I started playing WAR soon after launch, went through most of the game to level 34 without so much as a SC popping.  After a month server transfers from Marienberg (my first server) had an option of transferring to another server, a friend of mine chose Magnus.  As soon as we transferred and got into playing, SC's started popping non-stop.  End game RvR wasn't available yet. so to progress we started to PvE to gear up.  We started Bastion Stair, then moved to City dungeons, and onto Lost Vale.

We as a guild with multiple groups pushing through Lost Vale were ahead of the entire server in terms of gear and organization and quickly slowed the opposition in keep and and zone control.  Soon we realized that progressing through Lost Vale a few nights a week and RvR the rest kept us busy enough to keep playing, but as our clear times went from days to a day to a few hours, there wasn't so much to do after that.  RvR or PvP slowed to only peak hours, gearing slowed because we had everything to offer at the time, alts gave some of us alternate avenues to keep playing, though those SC's/zones started slowing as well.

I guess the final straw for me was quite a small issue that may not affected me greatly but felt. at the time was the final straw for a class that didn't have much going for it except for a small role in RvR and a less effective role in PvE compared to other classes in the game.  It was a class a class nerf to something that kept survivability up, though still keeping damage minimal.  The buffs that followed didn't make up for the loss of survivability and only minimally raising damage output.

I guess the appeal of playing something that wasn't the norm (WoW) kept everyone playing, not too much drama, a lot of rivalries between factions and across factions on a personal level kept the game fresh. Everyone knew everyone. Went back to WoW and nothing like this existed unlike the Vanilla days. Tried Aion, though it almost mimicked WAR's community on a server level. bans and such destroyed that pretty quickly.  There are probably tons of good MMO's to try, but I do like the polish and support of big name MMO's to smaller ones without the investment that they may not have from players. Hopefully SWTOR fills this gap.