WoW definitely isn't the best MMO for me. As a mostly solo player but with a fair amount of time to game, the content WoW offers me is frankly a joke. ZM's progression system was better than previous attempts, but the actual gameplay loop still amounts to mindless dailies, world quests indistinguishable from the dailies (seriously, it's the same shit, you just don't have to pick up/turn in), and zerging rares. It's not engaging at all. It's not difficult. It's not dangerous. It's mindless second-screen content.

But, WoW is the MMO that I keep wanting to come back to.

I'll sadly probably never play SWTOR again, because their content releases have been really sad for years now. But that one being fully voiced at launch was a game changer for single player story. Even skipping quest dialogue felt better - at least it felt like you ignoring a character. And some of the class stories were really good.

On that front, despite not having full voice over, FFXIV has by far the best overall narrative content. Literally none of the classes in that game really resonate with me (they're cool, and flashy, but none of them make me think about the game when I'm not playing it), but I still go back and play every expansion because the story is just that good.

GW2 is a game much more designed for players like me, it seems, with the emphasis on open world content and exploration. I think they do both far far better than WoW does. The actiony combat is really hit and miss, though. Some specs are one button spams. The elementalist seems obsessed with pushing you into melee, and I hate that - it's not the mage I want to play. So again the actual combat and class fantasy was a miss there for me.

In the end, of all the MMOs I've played, and there have been a lot of them over the years, WoW is always the one that I keep coming back to. The one where, no matter how bad my impression of it was the last time I played, I'll always check back in to see if they've done new things that I like.