Often when i have been playing wow its when i was single. Now i consider to return to the game but i wonder how mutch time it actually takes.
I imagine there is a lot of Family people like myself who play. So if i want to start playing again and my goal is do some M+ for the weekly chest and stay on track storywise. How mutch time do you think i actually need to use on a weekly basis?
We’d need to know what you mean by how much it will take.
Leveling, doing a key, etc?
It also depends on how much time you can spend playing due day. This will at least give people a better idea on what information to provide you. But also remember that everyone is different in terms on how they play.
Like… half a day maybe. I did a few hours in the morning every wednesday for weeklies then M+ can be 45 minutes per but the finding the groups is the tricky part. S4 is up soon though and will be a bit …easier… sort of.
Story wise well that can just stop and start whenever you have time.
If you’re a collector, 24/7.
so true my friend haha
Well doing atleast 1 M+ run and over time be exsalted with the diffrent factions on current patches.
How mutch time i got depends on the day. I dont need to play everyday but i wonder if a few hours on week days is enough and perhaps more during the weekend.
To level and complete the added questlines at max level will take maximum 48 hours played per expansion, which is not a lot.
An M+ will take about an hour, if you can get a group handily. Yes, the dungeon itself will take less, but even with a ready group you will have travelling and waiting time. The problems come if you are solo and trying to form or apply to a group in the Group Finder. That’s when the wait time per dungeon can become excessive, and nobody enjoys applying to groups and being declined for an hour; nobody likes listing a group and waiting for a tank or healer for an hour. The moral ofthe story is to join a Guild or Community or get some friends together so that you don’t spend most of your in-game time waiting around.
Are you doing LFR? As a practical matter, maybe figure three 40-60 minute sessions per week.
And then there’s all the other stuff - not actually necessary, but you may end up doing it.
I think you could get some satisfactory experience with 7 hours a week, but I see it as difficult to justify playing if you regularly do less.
But some of the story is kinda hard to get to sence you need a certain Rank with some of the factions? Atleast thats my experiance in Dragonflight.
What I like about retail compared to when I played vanilla/TBC is, it allows or flexibility if you’re okay with being “average” or are in no rush…
I got 3k rio on my main with a group of friends… we played once a week from like 20:00 ST till 23:00… Inbetween we played alts etc. but, a season is very long, and unless you’re trying to be competitive and be top 1% etc. you can gear relatively casually… And during the seasons they usually introduce catchup mechanics so it becomes even easier 
So imo the game caters really well to the expectations you put into it
It depends what you want to do.
As a low intensity player myself (who has done all the reps and story so far) that only does open world solo content I’m currently spending near-zero amounts of time a week on DF content. I’m running old dungeons and raids for achievements, mounts, pets, and mogs.
But when I doing the story and rep grinds then on reset day I’d spend a couple of hours doing the events and the other days maybe an hour on questing for the story.
Others will have to provide details on what is needed for Vault etc.
that depends what your goals are.
if super casual then you can play like 2-3 hours a week and still get pretty far by the end of season .
if you play PvP, you can log in once a week for maybe an hour and never be behind
if you play PvE, you need to jump through gearing treadmils, finding groups, pushing keys, finding 20+ people to raid with at certain times, daily grinds, reputation, gold sinks
TLDR… PvP > PvE
i have been spam runing BRH this week for crests on 3 chars while getting them ready for S4 . on average 1 +18 or +20 run was taking +/- 20 minutes with almost instant invites
run your own keys to get decent score then dungeons open for you very fast
what are your goals? do you have friends/pals, which can support you?
if you go in casual…as much time you want to invest tbh, there are no “chores” anymore for powerprogression, only wq/m+/raid for gearing and crafting
maybe 4-5 hours per week in your case
Which is fine when you have 480+ ilevel and M+2700. I’ll bet it took you some work to get there, though. 
Obviously it also depends how high key you want to do. When your goal is 1 key a week you not not need to focus on +20’s.
Absolutely. But how fast do you think getting a group is as M+420 looking for +2s-+10s? What do you think the typical time is for such groups?
Now, maybe OP has the skillz to get 2700 or … whoa! 3200 (nice!) M+ rating, but life in the slow lane in lower keys doesn’t move like that. I stand by my “hour if you have some friends” overall guess for the rest of us. 
On my new leveled 425 ilvl evoker without any experience, it took me 30 seconds to get into a +8 pug key. And 425 i got by doing the Emerald dream introduction, the ED weeklies, world boss and some world quests and a rift.
i was actualy checking it last week . it took me exactly 54 dungeons over whole season to get to this stage ( 8 portals ) and gear . this included intensive 2 first weeks when i was doing 8 dungeons a week for 2 resets and then couple of resets when i did 4 dungeons. then multiple resets when i did literaly 1 dungeon a week.
note that as pointed out im very mediocre grey parsing hunter
which included all dungeons - even 2-9 10-14 brackets.
on my tanks it was faster - around 40 dungeons but i dont have 8 portals yet - just 5 portals on DH and Pala - will get reminfing 3 portals next fortified reset. Woudl be probably faster but i’m cowardly and didnt start +20 untill this week when they both were 475 finaly - Had time today during work do did 1 x ad 20 on my Guardian too just for GV - first +20 on it will likely unlock portals by the end of season
this also included 2 months + total break from retail when i was playing classic wolk . if i didnt take this break i would be even higher geared and would get portals much much sooner.
If i bothered to farm wyrm crests i would be like 485 but i see no reason to do that with my ultra casual game style .
nobody can give u definite answer .it all depends on how much time u have . as a person with family myself if you will follow the wheel of ultimate supremacy you will have bad time . if you will play as long as u are having fun and not neglecting your real life duties u will do okay ,