I beta tested WoW in 2003 and then open beta tested it in 2004. I played pretty consistently up until 2011 when Cataclysm was out.
WoW up until WotLK was arguably one of the best games ever made. Blizzard however was bought by Activision at some point during WotLK and it's been a downhill slide ever since.
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
This fat moron with the shit eating grin is Robert Kotik, current CEO of Blizzard and Activision. This is the guy responsible for why world of warcraft sucks. His corporate greed ground the game down into what it is now. I mean I'm sure you could debate many reasons why WoW has gone down hill, but it can basically be agreed upon that it started when Activision came into the picture.
Legion looks somewhat promising. They've made some huge changes and they're going in a different direction, so I'm gonna play it and give it a shot. At this point the game really has no where to go but up as Warlords of Draenor was fucking awful.
This is imo their last real chance to salvage the game though. I can't imagine they'd ever shut down their ATM machine but if Legion fails you'll basically be looking at the same thing that happened to EQLive with only time locked progression servers to salvage it.
Blizzard still makes great games but WoW was made by a different company and things have changed too much to expect it to be the game it was during 2004. I mean if you want any further proof of that just go check out their lore and storyline bullshit compared to what it used to be back in early 2000.