I suppose my problem with it is that Blizzard keeps cashing in the paychecks for this game and virtually ignoring every other big-seller that they might come up with in the future. World of Warcraft is a game designed to keep people playing it and playing it until they've gotten all of the best gear for their class and specialization. Then they release a patch or an expansion to make people do it all over again.
The graphics are laughable at best, and the only reason why they did this was to make the game accessible to more players so that you don't require something like Alienware just to play the game when things start getting hectic. Honestly, whenever I play the game I have to pointedly ignore just how cheesy, cheap, and butt-ugly the graphics and textures look, how low the polygon count is, and just how bland everything looks. It's only saving point is that there's a rather huge amount of variety in the brick-like hills you have to cross.
Then there's the questing. More often than not, whenever I play an RPG I like to follow a storyline or a quest line or something that leads up to something big at the end. World of Warcraft has very few of these, and they're usually called 'quest chains'. What that means is that you start a quest, then do a quest related, then another, and so on until you get to the end-goal which usually results in some nice little item. WoW does not have this, except very rarely, and that is one of my gripes.
Most of the quests are unimaginative, and are 'get item A, B, and C from monster D'. Pretty basic, right? Yeah, they are...until you realize that the drop rate for these borders on 5%-10% per kill, and it usually asks you to get a lot of them. So you can be 'grinding' the same monster for umpteenth hours just for one quest, while about eight or nine other people are doing the exact same quest, thus meaning less mobs (enemies) for everyone.
As you mentioned, yes, there is the whole aspect that the game is chock full of gold farmers, spoiled brats, dickwads, morons, and social rejects, so you can imagine just how much fun the online community is there. The game encourages teamwork, and yet there are very few guilds who actually get through end-game content. Those that two fall into two categories: Skilled, generous players who know what they're doing and want others like them, and two: Skilled players who know what they're doing by their opinions, and like to wave their E-Peen around like nobody's business. If you couldn't guess, the game is filled with a 1:10 ratio of the former versus the latter.
The way classes play out tends to be confusing at best, mediocre at worst, and always broken. Some classes, though they and Blizzard deny it, are just more powerful than others. Some classes require you to play a certain specialization and way, else your end-output is full of fail and you won't get anyone to want to play with you. Some classes end up getting the short end of the stick come patch time, where Blizzard caters to classes that they themselves play, and jip the ones they hate going against (again, though they deny it).
The sheer fact that there's a 'best in slot' item for each class to play correctly means that every single person who shares your class and specialization is going to roll on that item, and that's even if it drops. Bosses drop two rare items, and each boss usually has fifteen or so items that he can drop. So, loot is very rare, hard to come by, and usually only marginally better than what you have already. This means that there is a lot of fighting, people getting butt-hurt over not getting something, and people rage-quitting over it as well.
End game content is cool for about the first hour you're in it, before you realize that once you've gotten through the end-game dungeon at least once, then it becomes nothing more than a repetitive grind to get the best items you can out of each boss located there. Each boss in these dungeons has one, and ONLY one way to be defeated, which you must figure out either by reading a forum, strategy guide, or just muddling through it mindlessly until you figure it out yourself.
There's not many redeeming factors about this game. It's ugly, confusing, the online community is very hostile, difficult to Master, but then becomes a boring breeze once it is. There seems to be only some very awesome characters from time to time, people you can really like. NPCs, not players. Sometimes...SOMETIMES you can make a friend on there, one who is actually a pretty good person. I myself have spent end-game content with a guild that I really liked, full of people whom I'd gotten to be friends with. We grinded end game content, eventually mastered most of the intricate footwork that the bosses wanted us to perform before they'd die, and got ourselves pretty well geared up despite a few setbacks and whatnot. I admit, it is fun, to a point...but then, I like variety...and variety it doesn't have. It would be a good little game to play if it were single person, or a small group (like say...four-player co-op), but otherwise it's not much of an MMO in my opinion.
Take it for what you will. I like it as a game, but I'd rather play something else.
P.S. If all you've played is on a private server, then you have little to no right to question why the game is, or isn't, deserving of so much hate. To understand that, get a subscription for about...say, three months. Pick whatever server you want that is around 'Full', and enter, play for those three months, then come back and try again.
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