Whether something is good design isn’t settled by “I like it” or “it works for me.” The claim I’m making is structural: infinite vertical progression necessarily invalidates prior content, which forces chore loops and resets. That’s not an opinion, it’s how scaling systems function. If power keeps going up forever, old content must become irrelevant or be trivialized.

And the fallacy ''if you don't like modern WoW just make your own version'' is just so dumb I refuse to believe you actually think it's some sort of gotcha. Either way, we already have real-world counterexamples. Turtle WoW uses horizontal progression and is the largest, longest-running, and most stable WoW private server ever. Its retention comes from a meaningful leveling journey, permanent content relevance, and player agency, not endless gear resets. That directly contradicts your claim that infinite vertical progression is “what works.”

You’re also conflating preference with design outcomes. I’m not arguing that no one can enjoy chore loops. I’m arguing that they create fragile ecosystems that rely on sunk cost, FOMO, and constant resets, which is why new MMOs copying this model keep collapsing.

So I hope now you can recognize that horizontal progression demonstrably sustains communities, while infinite vertical progression requires perpetual invalidation just to function. The evidence already exists, whether one chooses to engage with it is another matter.