Last Sunday, I jumped into Raid Finder for the very first time and joined up with a group doing the Fall of Deathwing. After a wipe-less and heavily cinematic raid, we took out the former Aspect of Earth.
And… then WoW died for me.
Killing the biggest, baddest villain in all of Warcraft lore (excepting Sargeras) made me feel like I'd “won” WoW. The story seemed to wrap itself up nicely, and the game felt complete at that point.
It's not that I hate WoW. Far from it; despite its “theme park” nature and rampant immaturity in general chat channels, World of Warcraft is actually a pretty fun game. It has a very immersive story if you're willing to put in the time to discover it, and the basic gameplay isn't bad at all. Of all the MMOs I've played, only WoW and SWG have managed to keep me coming back after years of playing and burning out.
However, I also am not one to replay a game after I've beat it. There are a couple exceptions to this, but not many.
I fully intend to be playing WoW when Pandaria is released. It has too much awesomeness promised. But until then, what's the point? I've never been fully into the “hard mode” aspect of it, or the gear grind. Really, I don't care what my item level is, as long as I can access the content I like.
Is there something about WoW that should bring me back in, now that the story is finished? I don't know. If you have a thought, let me know in the comments.