I say this as a total newblet to the MMO, with less than 50 hours (or so) across retail and classic combined: Thinking about World of Warcraft is infinitely more fun than playing World of Warcraft.
I think it has something to do with the roleplaying aspects of the game being tied so closely to character creation. When I imagine playing as a Tauren Druid or a Human Paladin, I love the thought of joining the community and experiencing the story; adding my skill set to the mix, aiding other players, and questing.
I can picture raiding, leveling, and gearing up a character in the biggest MMO of all time, and that brings me a great deal of satisfaction. Kind of like imagining how incredible the most popular book of the year might be to fully digest. It’s very easy to feel the allure that both of these scenarios promise at their core. In the case of WoW, the idea of starting a character feels infinitely more rewarding than actually playing one.
How many playthroughs of Skyrim have been started before being dropped after first arriving in Whiterun? How many Civ 6 games ended after settling a second city? How many days will I need to go on living in this nightmare of a life? These questions either have answers now through data collection or will have answers later, thanks to either my own decision to end it all or the universes’ providing me with the mercy of sweet death.
The point being that there is something fundamental to the promise of these roleplaying experiences that draws the imaginative powers of the playerbase itself, and in just as much power as actually playing through the experience calls upon the ire of anyone who would rather be doing anything else with their time.
I start up a character with glee, and find myself ultimately slogging through the quests, slowly losing my motivation to read through all of the text, until I am resigned to playing another game or writing this article.
In retail, the boredom comes almost immediately. In Classic (Anniversary), the boredom comes after 10 hours or so. Somehow, those fetch quests for a modicum of XP just don’t feel worth it to me after so much time. Not even the vibrant community that Classic sports is enough to get me beyond that.
But maybe I just lack the impulse control, who knows.