What has happened to this genre of game?

So, like a lot of people. I am a WoW player and have been since 05. I got to 2K rating in M+ and did some heroic raiding, and now I feel like there isnt much to do until the content for War within drops. With that Ive been finding other MMOs to take up my time....and all I can say is wow (No pun intended).

I went back to an age old fav of Neverwinter - Mained a rogue on Xbox, and a Wizard on PS. Decided to start over (again) on PC and saw that XP has been removed in favor of leveling based on story progression...dafuq? I thought it might be a PC mod, so I switched and logged into xbox (Which my last played character was 2016) and saw that its the same mod there, dropped to lv20 as a max (Which took all my characters to 20...Bye bye PVP twinks) and rerolled and...no xp. Just unlocks through their story....(Which is the same for every race/class)

Ok, no big...I went back to trying to play ESO. I have a level 29 sorc on there, and enjoy the world and the action based play style. But, honestly...every time I get rolling on there, I look at some of the cosmetics I want to farm...and see its all locked behind a paid DLC (apparently not attached to an xpac) So, to really get into this game, Id have to dump money into the xpacs AND DLCs...jesus...

I got into GW2, and honestly....very few complaints here except that the gear doesnt mean anything..so for me, there is no chase. Its too much of a SP-MMORPG for me to get involved into for more than a week.

FF14....I want to like this game. I want to like this game SO MUCH. But every time I end up at a new town to progress, I see how ridiculous it is with cosmetics and paid for mounts and end up thinking "Whats the point if I don't want to make cosmetics my primary focus"

Honestly, I cant stand the way video games are today...at least the MMORPG genre. We used to play with each other and take our time. Work together (Guilds or friends) to grind out those reps or legendaries...and we were proud when we got them or helped a long the way. Now the community complains about any type of "Grind" to the point where leveling isnt even XP driven anymore in games? Or how it has to be 1-MAX within 6 hours or its too long? Fuck man....Im glad I was there for the golden age of gaming...but this is just horrible now.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

In all seriousness. Thanks for reading my vent fellow gamers.

Edit: if you're going to flame me (or anyone on reddit) don't forget, we can't read it it if you immediately block us 🤣