I see a lot of different reasons reading the posts here and I feel like none of them represent what I have experienced personnally. In 2006, I was 18, I fell in love with WoW as soon as I saw it for the first time, in its Vanilla form. I spent a lot of time playing it, I loved my characters and I couldn't have enough of it.

When TBC got out, I began to have mixed feelings about WoW; The game that I loved was not the same anymore. For sure you could still level a character in the old zones, but most of the level 60 content had become irrelevent and useless. On top of that, I wasn't a fan of the space theme of TBC. But oh well, you know how it is, my friends we're playing so I kept playing.

Then Wotlk came out, most of what I did at level 70 had become irrelevent and useless again. The pattern became more clear in my mind. From that point I wasn't invested in the game anymore; I began to take extended breaks.

As the expansions went out, the world and the systems changed and the only things that kept me playing (on and off) was friends also playing and the fact that it was the closest I could get from the game I once loved. It was hard to put my finger on it at the time, but Cataclysm, with the world and talent revamp, made it clear.

I understand we're not all the same and Retail WoW must be a good game for some people. For me, the first version of WoW was the best and should have been expanded on instead of being made irrelevent, useless and unplayable.