That would be cool.
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OP could be right. there is more than 1 version. I have basically returned to eve for the moment.
Itās cata that will bring me back a bit to give up some sub time when I run out soon later on. To see its pvp run in its natural patch level environments. Turn off xp does not give the full flavor of old expacs I have come to find.
Its likeā¦new game plus. The catch with new game plus is one generally has to like core game to want that on redoās. New game plus does not save games not really good to start with imo.
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And some seem to be ignoring that millions and millions of people have joined the game at the same time. As is evident from the statistics provided by Blizzard (and quoted further with in this very thread).
The game has had 200 million+ accounts made in its lifetime so far. Yet despite that the games pop had remained steady. That means while some left, perhaps for good, others joined to fill in at least a few of the gaps.
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It me, Iām him
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Same, Elune willing. And looking forward to it! 
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This was the first āproperā online game Iāve ever played and it engulfed me wholly. Iām in it for the long run.
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The problem imo with WoW is that it thinks itās a professional Esport. Maybe Iām wrong but every single time it moved more in this direction it seems people left in droves. If it were to stop and try again to appeal to the casual playerbase far far more with story, delves, better world content, class stories, and less super hardcore things to focus on itād probably pick up in subs gradually over time.
Dragonflight was probably a good step in this direction that helped stem the bleeding I imagine. Of course Iām not saying delete m+, mythic raiding, or arena but add more to the rest of the game for that casual base, and retouch on existing casual content (fishing, pet battles, collecting, arhaeology, and so on).
I brought a family of four, two of my friends and the teenage kids to the game during early 2020 lockdown. They had a blast and were over the moon when they got flying at level 60.
Then they found out theyād be grounded post Mists content because of Pathfinder in WoD, Legion, and BfA. And their leveling speed was so fast, theyād be at level cap well before they were close to unlocking Pathfinder in BfA.
They quit rather than be grounded.
Now, thatās only 4 people I know. They canāt be the only ones.
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The problem is that Blizzard kinda moved the goal posts. When sub numbers plummeted in WoD, they moved to a different metric. They might be extracting just as much profit out of us because of tokens and such, but that isnāt exactly healthy or sustainable when you take the population of the game from 13 million down to 3 million or something.
Iām not saying itās all doom and gloom, but itās important to acknowledge the fact that the population is a fraction of what it once was.
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When you tell people they canāt fly unless they do an achievement and also that they canāt queue for Heroic unless they earn Silver Proving Grounds you realize why the population dropped. Then they hilariously added in massive gold inflation via mission tables prob to help stop the bleeding via tokens which just led us down the road we are at today.
- Cata: Made the game much much harder population dropped
- Mists: Stripped down talents more, challenge mode dungeons, Mythic raiding, proving grounds, tougher world elites, brawlers guild. Lots of things for the more skilled players. Population Dropped again.
- WoD: Removed flying, Proving Grounds Silver required for Heroic dungeons, added in Mythic dungeons, very much a raid or die expansion with hit/miss garrison feature. Population reaching dangerously low levels now.
- Legion: M+ added, Class artifacts and quests, Class Halls, Legion Storyline, World Quests, beginning of borrowed power, Legiondaries, and so forth. Subs climbed initially before they likely dove back down probably due to easier first raid and more casual content.
- BfA: More borrowed power, islands and warfronts were kinda meh, world pvp features, mission tables kind of pointless, and so forth. Massive new zones for Azshara though which probably saw an increase as well as NāZoth due to story content.
So a lot of it has just been bad choices. A lot of it seems to have been misreading the community and what they wanted. Seems like there were far more people that enjoyed the freedom to do what they wanted and have enjoyable chill content to do without needing to feel like some Esport wannabe.
Actually that ācomplainingā is what made Blizzard up their game with DF, BFA and SL caused massive sub bleeds, I only played half of BFA and none of SL, as FF14 was more attractive from a PvE perspective. DF is more casual friendly and offered a lot of improvements, but Blizzard canāt really rest on their laurels anymore, too many good games for them to compete against. If FF14 had better PvP, I wouldnāt play WoW at all.
The ācasualā content they added in Dragonflight is kind of a drop in the bucket (events arenāt really great content despite the things you can get) compared to the attention the hardcore content gets. It was nice though seeing new side quests in the least and some random little things here and there, and the vault was cool.
I think thatās being generous, they know exactly what we want, they just think they know better and we need to be good little players and eat all of our brussels sprouts before we can have dessert lol
Every single expansion we have features and content that set up horribly in terms of how respectful it is to our time, and how alt friendly it is, then they slowly wind it all back as each patch comes and goes until we finally have a half decent version of the expansion, but only in the final patch when theyāre trying their hardest to get people to sub.
I have never called for Ion to be fired or anything, but he really needs a reality check, weāre never going to be raid or die, and weāre never going to give a damn about E-sports (no matter how hard they push and incentivize it). Iām not saying the game should be Hello Kitty Island or anything, but it should definitely be leaning more into the stuff that the ageing player base is into.
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Itās not just an aging playerbase tho. The game cycles between people of varying age ranges all the time. Sure there are people that get busier with a family, career or whatever, but there are others that have all that and still play. There are new people coming in and replacing other players all the time in the past.
Itās just that the decisions that have been made were kind of like they were making them to push people away. Like you said that they were too stuck on their ideas to let go.
Going to be an interesting time if it happens lol
Not going anywhere. Almost to 25 in SoD. Outside of leveling and casual PvP, thereās not much to do that appeals to me.
However, I play games for the aesthetics and the escapismā¦not to win on a treadmill chasing ilvl mirages.
I do this with all games. They are like static perfectly preserved oceans of nostalgia and memories. Not like the real world that forever changes. Thatās what I like about games. Art. Music.
I was a kid staring at the Guernica; I could return and see it again exactly as it was. I can get lost staring at photographs. Reread my favorite book, etc
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Whenever I am asked if I am āstill playing WoWā, I am like yes, I am in it for the whole ride.
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Honestly, I think 20 years is a super easy goal. Iāve been chatting with some peeps lately and my prediction is an easy 50. As a middle aged person, I comfortably predict Iāll be dead before this game is gone.
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I can not tell a lieā¦you sir are correct. 
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