same amount of DPS races/classes, has 120 levels, allows ONLY 2 professions per avatar, has as large of a world and the list goes on…so I stay. However, WOD was the last expansion I will purchase due to Pathfinder and I no longer recommend World of Warcraft to friends or new members to the gaming community where I work.
/wipes tears from eyes
It’s faint but I remember seeing posters for WC3 whenever I’d go by a game shop in malls. Back then I thought that game and WoW were the same thing. But I never really had a decent computer
Why did you start playing WoW? What attracted you to the game?
I’m a shut-in with too much free time and I burn through single player games in a matter of days.
Why do you keep playing WoW? What’s keeping you around?
You addicts. Everytime a new MMO (that isn’t a huge established IP) comes out you run back here to your gold and max level toons after a couple months, leaving the new game dead.
If the answers are for the first two questions are different, why is that the case?
People suck.
I started playing because I enjoy fantasy worlds. MMORPGs are nearly the only type of game I play. I played EQ. We were looking for something new, WoW came out. Played it and enjoyed it.
I keep playing for the same reason. I like wandering around a fantasy world experiencing the story and interacting with other people looking to have fun wandering around a virtual fantasy world.
Pathfinder taking a year to get in the game is terrible. I did Legion Pathfinder and thought, “This isn’t too bad.” I didn’t even bother with WoD after tracking some treasures in the Spires of Arak. I said not worth it.
After seeing them take over a year to add Pathfindrr into BFA, I see why people are pissed. I was playing Wrath a while back and I remember when they designed content with flying in mind. I wonder what happened to those days.
C’mon now, Legion was awesome. That kept you around.
I started playing because I like World exploring, but my friends who were playing Asheron’s Call had moved on to WoW, so I did as well.
I stayed, and still stay, because I enjoy the stories. Not necessarily the overreaching arc, but all the little individual stories, from the Lucille Waycrest marriage tragedy, to all the poop quests. WoW has a sense of humor, mixed in with the pathos, that keeps me engaged.
I’m an orcsexual.
I started thinking “wow, orcs are really hot” as a teenage girl and have not stopped thinking that every day since. I went in search of The Perfect Orc and found WoW orcs to be the most perfect, beautiful orcs ever designed. I had to have more of them.
Made a WoW account and was literally hooked in the first couple of quests. Came for the hot orcs, stayed for the amazing game. It just sucked me in, I loved the dopamine hit I got from turning in quests.
Now I have a 3 ft $1.6k Grom Hellscream statue in my living room.
I stay because of the history I have with the game. Some of the best times in my life have been closely tied to WoW, especially to Legion, and I hope to recapture that same joy with Shadowlands. I can’t quit, I’ll be here until they shut the servers down. I met the love of my life (my boyfriend, not the orcs) through WoW too, it’s just so important to me.
I do have an amount of faith in the team that they can turn this ship around. Legion wasn’t that long ago, they remember what made it great. They’re getting community feedback. I think (and hope) they’ve learned their lesson with BfA and will return to what made Legion one of the best expansions in the game’s history.
My roommate introduced me to the game. I was already into RPGs and prior to WoW, I played Phantasy Star Online ep. 1 & 2 and Ragnarok Online. However, those games didn’t have quests to level - you have to level purely from grinding mobs. The speed of leveling from questing is what attracted me to WoW.
I’m actually hanging on by a thread. Between the combination of the guild that I was in from late Cata to the end of Legions falling apart when it got too cliquey, my increased interest in other MMOs for everything WoW doesn’t have, and Blizz’s handling of the game nowadays, my interest is slowing waning. I’m mostly here to help out whatever remaining friends that are still around and to see what is going to happen story-wise in the Shadowlands.
The questing experience was just the beginning. We level faster now thanks to heirlooms, but unless the majority of the experience revolves around leveling, it is whatever other content the game has and how it is handled that keeps you interested/engaged. When any change happens that prevents you from enjoying that content or fails to keep you interested, it would be time to move on.
Alright, time to bring forth the promised answer.
This is actually pretty close to my own experience, though I was prodded into trying WoW during my first year of college/university (transfer program for the first year of my degree).
I’ve always been into the single-player experience many older games offered, particularly on consoles. My first introduction to playing games was the SNES when it was brand new and things have largely gone from there.
Around the time WoW was first coming out, the genre which had captured my imagination was RPGs; the FF series was of keen interest in particular, I was enamored by the storylines they presented journeys they had you go through. I had also given both Starcraft and Warcraft III a go during their heyday, though pretty much exclusively stuck to the campaigns; I never found much enjoyment out of the competitive online multiplayer aspects.
So when WoW came about… I was mostly looking at the game as a new type of RPG, with the Warcraft setting. It was online and a multiplayer experience… but those were just “details”, the point for me was a world to explore and a story to experience.
Seems a few responses leaned into this type of experience when starting out WoW. Considering WoW as the “breakout hit” of the MMORPG genre, perhaps it’s not so surprising that most players tried out WoW looking at it like it would be something vaguely familiar to them (namely, as an RPG because of the genre label applied).
… which brings me to the next point…
Just picking out a few comments… but it seems that what is genuinely keeping people interested is either they found they’ve liked the direction has taken (focusing on progression, chasing objectives, collecting stuff, etc.), which appears to have served them quite well.
A few people have also noted that they’re sticking around because there’s still a few friends they have left… and those posts sounded a bit depressing, as if they’re having some difficulty deciding to stay or not as they watch the people they know leave one-by-one (maybe exaggerating the details, but that’s the feeling I’m getting).
… which more or less brings me to my own perspective. I joined this game looking for an RPG-type of experience, specifically the type I grew accustomed to before WoW came out. A world to explore, a story to experience. It was mostly a journey taken on my own accord, even if I would join up with people every so often to accomplish an objective; but I’ve never been that sociable a person, so aside from a select few I’ve never bothered to form any long-term bonds with people as I invariably moved on to do my own thing.
My reasons for playing the game have NEVER changed.
It would feel like the game has evolved away from the very reasons I joined it in the first place. Who knows, maybe it was moving that direction from the very beginning; but nevertheless, it started out as something of an experience with a broader appeal and it at least provided a “safe space” for me to enjoy the game as I’ve always had.
Through all the changes the game has gone through over the years, it feels like it has chipped away at that “safe space”. Maybe I wasn’t enjoying the game “as intended”, but I was still enjoying it in my own way… and now, there’s next to nothing left for me to enjoy on my own terms.
Everything I enjoyed about WoW has been devoured by the relentless changes the game has brought forward, even if all I wanted was to be (mostly) left alone to do my own thing.
An eerily common sentiment I’m seeing from a few posts here… and one which I’m sharing at the moment. I guess it’s just a matter of time at this point.
Despite all the changes which feel like they’re trying to drive me away, it’s just difficult to let go of something you’ve enjoyed in the past for well over a decade.
I was a HC Final Fantasy XI player for almost a year before WoW came out. A good friend of mine kept telling me to come to WoW. I finally agreed and found that I didn’t like it much in comparison. It was too easy to level. You didn’t need groups. It was super casual compared to what I was used to so I left after playing a few months.
BC dropped and my life was getting busier here and there. Played for a while, went back to XI. This continued until Wings of the Goddess came out. A friend at work told me to hop back on WoW and I did. At this point the casual nature of the game better fit my life so I stuck with it.
Nowadays I bounce between WoW and FF14. Sometimes no MMOs for 2-3 months if I’m too busy for it.
I keep coming back because I still like the old stuff and leveling a bit. I like transmog. I like final patches with catch ups for alts. It’s still a decent game.
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