I tell you why WoW and MMORPGs are struggling in this day and age...

[Relapses]

So... you're going to put words in my mouth and then get mad at the words you're putting in my mouth? Buddy that's such a hard way to live life. I can't help but feel bad for you.

But, for your understanding I'll elaborate further in hopes you'll understand. You can put out fires, you can seal a hull, people can get back on the ship. None of this is irreversible.

The copium statement was specifically made for folks who aren't willing to honestly address the state of the game. I have not said anything about people being on copium who haven't left. You're just making things up now.

"Honestly address the state of the game," which, to you, only means saying the game is a dogshit dumpster fire. FFS dude, just admit you made a shitty analogy and move on.

[MoanaLisa]

We were only talking WoW, not Blizzard. The thread is literally titled "WoW and other MMORPGs". I've already multiple times stated that WoW is profitable. The point I'm making though is that profit does not equal health or quality of the game. It can be an indication, sure, but it's not the only indicator and a game can be profitable and not of good health or quality.

One problem I've had with this thread and frankly all threads like this for the last ten years or so is where the stick in the sand is placed on what is healthy. To my mind if the game is profitable it's healthy enough. If you measure ALL MMORPG's against the yardstick of WoW's initial success through Wrath then there are very few titles, none in the Americas or Europe, that can match that. They can't be all unhealthy since many of them have perked along at much lower levels than WoW ever had at its peak and seem to be doing fine.

If WoW's success was just some freak thing (as I believe it was since it's never been replicated or is likely to) then 'success' and 'health' becomes a very different thing. You'll pardon me for dismissing all of your arguments about quality. That's subjective and too many people are unwilling to say that something they don't like is still of decent quality. I dislike raiding generally and M+ specifically but I can recognize that they are high-quality content no matter what I think of them. It would be nice if more could see their way to that sort of perspective as well.

I do have a lot of problems with the game which I've endlessly talked about in the past, principally the game being over-engineered and passed through too many spreadsheets, every one of which likely robs the game of any creative flavor. I too hope that in the next expansion a lot of these systems are tossed out and replaced with something cleaner that can still keep players busy. We'll see about that but I have no doubts whatsoever that in real terms the game and associated products and services are still a license to print money and to that extent is very healthy.

[Selah]

"Honestly address the state of the game," which, to you, only means saying the game is a dogshit dumpster fire. FFS dude, just admit you made a shitty analogy and move on.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. Why do you continue to put words in my mouth, make up imaginary statements, and get mad at me for the things you have conjured up?

[Relapses]

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. Why do you continue to put words in my mouth, make up imaginary statements, and get mad at me for the things you have conjured up?

Because I'm not. I'm calling you out for you did say. You keep trying to say you didn't say what you very obviously did say but I'm not going to play semantics with somebody with a clear bias. You used terrible language to describe yourself and even though I don't fully agree with @rrayy I also don't blame him for reacting to your post the way he did.

[NineSpine]

I mean, I'm mostly pointing out that a lot of the stuff you're saying they need to add is already in the game. Since you don't play the game, I don't blame you for not knowing these things. The main thing I'm getting at though, is that the reason for the different "complicated" types of currencies is because Blizzard wants players to be rewarded for the different types of content each individual player engages with. If a player does mostly world content -- they get gear that's good in world content; if they mostly PvP -- they get gear that's good for PvP; so on and so forth.

For the record, I do agree that design simplicity should be something that Blizzard focuses on but I also think that WoW's enormous appeal and diametrically apposed needs from different parts of the same playerbase are what drive the developers to contrive complicated solutions to easy problems.

Willfully misinterpreting what I am asking for, which I am very clear about, so that you can claim it is already in the game is boring sophistry.

Inventing a contrived problem with multiple currencies is like saying "We shouldn't invent the wheel because if we make it square it won't work." Well, no shit, but why would you make it square?

