In an earlier article, I traced out a player life-cycle from open-ended survey data. In this data set, we'll fill in that framework with some quantitative data to get a better sense of what changes from stage to stage. The player life-cycle proposed has 5 stages:

1) Starting: The player has just started playing the game and everything is new and exciting.
2) Ramping Up: The player has learned the basics and is now busy progressing through the content (whether leveling or crafting). They have a sense of where they want to be and are heading for that goal.
3) Mastery: The player is at the higher-end of the game and is either well-situated in a guild and doing raids, or happily soloing high level quests, or competing in PvP content.
4) Burn Out: The player feels like they've done everything they can do in the game, or they are beginning to feel burned out from all the raid and social obligations from their guild. They wonder where all the fun went.
5) Casual / Recovery: The player has figured out a way to play the game without burning out. They may be doing intermittent raids, logging in casually to play with friends, casually leveling alts, etc.