A big topic in WoW lately, is removed content. many but not all players agree that bringing back content is something they want to see happen, this is a list of major things still inaccessible to players as of now, and I plan to keep this updated for as long as I remain on the council, if any reader council or not sees something missing, feel free to contact me 
This is going to be split into two sections, removed content that doesn’t have major contention about it being made available again, and content that does. (also note broken content isn’t on this list, Im leaving that on the bug list thread)
- Old Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor + Instances (By far the biggest item on this list)
- Pre-Patch events:
- Burning Crusade
- Wrath of the lich king
- Cataclsym (Including Gnome and zulzanes fall in this)
- Battle for azeroth
- Shadowlands
- Dragonflight
- Patch events:
- Battlefield Barrens (5.3)
- Investigate the Broken Shore
- Brawlers Guild
- Pandaria
- Draenor
- Legion
- BFA
- Legendary Quest Chains
- Pandaria Cloak
- Draenor Ring
- Cataclsym Dungeons
- Scholomance (mostly back now)
- Scarlet Monestary (mostly back now)
- Upper Blackrock Spire
- 5.0 Vale of Eternal Blossoms
- Battle For Undercity chain
- Original Ashran Questchain
- Obliteration Forge Questchain
- Missing Sections of Silithus: The Wound Chain
- Magetower questchains
- Fated Raids + the coins
- Full Threads of Fate
- Explore Torghast (Save Jaina and Thrall)
- Pre DF Hallows End
- Pre DF Love is in the air
Controversial to add content:
- Challenge Mode content
- Old brewfest rewards
- Mage Tower content
- Gladiator/pvp content
- Bloodied/Bloodthirsty Items from Cata recipes
- M+ Content
- Atiesh and Corrupted Ashbringer
- Collectors Edition/ Pre-order Items
- Promotional Content
Hopefully at least one of these will be checked off with 10.1.5
67 Likes
On behalf of my community, seconding this. There is a lot of great content that has been removed from the game, including rewards, and I don’t believe all should be off-limits from ever being acquired again.
I think the aforementioned legendary and Naxx40 weapons should remain locked because of the significance of those raiders having been some of the few to do Naxx40 back then, as well as the gladiator mounts (assuming this is part of the content), the rest would be great (Mage Tower, Challenge Mode) and are not nearly as rare by any means per their rewards.
18 Likes
Im a big collector and complitionist and in my experience when it comes to cosmetic rewards, the exclusivity always stings harder when there is no viable alternative
For example my favorite druid set by far is my T3 naxx armor, i love it so much because im a resto druid at heart and its so green and flowery. Thing is though there really aren’t many other druid tier sets that try to go for that look which makes me way more sympathetic to people who got screwed on its exclusivity.
On the other hand there are other items like the MOP capes where the aesthetic they go for do have viable alternitives available in other parts of the game, of course its not an exact copy but if you want a cape with a dragon imprint on it, you can definatly find one for your dragon-mage transmog set, this is a far easier pill to swallow.
Having some form of exclusivity in SOME items is reasonable for an MMO given that its supposed to be a living breathing world that has windows of time to take part in an activity for an item that wont always be there, but in my opinion the line where it starts to become abusive FOMO is where the exclusive items provide a look or aesthetic that is entirely in its own category and no other gear or item sets even come close to to that look (see for example. Mop challenge mode sets)
8 Likes
Interesting points,
I think its worth mentioning here that, not all collectors are interested in, for example how a piece of transmog looks, More of
“im after that dagger that only drops off a mob that spawns while on a specific quest”
than
“im after that dagger that looks good with my outfit”
So personally, while I don’t really want there to be unobtainable things, but I understand the occasional need for it. and things that can never return.
But with that in mind, I do think that WoW should attempt to stay as close to 100% obtainability as possible,
For example the scepter of the shifting sands quest chain,
if this came back, we wouldnt get the bang a gong quest, or the mount, achievement and title that come with it
BUT, we would still get 31 quests, 7 transmogs a recipe and an achievement
Thats 40 of the 44 collectalbe things back, we would be really excited about that progress
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The technology for “Scenarios” already exists, and with the next patch focusing around the bronze dragonflight it really, shouldn’t, be hard to implement some of the Expansion Pre-Patch events as scenarios you can relive.
I honestly think that nothing is off limits to being able to be re-accomplished and rewarded to players. Bogarting, or hiding behind a locked wall thats thrice locked, just to give players that “Got it when it was current” more ego boosting is never a good reason. I know that I got certain things back when they were current, or as some like to put it “harder to achieve” and they’ve started to give those items away to players again. Do I feel diminished? Do I feel like that item is no longer cool? No. I still know personnally, and sometimes have achievements from the time, that I did them back in the day. Something cool shouldn’t be locked away for all time simply because I either didn’t do the content, or was never there to actually live it.