This is really, really simple: You give people a currency (let's make something up and call it Valor Points) for doing whatever content they want. You can use this to upgrade any gear. Whether the gear comes from pvp, world content, raids, it doesn't actually matter at all. Design the gear to be for whatever. It's irrelevant, because the question here is increasing the ilvl not adding affixes or changing stats or whatever the next weird, invented objection you have is.

[Relapses]

Willfully misinterpreting what I am asking for, which I am very clear about, so that you can claim it is already in the game is boring sophistry.

Inventing a contrived problem with multiple currencies is like saying "We shouldn't invent the wheel because if we make it square it won't work." Well, no shit, but why would you make it square?

This is really, really simple: You give people a currency (let's make something up and call it Valor Points) for doing whatever content they want. You can use this to upgrade any gear. Whether the gear comes from pvp, world content, raids, it doesn't actually matter at all. Design the gear to be for whatever. It's irrelevant, because the question here is increasing the ilvl not adding affixes or changing stats or whatever the next weird, invented objection you have is.

If it's the same currency for all types of content with item level the only thing that's upgraded you end up with the problem of Tommy Trashcan PvPer being buttmad that Gigachad Mythic raiders keep handing his ass to him in PvP; or Gigachad Mythic raiders bitching about plebian world questers having Mythic quality gear. I know you'll just say, "tough, deal with it," but this is obviously a concern that Blizzard takes seriously otherwise they wouldn't go out of their way to make systems that try to appease both ends of this spectrum. Again, it's not like the current system is particularly unintuitive: You PvP for PvP gear, you M+ for M+ gear, you raid for gear and in 9.2 you'll be able to WQ for WQing gear.

[NineSpine]

If it's the same currency for all types of content with item level the only thing that's upgraded you end up with the problem of Tommy Trashcan PvPer being buttmad that Gigachad Mythic raiders keep handing his ass to him in PvP; or Gigachad Mythic raiders bitching about plebian world questers having Mythic quality gear. I know you'll just say, "tough, deal with it," but this obviously a concern that Blizzard takes seriously otherwise they wouldn't go out of their way to make systems that try to appease both ends of this spectrum. Again, it's not like the current system is particularly unintuitive: You PvP for PvP gear, you M+ for M+ gear, you raid for gear and in 9.2 you'll be able to WQ for WQing gear.

I didn't say upgrade indefinitely, although there are arguments for that. You can cap the gear depending on source. Please stop inventing these objections that take 15 seconds of half-critical thinking to get past.

The absurdity of your argument can be demonstrated very simply: The most casual level 60 in the world right now has more powerful gear than the most cutting edge mythic reader did at the end of BFA. OH MY GOD! WHAT WILL WE DO? HOW WILL THE MYTHCIC RAIDERS COPE? Nobody cares. No system like we are talking about will let any casual player gear up faster than a mythic raider. It's irrelevant.

[Selah]

One problem I've had with this thread and frankly all threads like this for the last ten years or so is where the stick in the sand is placed on what is healthy. To my mind if the game is profitable it's healthy enough. If you measure ALL MMORPG's against the yardstick of WoW's initial success through Wrath then there are very few titles, none in the Americas or Europe, that can match that. They can't be all unhealthy since many of them have perked along at much lower levels than WoW ever had at its peak and seem to be doing fine.

If WoW's success was just some freak thing (as I believe it was since it's never been replicated or is likely to) then 'success' and 'health' becomes a very different thing. You'll pardon me for dismissing all of your arguments about quality. That's subjective and too many people are unwilling to say that something they don't like is still of decent quality. I dislike raiding generally and M+ specifically but I can recognize that they are high-quality content no matter what I think of them. It would be nice if more could see their way to that sort of perspective as well.

I do have a lot of problems with the game which I've endlessly talked about in the past, principally the game being over-engineered and passed through too many spreadsheets, every one of which likely robs the game of any creative flavor. I too hope that in the next expansion a lot of these systems are tossed out and replaced with something cleaner that can still keep players busy. We'll see about that but I have no doubts whatsoever that in real terms the game and associated products and services are still a license to print money and to that extent is very healthy.

