Also, bear in mind WoW pretty much nailed their own coffin shut by turning the game from a social MMORPG into a soloplay game. They dumbed everything down so people didn’t have to communicate to ask/share info, made it possible to fly over entire continents so less people were bumping into other players while travelling, added an auto-group finder so people didn’t need to communicate to run a dungeon, then got rid of what was left of the in-game community by adding private home areas for players so they no longer hung around cities. It turned the game from a thriving, busy world into a pretty, but empty landscape.
MMORPGs need to get designers on board who understand the psychological side of game planning (in addition to writing/art/plot design - they all work in unison) and how to encourage rather than kill in-game communities. WoW was insanely popular for many reasons, but one of the major factors was that players would log in just to hang out in the world. It was a giant, beautifully crafted chatroom that did everything to encourage communication between players.
Blizzard can keep adding new content all they want, but they’ve killed the community so the players have left along with their wallets. Any new VR MMORPGs can learn a lot from WoW. It’s a decade-long study in social gaming. I doubt Blizzard will reverse their decisions, but new dev teams can avoid the same mistakes.