dalekmoon: nah! I just play because I'm in my 70's, retired, played since the beginning and I have very little else going on in my life. Also I don't have any friends so I don't do raids or belong to guilds, but I still have a good time as a solo player.

Axo0111: the most fun I have in midnight, was lvling with no flying mount and after getting max lvl, I roleplay my Zandalari Pala "searching for a new patron loa after Rezan death", to finish all the Amani quests... Its the world that always make me return, and housing a little, chat in the guild, mount collecting and explore a little more

AlarPk: Getting the flying disk in Pandaria was one of my favorite memories, they make you visit all over every zone and read some lore scrolls to get it

netapel2625: As a brand new WoW player (I started not even a full month ago) it's the lore and exploration for me.

Classic it's the leveling, same for probably everyone. But Retail?

In Retail there's so much customization that isn't really available in Classic, collecting outfits and mounts is one thing, sure, but you can't play a Shadow Priest slamming your opponents with eldritch tentacles in Classic like you can in Retails.

Also just exploring the open world and doing side-quests is more enjoyable in Retail than in Classic because of how much freedom of movement you are given to do them, and the clear and obvious rise is side-quest quality.

As a new player, I'm currently going through Dragonflight, and early on there's a mission where you help a baby dragon fix up a toy duck. That's it. It's a simple "pick up these items, talk to those people, and then bring them all to that place" type of mission, but it's actually incredibly cute and in the end you get a toy that allows you to put a toy duck on your head.

You'll probably never use it, but it was super cute and fun to just help a baby dragon fix a toy.

There's also an area on the map with a Tuskarr village that has like absolutely zero significance to anything. There's no quests, no unique mobs, nothing. But there's a ferry going between that village and another nearby Tuskarr village, and after a quick google search to check if there's anything to actually do there, I discovered that the ferry has a surfing minigame.

There's no loot, no gold or reward outside of an achievement, but it's there.

So I spent like 5 minutes playing a surfing minigame on the back of a giant turtle, something that I never would have discovered had I just been doing story missions all the time.

I'm a slow player, I like to do all the available side-quests in an area before I move on to the next zone, and I love spending hours on wiki pages reading about the lore and the world at large.

For example, from what I see online, people hate the Vulpera. But after doing the quest to make them an allied race for the Horde, they are easily growing into being in my top 3 favorite races in the Horde (Goblins and Trolls beat them any day tho)

It's these little things being added up that make the game so enjoyable.

Also, in regards to your poll about the Midnight content. I amswered that I didn't do it not only because I'm not max-level yet, but also because I don't have the midnight expansion lol.

JenWOneNnifer: Trolls. I loved both Remix events. Housing, trolls, fishing, hunter pets, and exploring with my trolls. Transmog and other collectibles. Also trolls.

Have I mentioned trolls?

eliviled: To be honest, I have no clue. I've been leveling up a race that I never usually use for a few days now and knowing the lore about said race is so amazing. Draeinei is the race that I'm talking about, btw.

Ribbit-mx1sd: Haven’t played in 5 years, but I still love watching wow content, especially exploration / lore stuff from the old wotld. Something about this world feels like home (probably the thousands of hours I spent here in my youth lol) no matter how long I’ve been away.

SortaMorta-TheKingsKid27: It’s for sure NOT the gear grind. I like leveling and seeing what old content I can solo with just normal dungeon level gear. And mog…I love collecting mog gear. Mount and pet drops are always a welcome treat.

astaroth7779: I log in because I enjoy doing raid and keys with my guild and friends. There’s a certain satisfaction I get with watching number go up. That being said my favorite part of any new patch is exploring the new zones. I feel like you can often find a lot of the best storylines from side quests in wow.

nazunananakusa8916: I log into Classic because I prefer a smaller more simpler version. Retail is fantastic if you look at it objectively, but there is far too much in retail that it is such an overload. BFA was the last time I logged into retail consecutively. The zones were fantastic, blah blah. But now I go back to Classic zones and leveling due to it being simple and slow. I want to enjoy and immerse myself.

iSunBurnAtNight: I started playing WoW durring vanilla on my father's account when I was 7 and all my love for the game came from exploring. I had no concern for leveling and I would explore every zone at less than level 10. Id remember trying to get through high level zones like Searing Gourge and constantly dying just to come back to my body and die again 3 feet further from the same enemy. But I explored every corner of the map that way and fell in love with the game. I've been playing WoW since its been out but I havent had the same feeling exploring since Wrath. I think im just fueled by nostalgia.

felipecejas9313: a good world to explore is a good reason to explore other mmo's

Cnith: I pretty much agree with you on everything Crendor. I think part of the problem as a collector for me is that it feels like there has been an inflation in things to collect, making them feel less special.