I hear you, and I agree that the 12M measurement of Wrath's success is an unrealistic one. I would never expect that sort of success again for any MMORPG. It's totally unrealistic.

Quality and health are two different things, and can be measured differently, and some elements of both are going to be subjective for sure. To give an example of quality, WoW's combat is extremely responsive and can be engaging. To their credit, despite how much I dislike the talents, they're functional and can reliably be swapped out, something other games can't do or do well. The servers are largely stable and lag free barring a few issues, class balance, while not always the best, definitely isn't the worst as compared to other games. They have a great variety of playable races and solid models, the transmog system is great. Ect. Ect.

I just don't agree with the assessment that if a game is profitable then it's healthy enough. I'd argue if you have a mass exodus of players to another game, or you see the content creator community at large abandon the game, massive content droughts mid-expansion, these sorts of things are indicative of an unhealthy trend or game. I look at it in the same way you'd look at the health of an individual. Yeah, maybe Frank is missing a few toes from an accident, he's wearing glasses, and needs some dental work done but is otherwise fine... then he's fine. Inversely, if John is walking and talking and seems fine but is suffering from severe high blood pressure and an arrhythmia and he can't stop drinking, then you have a real problem on your hands. And no, I'm not saying WoW is John.

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Because I'm not. I'm calling you out for you did say. You keep trying to say you didn't say what you very obviously did say but I'm not going to play semantics with somebody with a clear bias. You used terrible language to describe yourself and even though I don't fully agree with @rrayy I also don't blame him for reacting to your post the way he did.

If you keep choosing to make things up, put them in my mouth, and then get mad at me for what you've imagined, I can't stop you. Have fun... I guess?

[Relapses]

I didn't say upgrade indefinitely, although there are arguments for that. You can cap the gear depending on source.

If you're capping the item levels for different types of content then you end up with the problem that multiple types of currency and gear solves: Players want to feel more powerful. Blizzard is experimenting with different ways for players who choose to do each type of content the game provides a pathway to feel powerful doing the things they like to do. There cannot be a universal currency if there are caps because that will just put us back in the very position that caused Blizzard to try finding ways to solve the problem in the first place.

[NineSpine]

I hear you, and I agree that the 12M measurement of Wrath's success is an unrealistic one. I would never expect that sort of success again for any MMORPG. It's totally unrealistic.

Quality and health are two different things, and can be measured differently, and some elements of both are going to be subjective for sure. To give an example of quality, WoW's combat is extremely responsive and can be engaging. To their credit, despite how much I dislike the talents, they're functional and can reliably be swapped out, something other games can't do or do well. The servers are largely stable and lag free barring a few issues, class balance, while not always the best, definitely isn't the worst as compared to other games. They have a great variety of playable races and solid models, the transmog system is great. Ect. Ect.

I just don't agree with the assessment that if a game is profitable then it's healthy enough. I'd argue if you have a mass exodus of players to another game, or you see the content creator community at large abandon the game, massive content droughts mid-expansion, these sorts of things are indicative of an unhealthy trend or game. I look at it in the same way you'd look at the health of an individual. Yeah, maybe Frank is missing a few toes from an accident, he's wearing glasses, and needs some dental work done but is otherwise fine... then he's fine. Inversely, if John is walking and talking and seems fine but is suffering from severe high blood pressure and an arrhythmia and he can't stop drinking, then you have a real problem on your hands. And no, I'm not saying WoW is John.

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If you keep choosing to make things up, put them in my mouth, and then get mad at me for what you've imagined, I can't stop you. Have fun... I guess?

I'd use the following metrics:

Growth
Retention
Reputation

If you have two out of 3 of those, I'd say that you are probably (not definitely) in a good place as a game. WoW has none.

[Relapses]

If you keep choosing to make things up, put them in my mouth, and then get mad at me for what you've imagined, I can't stop you. Have fun... I guess?

The only person imagining anything here is you by thinking that an obviously inflammatory statement should have been interpreted any differently than how you wrote it.

