Well dude, after what I’ve seen was added to Dragonflight alpha last night, Dragonflight is shaping up to be the expansion of adventure and fun!
There is so so so much fun stuff, none of it linked to gearing or player power treadmills, it’s looking quite fantastic!
Though BFA and Shadowlands branded my soul with a pessimism that nothing else has, so I’m still waiting for the “oh” moment. 
I have played this game for years and like previous posters love exploring the landscape and following quests. Leaving aside SL which I have hated, good story line and quest lines which lead to a levelling dungeon are what I like best. One thing I dislike is the lazy introduction of new races. What used to be good, like the goblin or panda starting places is now a wisk to Org or Swind and start the old stuff, could say more but enough for now
Only got time for one, if this stops, I won’t play another. I started since I loved Warcraft, not because I love MMORPGs.
Yeah, there’s no weight to your chosen race any more.
I’m all for a quick intro for alts, but compared to the Worgen starting zone or the pandaren zone, Exile’s Reach isn’t very good at getting any one emotionally invested, and it doesn’t teach much either.
Reasons i stick with 1 mmo, WoW in this case is well several reasons. Been playing since 2008 and changing to another MMO feels like a hell of a chore, i find wow the most charming mmo in terms of style. Met my wife here. People in this game prevented me from feeling lonely when i was living by myself with no friends irl. I still enjoy most of the content the game offers.
For me it was back in 2005 when I started Wow and at the time was also dabbling on Xbox and PlayStation - I made a decision back then to only play one game - ok I didn’t envisage still playing Wow this long, but I have stuck to my one game rule and Wow still appears to be the one.
I have seen the other games, but stuck to this one - partially invested so much time and I do prefer the exploring as opposed to raids, it has been an enjoyable experience up to and including Legion - BFA and SL are making me reassess and therefore will wait around for DF to see how that goes - will Wow be my one game next year … we shall see 
Its like love and hate relationship. After MoP there have been lots of more hate. Maybe DF unrapes Blizzard who knows.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one who still approaches Wow for what it’s supposed to be, an RPG world full of other people.
I’d really like them to add side dungeons and even mini side raids that aren’t in dungeon finder or LFR, just fun things for groups of friends to find and explore.
Buuut until they can fully lock out data miners I don’t think Wow can ever quite achieve that sense of group discovery and curiosity.
I only play Wow as an MMO and i dont really have intrest in playing another. Suppose im not really an mmo fan rather than a wow fan.
I play other games but i dont have time for two mmo’s wow is by far the biggest time sink of any game i do play, literally couldn’t do it twice.
I hate the treadmill you talk about, I’ve only followed it when there were friends to play with. Together with them, it was indeed fun. But if I have to do it on my own just for the sake of it… I just get bored, I feel like it’s a waste of time (especially given the fact that it resets every patch, so I feel there’s no real point to it).
What keeps me subscribed it’s mostly messing around, exploring, levelling professions, hunting transmogs, finding toys, climbing unreachable places (That alone it’s one of my favorite things to do, especially when there’s no flight, mixing engineering and class abilities!), doing those secret treasure hunts and ultimately, RP (it’s something I used to do a lot in the past and now I’m trying to get back into).
That way I feel like I’m playing in a world. All the other end game drills just aren’t my cup of tea, unless I have a group of friends to play with. But even in that case, I have some limits.
Yeah, I don’t think anything that’s been added since Legion ever really added to that sense of “world”, actually BFA took away some of it with getting rid of teldrassil and undercity.
Dragonflight really looks to be focusing on innovating those more “casual” systems so I think people like us are going to have significantly more things to do and explore.
Recently decided to main on Argent Dawn for this expansion launch, so hopefully I will make some friends after mainly being a solo player for 7 years 
i wish you luck with that, you do need friends to be able to fully enjoy this game and all it has to offer in 2022.
i am still personally torn if i will play DF or not… i think i will wait until after release this time around…
i mean i heard some good things in regards to my playstyle… (casual)
but i’m also in the burned too many time to know if it is true or just a trick boat.
edit:i didnt even play the new gw2 or ff14 expansions this time around… which is highy unusual for me.
Yeah I’m the exact same, usually I actively stay away from news on alpha’s and beta’s, but SL branded my soul with pessimism, and until I’ve seen all the systems and evidence that it won’t be twisted into some power treadmill - i’ll remain cautiously optimistic.
If SL didn’t happen I’d have already preordered, because it is genuinely looking quite fantastic.
same for me most likely… but not just Shadowlands… BFA as well…
Yeah definitely, but atleast BFA was an enjoyable questing time, for me atleast, I loved zandalar.
Plus the game was in a “tick tock” pattern at that point, Pandaria was great, WoD was worse, Legion was fun, then WoD was bad, we all expected SL to be a tick again…
But nah we got a double tock.
yeah i will say the zones felt more alive in bfa… than in shadowlands that is one positive i would give it.
i actually managed to level all the characters in bfa…
i only managed 3 in shadowlands.
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It’s possible to enjoy multiple at a surface level while still having time for other things in life, and if time is spent enjoying yourself, that isn’t time wasted.
MMO’s don’t reward minimal play time if the only reward your seeking is some gear with progressively bigger numbers, which is what some people focus way too much on. sometimes I just log into LOTRO literally just to enjoy the vibes while I wander through a forest and relax, sometimes literally all I’ll do in FFXIV is sit in my FC (guild) tea house and chat, sometimes I’ll play Wow and just fish in Pandaria, other times I hop on ESO for abit just to run around as a necromancer tank.
Am I “progressing”? Am I being rewarded? No, but that isn’t time wasted just because some stats haven’t been boosted.
The gameplay I experience in these games may seem really limited to those who play them religiously, but that doesn’t mean I’m playing them wrong.
But I’ve got ADHD so maybe that’s why I prefer to flit between multiple, each one tends to have one thing I truly love, and then the rest of it doesn’t really interest me. I love wow’s world and combat, but hate raiding and M+,
I love FF’s PVE design and social aspects, but don’t like its class gameplay, I love SWTOR’s RPG elements but don’t find it’s gameplay fun (tries too hard to be Wow), etc.
So just sticking to one when only one or two things interest me in that game doesn’t really “do it” for me, even though I do still want to play an MMO when I’m bored of that one game.
Also if you’ve leveled to endgame in 2, it’s generally really easy to keep playing those 2 at endgame, Wow and FF are my two main mmorpg’s I play at endgame, but I tend to visit others too quite frequently.
Especially growing up with Wow I think I find it easier to move between them than perhaps someone slightly older might do, given every new Wow expansion I’ve played felt like a different game each time anyways, so hopping between varied play styles and systems in MMO’s doesn’t bother me.
Maybe one day one single MMORPG will grip me the way they do others, I hope that Wow grows into that game, but for now I’ll continue to be a simple man making my way through a whole universe of virtual worlds made by passionate developers.
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Yeah, there’s people in this thread who’ve said if Wow wasn’t Warcraft they probably wouldn’t play any mmorpg’s at all.
and yeah there are definitely “flavour of the month” mmo’s, New World, Lost Ark etc, I don’t think I’d ever visit those.
I think general MMORPG players are a scarcity really because people always want to reach some kind of ending, but there never is an ending, no one’s ever really interested in the journey any more, which is why level boosts are so profitable to sell.
To quote someone who lashed out at me because I criticized Wow’s raid design: “Too many people want instant gratification and call that fun”