Played WoW heavy in college, quit shortly after the Panda expansion but I was mentally gone before then. Cataclysm was wack. When Panda was announced there was so much hype that I thought my guild would come back and it would be like the old times. Some folks came back for a few weeks but that's when I had to just admit this shyt will never be the same. You can't compete with nostalgia. My memories from vanilla through WOTLK are what mattered, beyond just the game. Doing a dungeon for the first time, joining a raid guild, doing random ass shyt with friends, staying up to date with the server drama, shooting the shyt with old friends, etc. A slick CG trailer can be cool but I know that game is dead for me because my friends are gone and that shyt don't hit the same anymore.
I used to stay up well past midnight for the daily reset, so I could quickly knock that shyt out the park with friends. My friends list would have people I met all the way back in vanilla. I used to log in and immediately get hit with "hey man thank god we need a tank" messages. That shyt was so cool to me, knowing I was at least a top 10 tank on the server. I used to love just flying around low level zones and giving gold to random low level players. The world felt alive. By Cata, the low level zones were ghost towns. Gone were the days of being about to log off at midnight and seeing that "horde are in Duskwood" message in chat so everyone flies over there to fight. Or those late 2AM moments where you're collecting mats while shooting the breeze with the 1-2 guys who are still online in the guild. I had a blast but that shyt just isn't going to happen again for me.