[NineSpine]

If you're capping the item levels for different types of content then you end up with the problem that multiple types of currency and gear solves: Players want to feel more powerful. Blizzard is experimenting with different ways for players who choose to do each type of content the game provides a pathway to feel powerful doing the things they like to do. There cannot be a universal currency if there are caps because that will just put us back in the very position that caused Blizzard to try finding ways to solve the problem in the first place.

You just don't listen and then you wonder why people find you difficult. We are like six silly objections with obvious solutions deep. Instead of reflecting on why your previous objection was silly, you just move onto the next one like nothing happened. It is embarrassing and it makes you appear unreasonable and disinterested in anything approaching an honest discussion.

There are two separate problems here:

1. Gear inflation.
2. Lack of long term goals for people that don't do M+, Rated PvP, or Heroic-Mythic Raiding.

I am not talking about the first problem. That has nothing to do with this discussion. This has nothing to do with the relative distance between a mythic raider and a casual world quest/dungeon/unrated pvp player. It's irrelevant. This is about the second problem, which is that if you don't do any of those three activities then the game is over for you absurdly quickly. Blizzard has tried to fill this gap with grinds for temporary localized power, usually based on dailies. This is a bad, failed model. Other games already solved this problem, including WoW a long time ago.

[Selah]

The only person imagining anything here is you by thinking that an obviously inflammatory statement should have been interpreted any differently than how you wrote it.

So... that's the standard for you to make things up? A post upset you to read so you're going to imagine things? Oof, that's rough.

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I'd use the following metrics:

Growth
Retention
Reputation

If you have two out of 3 of those, I'd say that you are probably (not definitely) in a good place as a game. WoW has none.

I mean, growth and retention are also indicators for sure. Reputation can be mixed because it can often be tied to things like lawsuits. But, I think we do ourselves a disservice narrowing down our field of view to just those three points.

[Relapses]

You just don't listen and then you wonder why people find you difficult. We are like six silly objections with obvious solutions deep. Instead of reflecting on why your previous objection was silly, you just move onto the next one like nothing happened. It is embarrassing and it makes you appear unreasonable and disinterested in anything approaching an honest discussion.

There are two separate problems here:

1. Gear inflation.
2. Lack of long term goals for people that don't do M+, Rated PvP, or Heroic-Mythic Raiding.

I am not talking about the first problem. That has nothing to do with this discussion. This has nothing to do with the relative distance between a mythic raider and a casual world quest/dungeon/unrated pvp player. It's irrelevant. This is about the second problem, which is that if you don't do any of those three activities then the game is over for you absurdly quickly. Blizzard has tried to fill this gap with grinds for temporary localized power, usually based on dailies. This is a bad, failed model. Other games already solved this problem, including WoW a long time ago.

It didn't work when WoW did it, that's why it changed. That's why I keep going deeper down the rabbit hole of objectives to obvious solutions. The solutions aren't obvious because the problems are more complicated than something that can be solved with a single system. I know this is a controversial opinion to have on MMO-C but I don't think the developers of this game are complete fucking morons so if the solution to all the games' woes were as easy as you'd like to pretend they are, we'd have already seen them move in the direction of making that happen.

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So... that's the standard for you to make things up? A post upset you to read so you're going to imagine things? Oof, that's rough.

What upsets me is you attempting to feign objectivity when your post was a textbook example of the banal anti-WoW hateful circlejerking that is making it increasingly difficult to have a reasonable discussion about the state of this game.

[Selah]

What upsets me is you attempting to feign objectivity when your post was a textbook example of the of banal anti-WoW hateful circlejerking that is making it increasingly difficult to have a reasonable discussion about the state of this game.

A couple of thoughts. First, I do not think myself objective, I'm no more objective than you or anyone else here. I'm flattered I give off that impression but I'm not naive enough to think that anyone here is objective, and I wouldn't want anyone here that was objective. You know why? Because in order for them to be objective they would have to be completely emotionally uninvested in the game, they would have to not care about the game. That's not someone I want working on a game I love and care about. I will take people like yourself who are clearly deeply emotionally compromised and are being difficult about every little thing over someone like that. Someone "objective" would kill the game.

