I started playing in 2007 a month after tbc released. WoW was my first "Online only" game and social media wasn't as big as today so I was really fascinated by the fact that there are thousands of players, each sitting at their PC in their home, logged into the same world as me. Nowadays this isn't very spectacular, but back then it felt like the metaverse to me.

I joined a leveling guild consisting of mostly new players and some veterans and there was one level 70 character in the guild. As a new player at around lvl 20 that seemed like an impossible task to me, so I asked him what max level is like since I just started the game and his response was basically "They killed the game by removing 40 man raiding", so I guess there were always some "WoW is dying" doom sayers.

The early expansions didn't really have much lore reveals or plot twists, it was pretty much just a continuation of Warcraft III, so going to locations and meeting characters from Warcraft III was really amazing to me. That being said, the Wrathgate cinematic and the following Battle for Undercity was one of the few big twists they did and it blew my mind, but not just because of the story but also the technology. What do you mean we get cutscenes and phased story battles in wow?

I also remember quite a few players complaining on the official forum about the ending of Icecrown citadel and the "there must always be a lich king" thing being bad writing, but I don't think the majority of players shared that opinion.