DoctorJohn_MD: Honestly one of the biggest reasons I log in is our guild that the Bois started all those years ago. We've become our own little community at this point and we've gotten to the point that we're mythic raiding now. We aren't exactly Cutting Edge raiders but it's still crazy impressive since we are just an amalgamation of a bunch of twitch communities

casasworks6350: I really wish Blizzard would do ANYTHING with the older zones of the game, a lot of the zones are abandoned, and even when you use chromie time to level in them, the rewards from doing quests and drops are just irrelevant, which makes it even more dull, like, imagine if the questchains of the starting areas got reworked and gave people good equipment at the rate of the exile's reach, bet a bunch of us would find leveling more rewarding then.

soundguydon: It's random for me. I love exploration, which is why I fell in love with MMOs (especially WoW) in the first place. Currently I log in mainly for levelling up my profs and housing decor. The current "stuff" doesn't hold any interest for me at all. Like you said, did the new events once & I'm just not interested in doing them again. I also like Delves.. To get right down to the reason though? I log in out of habit. Been doing it for 20 years. I'll continue to buy the xpacs, get through them and explore them -- but I'm not the huge every-day-login guy I used to be several years ago.

NerdySparklez: Hey Crendor!

twowingedmoon: I can recall two distinct things as my "favorite" ways to engage with the game. Suramar's questing zone/storyline/progression, and the assaults in Visions of N'zoth. I was logging in every day for both of those things at their respective times, and for some reason I had a grand time doing them and talking to friends about doing them. They were fun, easy to jump into activities that I looked forward to completing every week. i got really invested in the atmosphere of assaults, and the storyline of helping the nightborne through that whole journey.

koothak: I log it, at times it feels like its just out of habit, but once im in i find things I want to do, be it gearing/leveling an alt, or M .

Note: We need a tour of the Crendor House!

GhastlyH: I play on a trial-account toon. I log in for level 20 twinking, making silly RP videos, and timewalking dugneons (love the timewalking dungeons).

DonutGroove: I love collecting and exploring. Everytime I get back to a place and I find something new or something I haven't noticed before is the best thing. I'm kinda fresh in the game compared to others so I have A LOT to explore

zydian_: Great question. I genuinely wonder that for retail players

GlumCat2: Honestly its the guild im with, i reset my account and main choice before midnight, found a good guild that im close too now and doing any content with them makes me wanna play more and more. I also now only play 1 class and 1 character since i have no motivation to play an alt and its been awesome

augustvalek: I got so many opinions about wow's state, but I'm recovering from eye surgery so I limit my screen time to a minimum, maybe I'll post more after I recover if I remember

N-atalieee: I loooove collecting transmog and making new characters, some I don’t even play often just to dress them up! My main is everything progression (raiding and m ) and legacy content while I style all my alts.

nathanwinters2400: Honestly? I like making characters. Play on Moon Guard/Wyrmrest Accord, create a template and story for the TRP3 extension, and then... never roleplay lol

I love designing characters and going through the older content where I just kind of "re-invent" the story in my head to fit around that idea. Like right now I have an evoker who I've named Alejastraz that's a child of Alexstrasa going through the Nexus War alongside his brothers/sisters with the aid of mortals... and it's just fun. It makes sense in my head that a dragon could go and clear waves of dead at the Ruby Dragonshrine helping the mortals push out the damned. That you'd go behind enemy lines and set the bodies of your kin to rest. That you would defend the Temple. It's made me realize I miss connecting with the World in Warcraft.

It used to be the story but well, the Lore has been awful since WoD. Legion was mostly nostalgia and decent systems-- but after it everything took a nose dive.

So yeah. Right now my beef with WoW is that it feels incredibly anti-Alt. I have the full EXP buff from leveling and yet it only feels good during timewalking. Dungeons are just damage sponge fights, the story is mid to cartoony at the best of times, and I've found myself feeling less and less impressed by Silvermoon as while it's visually stunning, the cross-faction combined with the chunky-ier building style is just... killing my mood. I know that's dumb since you can go to Amirdrassil as a Hordie, but I do wish Blizz would go the ESO route of you being in an enemy factions area still be area. Like you can go anywhere but you're not represented as, why would you be? Even more so with how Tranquillien's NPCs were butchered in their stories like the former Executor sent by THE Banshee Queen being reduced to... an old man that can't fight. Tired of the disrespect to the Forsaken. And completely over cosmic bs.

McDuders: You finally ask this question

May 24 2026

Buy WOW Classic Gold (lvl60)