Let players get every item that is in game. If its old content that can be done “easily” now a days, then more power to those players. Does it diminish the “coolness” of that item? No. Does it make it so you can’t just show off “Lol, look at what you’ll never be able to get ever regardless of how much time(money) you spend playing this game.” Yes, it sure does and good. It should be more like “Look at what I spent time getting, and you can go get it too if you wish to spend the time and go to certain places to get it.”
Heck, I remember spending ungodly amounts of gold and time doing quests to get the Warlock Mounts. They’re now given freely. Did that diminish the fact that I got them back in the day? Nope. Did it make them any less cool? Nope.
In short, I agree that things removed from this game, or currently thrice locked behind “exclusitivity” doors should be brought back and opened up for every player to be able to get. (heck, they’re already starting this train by bringing back things from the TCG. So why stop there?)
20 Likes
Most of this I absolutely agree with,
Keep in mind that old Kalimdor and EK existed up until the end of Wotlk, So there was already a chance to complete that content when it was more trivial, and that makes up the largest chunk of this list. and some other things like much of the promotional and brewfest rewards were never not trivial.
Yes a few things on the list were never easy content, such as Atiesh, but even now if that were to return it would still require players to seek out the old raid, do several weeks of fully farming the raid,
The one this in this I dont agree with is your very first point about scenarios
From my knowledge of how the game works, to implement them as a scenario, it would essentially require completely remaking the content, and that would also be really cruel to collectors, as in that form we wouldnt get the original, quests, rep, items, or transmogs
I think the best way for the pre patches to be a thing again would be to add them back as the legion pre patch event is, where you need talk to the archivist NPC in dalaran to be offered the first quest, which forces you into the correct phase to do the event content.
8 Likes
As somebody who went through some of the Legendary questlines like the MoP cape and Draenor ring ones, it made no sense to me to deny this content to later players, as these questlines were the core of the expansion. It’s as if you’re trying to read a book with a big hole in it.
At the very least, it gives players more to do, which makes for a richer game.
33 Likes
You raise a very valid point that i hadn’t considered about the variance in how much work it would be to return parts of old content. I’ve been an advocate of bringing back original wow zone experiences even if its in an isolated “daily zone” style format but you’ve reminded me of an old interview where they mentioned that the old zones were very much glued together in a way that is likely incompatible with the newer version of the game (i’m making assumptions there ofc i don’t work at blizzard). At the same time though things like the Legendary quest lines or pre-patch events feel like they should be relatively simple to add (even if its just the rewards that were available being added in some form through the expected patch content).
I still feel that its a worthwhile investment of time bringing back some content that newer players never got to experience but i can see the wisdom that bringing back larger more complex parts could be a lot of spent effort for less gain vs being more economical and bringing back the core rewards and story line content which is probably what people really think about when they say “bring back pre-patch”
NOTE: i don’t mean to put words in Turkeycats mouth, i’m just musing over my own thoughts with their post as a springboard since it got me to think about my own thoughts on the topic.
1 Like
10.1.5 got us most of cataclsym scholomance back, I didnt fully remove it from this list since we are still missing the quests, but its great progress! Im hoping we see more things on this list coming back!
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I will be the first person in a long line of players, gamers, individuals that whole heartedly believe that many things in many aspects should remain exclusive to the time and place they came from.
Bringing back short questlines, hard farmed instances or dungeons to obtain a few currencies - 50 times to be able to produce multitudes of transmog / recipes that have been long gone from the game pains me as a collector. To have players that multibox, swipe, RMT, that haven’t played for more then a couple years attain many lost items with no challenge or conceptual degree of difficulty diminishes the limited quality and prestige of many of our accomplishments on a broad stroke.
I value my time invested in this game. I expect a modicum of fairness when I compare my accomplishments towards another via tracking websites / ranking placement.
That being said, the vast majority of tier sets, mounts, pets, and transmogs should be accessible to the masses for their enjoyment. The vast majority of everyone who plays this game does so in such small ways compared to the collections community and the drive, mechanisms, dedication to find every remaining uncollected anything in the game to add to our arsenal.
To tell you can’t have an item in my mind because I want it for myself is unhealthy. It’s a terrible discussion point and failure in any debate. Understanding the difference between what I just said is paramount.
The small selection of competition I have for world collection rankings will absorb any small addition to the game that most of them don’t have. Removing buffers that I have over them. That’s super personal and not so much the overall discussion, except I think it’s important to point out.
As for many, thats tangible.
Are there limitations to what we all want added?
Would it be easier to compile a full list of desired additions outside the bounds of Turkeys list and post it in full detail?
(We will do this. I can think of an army that would help put together a list so detailed that if it was to be read with true earnst would be compiled very quickly.)
For many in the collections community a simple addition of everything ever in any directory for anything with an ID associated with it would be prudent.
2 Likes
I’ve never understood this mentality, and I’ve been playing since Vanilla myself and with no breaks. Why are your accomplishments less because certain items are re introduced into the game? If they add the MOP challenge mode system back with the same items and same difficulty, does that diminish your accomplisments from 2013.
