W.O.W. Cataclysm...

[kranz]

Originally Posted by CCIP

It's like a substance addiction, but in a very large group, haha. Scary prospect to me, anyway

Indeed. After a few years you may realize that the only "achievement" you really (no distinction between game and RL) got is only your orange legendary gear.
Blizzard has built their empire on this "sociality". I prefer to call it a false one.
They introduce more and more "social" features (e.g. take a look at Starcraft 2) just to improve the efficiency of sucking your money. I don't blame them. Business is business after all. It's about this unanswerable question: whether the product is adjusted to the masses or the masses to the product.
I know many people who have downed Lich king several times and go for a raid for only one reason:"pve is boring as hell but we have Mumble and we gonna have a little chit-chat". In that case the primary function of the game is kinda dead.
I've never played WoW for its "social" functions. My ignore list is longer than the friends' one. I play for pure competition, so pvp only.