I think the article underscores both of your sentiments well - don’t try to be everything for everyone, have a vision and a niche and min max that thing.
I got a good few thousand hours out of it over the years and the community I found there kept me sane through COVID lockdowns - sad to see it go, but happy for what it provided while it was around
The audio was fantastic, chopping trees and mining ore was rewarding just hearing it. Visually it was beautiful. The combat was super good too, not just hitting numbers on the keyboard. Wars were a blast if you were in a decent company. Dungeons and OPR (basically a two team hold the positions death match) were solid. The server population issues they had due to the architecture took forever to overcome though and queues could be long. They never fully overcame this.
I never got into WoW or really any others before. The only other one was Wild Star because it was quirky and unique and also had a combat system that wasn’t just pushing keys and made positioning matter, but new world took it up another notch from there.
I think the article underscores both of your sentiments well - don’t try to be everything for everyone, have a vision and a niche and min max that thing.