There is no prestige in just being there or playing at the right time, I always get the impression that people who have items that are unobtainable and seen as “prestige” in some eyes think that the people requesting to get those items to be obtainable again that it should be handed on a silver platter. Which 9/10 times isn’t the case.
Bluntly stated, game content shouldn’t be limited to stroak peoples epeen.
18 Likes
Returning content sounds great, although some of it would probably be more work to integrate into the modern game than it’s worth.
However, the rewards from the content (specifically cosmetic rewards) should stay unobtainable. The way it was handled for the return of the Mage Tower was pretty reasonable, with new cool cosmetics that are similar but not the same. If anything, we need more time-limited cosmetics from all sorts of content. Being able to show “I was there at X point in time and did something cool within my part of the game” is incredibly valuable for the story/longevity of the game. And achievement dates are not the same. This should include the mythic raid mounts/titles (like it works for PvP already), but also doing things like pet battle dungeons or dragon races when they’re new, before various power creep features get added.
Even if it was possible to replicate the objective difficulty of old content in the returned version (it’s not), it’s still not the same. Available information has changed for one, and we’re also just not at that moment in time anymore.
2 Likes
Valuable though it might be for the longevity by exploiting FOMO, I don’t know how good that is for something like the story, or even for the playerbase’s sentiment in general. With the range of perceived quality in the rewards from season to season, using e.g. PvP sets as an example, I don’t agree that the disappointment of being unable to get a set you like in one season outweighs the prospect of maybe getting the one next season that might not be up to par, and especially not if something like lack of opportunity, lack of knowledge or any other reasons are involved.
Purely for the sake of example, I felt the PvP elite sets for the majority of Shadowlands were abominable, but that’s when I started actually climbing ranked – meanwhile BFA had the most thematically fitting sets in a while but I flat out wasn’t aware of it at the time. I shouldn’t just be able to buy them for 5xMedallions but I don’t see how making them available through the same means as current sets diminishes one’s achievements. As Cyrios put it, there is no prestige to “just being there” at the right time.
And where the story is concerned, extremely ephemeral story beats like the burning of Teldrassil or the entirety of the WoD setup completely destroy any chance of a player enjoying the narrative because you create these massive gaps that nobody can experience anymore despite being fundamental for the story that followed. The only way to know more becomes to look it up, but that is really not how a story is meant to be designed.
13 Likes
It’s impossible to 1:1 match the difficulty, and there might not be “prestige” in “just having been there” but there is still value in recognizing it.
And when I say story, I don’t mean the lore of the game. I mean the story of WoW as a game, the mythos/legacy/whatever. World first kills aren’t part of the in-game story, and yet Paragon killing Lich King was still a big moment for WoW as a game. Recognizing moments like that is important, and having a few cosmetics that are unobtainable unless you’re there at that moment is good.
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It’s impossible to 1:1 match the difficulty, and there might not be “prestige” in “just having been there” but there is still value in recognizing it.
True, the difficulty varies from season to season, and I’d say this season is the easiest it has ever been to acquire something like the Elite sets. You can recognize its value, but I don’t think making it exclusive to a time frame makes it any more prestigious.
a few cosmetics that are unobtainable unless you’re there at that moment is good.
There are cases I can agree with some exclusivity. For something like CE or Gladiator, having some rewards that only those people can get is fair. But that’s not the case in a lot of the current exclusive cosmetics – at least as far as I’m aware. You’ve got elite sets, prepatch event gear, mage tower, and probably a few that belonged in the Vanilla world and dungeons that Cataclysm wiped away. I can’t speak for Challenge mode because I don’t really have a frame of comparison for it. But there comes a time where you have 15 years of “a few exclusive items” that you’re unlikely to even see anyone have some of them at all.
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FOTM and Blizzard struggling with balancing should not be a factor into wanting stuff to be an option to get for lets say Gladiator sets when you reach that point.
The “value” is based on what you personally think of. The days were I was in awe of peoples cosmetics was during Vanilla and TBC when I saw grand Marshal gear, I was like 15 or something.
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It shouldn’t be but it is, that’s an inevitability. Some things are harder to get for certain specs, it is what it is. It being impossible to balance perfectly shouldn’t deter from making cool, limited-time rewards.
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I guess we disagree that time limited rewards are cool.
I don’t think its unreasonable to expect a better balancing then we have now, I do understand it can never be a perfect balance, but again I don’t think that should be a reason not to let people pick what set or mount they want.
As a mainly PvE player I’d even be fine if they do it with AOTC mounts, those silly cosmetic change shoulders, KSM mounts and even the challenge mode rewards.
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Prestige can be separated from ownership itself. Achievement dates, kills “pre Nerf” etc. are still maintained, even if an item is reintroduced or has been available in perpetuity.
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No, it can’t. Nobody is ever going to go compare achievements to check that. On the other hand seeing a guy with Death’s Demise or a R1 Gladiator mount or whatever immediately tells you “this guy did something cool back in the day”.
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