I have to add this post about gaming addiction. While I have liked games before very much no other game has made me so much addicted as World of Warcarft MMO. It is not so fun subject you might think.
I had fulltime work and then got into November 13, 2008 Wrath of the Lich King expansion ---- It was to good to be true! No loading times between areas immersion was perfect. As a Druid you could transform to Panther or a flying predator bird perhaps it was hawk and fly among trees in WOW. Flying mounts also great movement perfect seemless world.
Excellent PvP battlegrounds! Excellent EPIC PvE Raiding! As pre step before raids do some Dungeons those are for 5 people while Raid size can be much bigger. No bugs ok system requirements flawless!
I noticed I began to feel ill and tired when I played 60 hours /week World of Warcraft MMO after Wrath of the Lich King expansion had been released. Well I reduced it to maximum 40 hours /week and again it felt great like a drug in gaming. Eventually I got bored on WOW MMO and when the silly Panda expansion was released I quit WOW MMO. Before that every WOW expansion had a cool theme.
You missed Vanilla - that was a Golden Age. After Lich King I was done, game was not for me anymore. There will never be an MMO as good as WoW Vanilla until AI starts developing games.