[shoemakersteve]

You forgot to mention the time-gating, which is maybe the main thing that has me on the fence about the upcoming expansion. Most of the progression mechanics force you to wait a certain amount of time before you can keep going. This is incredibly frustrating to me, because I tend to play in bursts. I don't feel like logging on for 15 minutes to do a daily every day, and then when I do feel like getting a long session in, my progress is arbitrarily and artificially capped. Haven't looked into whether this will be better in the next xpac, but it's been a frustrating experience for the last 2-3.

[blibble]

previously the game was designed by people wanting to make a MMO that they wanted to play (everquest refugees), with some elements to keep you subscribed over the long term, but it all had an end

these days most of the grinds are infinite, and everything is cynically designed with the express intent of increasing engagement metrics:

  - farmville like mission table
  - infinite gear treadmill (corruption/titanforging, azerite traits, etc)
  - infinite azerite power grind
  - infinite reputation grinds
  - removal of player agency (badge removal, master loot removal, gear completely random via caches, etc)

unless the KPIs they're targeting have changed: it's all still going to be in the next expansion, if disguised slightly differently

it's really sad, because it was one of the greatest video games of all time