Second. Do you truly think this is what I want to be doing right now? Arguing with you about this? Do you think I want to be caught up in the absolute mess that is the MMO-C forums? No! Of course not! I want to be sitting in Azeroth on my Shaman, doing content in the massive open world, doing instances, dabbling in raiding, watching the weirdness that is an RP server, visiting my 30+ alts, writing up their backstories (old D&D DM habits die hard lol), jumping into PvP and getting demolished because I suck, spending time with my friends and guildies. I have a million other things I would rather be doing *in WoW* than this. This is not fun, there is no joy here.

You want to have a reasonable discussion? The start with the most fundimental part of the discussion. There is a problem with game, that is where we start. That doesn't mean everything in the game is a "dogshit dumpster fire" it just means there is a problem.

[NineSpine]

It didn't work when WoW did it, that's why it changed. That's why I keep going deeper down the rabbit hole of objectives to obvious solutions. The solutions aren't obvious because the problems are more complicated than something that can be solved with a single system. I know this is a controversial opinion to have on MMO-C but I don't think the developers of this game are complete fucking morons so if the solution to all the games' woes were as easy as you'd like to pretend they are, we'd have already seen them move in the direction of making that happen.

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What upsets me is you attempting to feign objectivity when your post was a textbook example of the banal anti-WoW hateful circlejerking that is making it increasingly difficult to have a reasonable discussion about the state of this game.

To insist that what wow is doing now works so much better than what they did ten years ago is bordering on delusional. Your argument that the developers must be right because they are the developers (praise be unto them) is just a lame appeal to authority.

The developers so thoroughly and completely dismissed the thoughts of players in the lead up to shadowlands, eventually being forced to reverse course on all of it, that for you to insist that the developers MUST know more than everyone else is absurd on its face. BFA was an unmitigated disaster of an expansion. it’s two systems meant to appeal to casual players, island expeditions and warfronts, are almost universally regarded as failures.

I’ve worked in game design. The idea that designers don’t make mistakes, don’t get tunnel vision, are all knowing, etc. is not reality. Designers are prone to tunnel vision, very very very badly in fact. The wow team has demonstrated profound arrogance and condescension toward the player base over the last few years.

They simply don’t understand what non-hardcore players want because they design the game for hardcore players and everything else is an after thought. You can tell that they are confused why their ideas aren’t working. They don’t reflect and iterate and change course. They double down and lecture the players for not liking it.

I can make this really simple: why don’t all the disasters you predict take place in FF14? Why does the system have zero of the problems you are describing?

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So... that's the standard for you to make things up? A post upset you to read so you're going to imagine things? Oof, that's rough.

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I mean, growth and retention are also indicators for sure. Reputation can be mixed because it can often be tied to things like lawsuits. But, I think we do ourselves a disservice narrowing down our field of view to just those three points.

I think they are valid proxies for almost all other issues.

[Cthulhu 2020]

It's because that 'reason' was trotted out by Blizzard to dismiss criticisms of various things when people pointed out faults in the game. Originally it came off as a very off the cuff response, I think back around Cataclysm? when it was originally made.

Now it's just a creed that gets constantly used by them and the game's blind defenders whenever anyone asks for something to be changed or added to the game that isn't some cold, mathematical, improvement to the gameplay.

Which is why they were almost universally laughed at when they tried to use the "This is a RPG and we want choice to matter" when they were defending their restrictions on covenant swapping at the beginning.

"This is a MMO, we want gameplay first"
"This is a RPG and we want choices to matter"

They're just meaningless statements when they utter them because it's only ever used as a dismissal for anything people ask for or point out flaws in.

You just keep hitting it out of the park. Blizz and the ardent defenders always have some kind of response whenever a large part of the player base suggests something isn't as good as Blizzard believes it is. Remember pull the rip cord? Blizzard said they had that option if things were going poorly. Guess what they did? Pulled the rip cord.

