While I don't agree with the timewalking part (FFXI handled expansions better than WoW or FFXIV) as someone who has been playing WoW during this dark time too, I feel the same in a lot of ways. It took me some time to get past my dislike of the graphics, but now I actually think they are better than XIV's in a lot of ways and the cutscenes, man are they done leaps and bounds better with more natural movements, albeit a little exaggerated, rather than just npc's doing the same boring stiff emotes again and again. Even TWW's storyline is leaps and bounds better than DT. Characters are much much much more likeable and we have a real and amazing antagonist in Xal'atath. Anduin and Alleria make things exciting when they come on screen, as apposed to, well, the exhaustion that was the entire cast of DT. The main cast puts the scions to shame. And the game itself is just much more enjoyable, classes are much more fun, content feels rewarding and it is just fun, dungeons are a lot more fun and have some neat mechanics and I look forward to doing content there, esp content like Delves which I think are a blast. Even farming content for old mounts, glams, etc feels better since it's one and done on all characters.

It's almost as if they got rid of the ppl who were holding them back, took the feedback they got from the player base over the years and took some time to really turn it over and come up with a solution. The game is not perfect, but holy moly does it feel good to play compared to this game right now. Who would have thought investing in your product and taking time to actually talk to your customers and thoughtfully adapt could completely refresh your game and make your players excited again. Cannot wait to see their housing system.

Gotta give a special shout out to dungeons here too. I did a dungeon awhile ago that had me fly on my mount from airship to airship defeating mobs and then when I was fighting the boss, she would periodically do this big attack required me to jump on my mount and fly to avoid it and then spin back around, land and continue the fight on the airship deck. The whole time I was just sitting there in awe after 15 years of boring hallways and bosses that just require I take 2 steps to the left.