Raph Koster:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaphKoster/20141121/230748/Ten_Years_of_World_of_Warcraft.php
http://www.raphkoster.com/2014/11/21/ten-years-of-world-of-warcraft/

"World of Warcraft effectively made MMOs perfect, and in the process, it killed them." :)

havent touched wow in 5 years and even then i only played sporadically
huge game lots to do
too much damn grinding

Well, i was never into MMOs but if there is one i could try, that is EVE Online. I like the concept, i like space, i like spaceships. If only I was 13-14 years old when I found out about it.. As for WoW, i have many good friends that play/ played it but i never got into it because it required so much time. I prefer LAN parties to satisfy my multiplaying cravings...

For a gamer like me, it's terrible not having ever played Wow, but.. a monthly fee + less time = big nope :(

first month is free for new players

and up to level 20 you can play for free

Played since 2008, but I retired last month, not a hardcore player, just Pugs, the community died, got toxic. as an older player I leave that game to the kids.

PS I was a Fire mage, who got a nerf after nerf.

good luck to woW

What's the point of subbing to a game with millions of players if you always end up alone? T_T

I dunno if it killed MMOs, but it probably killed the old Blizzard (har har).

Considering how Guild wars and other non-sub MMOs that it's possible and profitable to run without a subscription, there is no reason as a player to accept the subscription model.

Then if you look at WoW, you basically fund the bug fixes from the last expansion, and the next expansion with your subscription, then they charge you for the expansion. Just ridiculous.

Aye, Raph Koster... I don't like that guy. Every good thought or observation of his I read is followed by a bad one.

lol same here. Never joined guilds much too much commitment and they end up kicking me out for inactivity anyways =P

So I made my own guild for myself and a few friends so I wouldn't get bothered much =P

I still play wow, been with it since Burning Crusade. However I barely play it anymore nowadays with the exception of rotating my inventory mail every month so they don't deleted, heh. I've heard good things about the expansion, would like to get back into my compulsive quest hunting and pvping BGs and arenas when I have more time.

i played wow for free recently as a free player but i quickly got bored off it again
the grinding bores me

you might find this interesting:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ZackWood/20141121/230678/Quit_the_Grind_New_Ways_to_quotLevelquot.php

I lean toward this as well (dislike the constant time investment that many MMO require), though I would at least have given WoW a try if they hadn't insisted on double-dipping.

Give the game for free and then charge a monthly fee, not what they did: charging an upfront amount for the game AND the monthly fee.

Never understood why there wasn't more of an uproar about this. I guess as long as the game is good and the brand is big, players are happy to get money extorted out of every orifice.