Very certain people on this forum were defending Blizz's original covenant design to the death. And now they're just like "WELL NOW WAS THE RIGHT TIME TO CHANGE IT AFTER ALL" after saying for months that the covenant system was fine the way it was and didn't need to be changed.

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To insist that what wow is doing now works so much better than what they did ten years ago is bordering on delusional. Your argument that the developers must be right because they are the developers (praise be unto them) is just a lame appeal to authority.

Pretty much. Modern Blizzard-ish devs aren't even really in touch with the Blizzard and Warcraft style. The original Blizzard team are all gone and making better games at their own studios now. The people left at Blizzard are the code monkeys who wanted to work at Blizzard for reduced pay because "Blizz cred" on your resume. But now not only are they being laid off, the ones staying on are just imposters parading around in the dead skin of the game so many used to love. They have zero clue how to make an MMO, much less one of the greatest legacies to MMOs in history.

"Devs will always be right and should never listen to feedback because people suck" is one of the stupidest takes I've ever seen. And for some reason I see it a lot.

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One problem I've had with this thread and frankly all threads like this for the last ten years or so is where the stick in the sand is placed on what is healthy. To my mind if the game is profitable it's healthy enough. If you measure ALL MMORPG's against the yardstick of WoW's initial success through Wrath then there are very few titles, none in the Americas or Europe, that can match that. They can't be all unhealthy since many of them have perked along at much lower levels than WoW ever had at its peak and seem to be doing fine.

If WoW's success was just some freak thing (as I believe it was since it's never been replicated or is likely to) then 'success' and 'health' becomes a very different thing. You'll pardon me for dismissing all of your arguments about quality. That's subjective and too many people are unwilling to say that something they don't like is still of decent quality. I dislike raiding generally and M+ specifically but I can recognize that they are high-quality content no matter what I think of them. It would be nice if more could see their way to that sort of perspective as well.

I do have a lot of problems with the game which I've endlessly talked about in the past, principally the game being over-engineered and passed through too many spreadsheets, every one of which likely robs the game of any creative flavor. I too hope that in the next expansion a lot of these systems are tossed out and replaced with something cleaner that can still keep players busy. We'll see about that but I have no doubts whatsoever that in real terms the game and associated products and services are still a license to print money and to that extent is very healthy.

As an online game, it's making enough money sure.

As an MMORPG, it's not even recognizable to me. And I see Blizzard just shoving more and more monetization at a more and more hurried pace to placate the investors for short term money making over long term health of the game. Others have been over this now, but it seems like Blizzard is trading away 10+ years of banked trust away to milk as much as they can from what players remain before it's a dried up husk. Me and most others have seen zero intent from Blizzard to turn things around.

"The player does not want this. The payer does." Milk the whales until they realize there's nobody left to be impressed by their bought mythic raid mounts.

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I'm not dismissing criticism,

Wrong, you always do. You're in every thread, ready to make some useless sarcastic comment at the "haters" in an attempt to shut them down. When I asked you why you aren't providing any kind of real points or opinions for others to consider, you just said you'd already said them all in the past. Don't be surprised that so many people snub you when you admit you're making useless posts.

[Kallisto]

90% of the problem could be solved with "Here is a weekly capped currency that lets you upgrade gear ilvl, and you can get that currency from any content". This isn't as complicated as you are making it out to be. This is not a "drastic" change in anything but attitude and mindset. The infrastructure to make it happen already exists. In terms of the game, this is quite simple.

It would be inarguably good design compared to the current situation. It would offer more options to more players to play the game the way they want to. That's good design.

With the wow community it would likely end up with mmo champion, official forums, fan reddit and streamers going "reee timegating upgrades from me reeee." unfortunately.

[Theangryone]

Blizzard has done this for the past several expansions later on in it's cycle after everyone has gone through it as originally released once. Correlation does not causation and it proves nothing.

