Questing used to be a non-linear affair. You could level multiple alts and have a new experience each time.

In terms of new experience the only time that this was true (post vanilla at least since that had the most zones) in my experience was when you were levelling your first alt and even then you still did most of the same quests with just a little diversion (admittedly BC did have shadowmoon and netherstorm for 68-70)

It was never as bad as it is in WoD, though MoP was close. The non-linear questing, that I'm referring, to was the fact that you could be holding 20+ quests at any one time and choosing what to do next. As everything is strictly chained at this point, it's rare that you ever have more than 10 quests in your log.

Cross-Faction and Faction cities were a thing. You didn't spend your down time sitting in a mudpit surrounded by npcs.

But in the end you did the same thing, if you'd done your dailies you sat in your main city, be it shattrath or dalaran and either talked to your guild (which I also did in WoD) or just messed around (which you can still do)

You did the same things, sure, but you were surrounded by players. You came to know people just by recognition. You got to golfclap that guy who ran by with his mammoth. The world felt alive. It wasn't a handful of NPC's. The game FELT like an MMO, something that WoD lacks.

Dungeons are easier than ever and the difficult gap from heroic to challenge modes (which only provide 1 piece of gear per run) is far too large.

This is only hugely true up until the end of wrath I'd say (at least ToC onwards). Dungeons have become easier but it wasn't just this expansion, hell wrath was when the term "Wrathbabies" was invented for people who started playing when it was easier.

That's largely true, though I think Wrath had struck a nice balance. AOE sprinting through a dungeon was not really a thing unless your entire party was decked out in ICC gear. Cata dungeons were rather difficult on launch as well, until the community cried that they might die once every 5 runs.

LFR killed the magic inherent in raiding for a lot of people. Each new difficulty level you go up in the luster is lost a bit. Oh, this guy again? I killed him a few dozen times already.

It's also allowed other people to see content they wouldn't usually see. Admittedly a neutered version, but a version nonetheless and the basic mechanics are usually there.

My problem is that the drive to be better, isn't really there anymore. You used to have to work to get to a point where you could see that content. Now it's just another dungeon and the entire affair just seems so lackluster. Oh look, another loot pinata.

Cross-server everything killed reputation. You play with people you'll never ever see again and you have no reason to leave garrisons so you never actually see people on your server. It used to be that guilds had reputations, even small guilds, and everyone new that one weird guy that always hung out by the fountain in Dalaran fishing coins (hint: that was me).

Excluding standout individuals (Daki is the only one I can really remember) I can't remember many people from dragonmaw, and didn't know that many people outside of the guild I was in (admittedly I wasn't massively active) so I'm not sure that is completely fair.

I can recall my interactions with players, strangers I met in the world, even now, over 5 years later. The guild names are fuzzy, but I remember the interactions. On the flipside, I don't remember doing anything surprising and fun with a single stranger in my entire playthrough of WoD. It's been less than 3 months. Organic interactions are just gone from the game. The one thing that sticks out is trying to level with friends when WoW launched and it being basically impossible because of zoned content. "Where are you dude? I can't see you. You sure we're on the same quest?"

The fact that everything is really just a way to get your next quick fix, I see very little reason for the community to exist. You don't need to know anyone if you want to do a quest, kill an elite, take down a world boss, do dungeons, pvp, or even raid. And if you don't NEED to know anyone, why would you waste your precious gametime trying to force such interactions.

Again, pretty much all this just meant you needed a guild, and although it isn't necessary to need a guild in modern WoW, it can make running dungeons or doing PvP a lot more enjoyable and the community is there if you want it, but some people just like the gameplay and don't want the fuss of the community.

There are a host of other single player games out there. Let them play those. The community, the people, that's what made WoW. You're probably right though, despite the fact that their bleeding a million subs a month, this was what much of the community wanted. Unfortunately, that segment of the community is retarded and they're also leaving the game in droves because it's so fucking tedious.

It's not World of Warcraft any longer. It's Raids of Warcraft. And that's a sad fucking thing because I used to know every inch of Feralas or Desolace. It's only been a few months since I stopped playing and I hardly remember the layout of most the new world.

As I've said previously I don't actually remember ever exploring the world once I hit max, I just flew around and did whatever dailies I could be bothered to do (usually just Sons of Hodir when I needed to grind for shoulder enchant).

I think there are some serious rose tinted glasses being worn, WoW has never been massively interesting outside of structured PvP or Raids, and once you got bored of doing dailies for any faction that wasn't necessary to progress (never again with Heroic keys please Blizzard) you generally just stopped doing them and didn't leave your faction hub. Most of the reasons people quit I imagine is burnout, after a while WoW just becomes kind of samey and not so fun (at least that's how I felt when I quit) and even after a break it's never quite new enough for you to play it for a decent length of time.

While I agree with the burnout, I have to say that I've never experienced as quickly and wholly as I did with WoD. Hell, I came back and played MoP for 4 months prior to WoD dropping and I was still enjoying my time then. 2 months into WoD, when my game time devolved to queueing raids, with strangers, and hopping on to send out followers, I just gave up and stopped. I leveled 2 characters to max, and I refused to level any more alts through the WoD content it was so remarkably linear. You basically do every quest in the same fucking order through each play through, it's abysmal.