Yes, Blizzard always gives everyone what they want even when they said it’s a bad idea after the first content patch of an expansion.

[Zodiark]

Blizzard tested those waters with the cosmetic helms back in MoP and got figuratively crucified by a vocal section of the playerbase.

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This is the most "The only WoW that is WoW is the parts of it I like and the rest doesn't belong" post I've seen in a long time. You even dug up the "kung fu panda" meme from the grave to beat it again. WoW has never been a high fantasy type story, it's always been a kitchen sink melting pot of genres. Let's not forget that the entire series was kickstarted by alien invaders.

First off. As I mentioned otherwise in the post you quoted me on. Blizz has always established WoW as a Subscription model. Which was how games were as a whole back in the day. So in earlier times when they experimented with cash shop appearance items like the helms in question, which incidentially came about around the time of MoP,. They initially met with backlash because the sub model of games was supposed to be you pay a fee each month to get to play a game where you have the chance to obtain any and all item within it from said game alone. So your sub was supposed to be all-inclusive. Such was the feeling of most players. However. As times go on prices go up as well in almost everything in life. However the sub fee has always been the same.
So how else is a company to also make more money ? When sub numbers aren't growing as much as they used to. Hence the introduction of cash-shop items.
Which I have no problem with. So long as the in-game items are of similar quality and attainability. But like anything else in life if you want custom stuff you have to pay more. So if you buy an expensive car but want the optional leather seats, you have to pay more. If you want the fancy wheels then that too is more. Just because you paied top dollar for that nice car or truck doesn't mean it should include every option there is. Games are hobbies and like any hobby if you want premium optional items they should cost additional.

As far as the other comment, the person in question stating about how WoW's story has gone down the tubes, is correct. WoW has retconned the hell out of their lore to make things fit. Initially Warcraft Orcs Vs humans era, players were led to believe that the dark portal lead to another dimension. Orcs came from a hellish plane of existence along with demons and necromancers. However as Blizzard began to expand their IP's began to mash up and hit too close to home with each other. So to separate them they turned demons and orcs and such into "Aliens". Blizzard has always had roots in demonic type IP's. But at the heart Warcraft was a fantasy setting with swords and sorcery with a little steampunk thrown in with the gnomes and goblins.
The whole "cosmic", thing was them trying to give players what they thought they wanted but so much of it you want to vomit.
WoW was and always should have been rooted in the events in and around Azeroth. With the people therein and their struggles. A group of warring people trying to settle a rugged land and fighting for conquest. The cosmic twists are fun and cool bits of lore, amazing to ponder and wonder about. But we should have only ever been given glimpses of. Maybe a raid that takes us into the portal to another dimension where demonic forces of life and death wage war with each other and we step in to decide the telling blow.
The realms that the WoW writers have taken us frankly are beyond them. They are exploring the meanings of life and death, something that WE as humans outside the game have been debating ourselves for thousands of years. But now within this fantasy fictional setting they are going to attempt to sum it all up as far as the population of Azeroth is concerned... These are questions which no one has an answer to in real life, in which no one has produced a satisfying response.

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It's possible to move on to some other thing, in life, and yet still enjoy talking about the old thing. I haven't been in the Army in over thirty years yet I still enjoy talking about what it was like and discussing what it's like now, contrasting the differences and similarities. Plus, I imagine, many people would really like to hang out with their old friend (WoW) again if it were tailored more to their liking rather than whatever caused them to quit.

This idea that you must love a thing or leave it forever is utterly childish and not representative of human behavior at any time in history.

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I heard it has 18 billion, you lie!

First off who said love it or leave it ? It's just that players are talking about having quit a game and want others to quit also to validate their choice. You can talk about anything even a game you used to play that's fine. With a game its meant for enjoyment. Hence why my comment was that if you aren't enjoying it then simply play something else. It's not a life affirming thing here. This is the modern equivalent of a dungeons and dragons campaign. If you are playing with one DM and don't like their setting etc, then you leave and find another.