TL;DR: The means to obtain Vanilla Naxx sets in game is a genius blend between a fun and lengthy quest chain, a massive grind, some heavy RNG, respecting the original earners’ accomplishments, giving them an opportunity to make a fat stack off from all of this, all while making the process so tedious and laborious that it will likely dissuade all but the most insanely dedicated. In light of this, I’ve whipped up my own ideas for how MoP Challenge Mode Sets and Legion Mage Tower Artifact Appearances could return by using the same design philosophies- but with each having their own fun little twist.
Ok before we get to the ideas, lets establish what makes these means of acquisition so great:
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The first part of getting the Naxx Tier 3 sets requires time, patience, and is a well made breadcrumb trail hunt. It takes a long time to get through.
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Once that quest chain is done, the material farming aspect of this involves many days, many runs, and requires some serious resolve to potentially do these instances 100s of times.
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The first part of the crafting aspect is hard-baked between RNG and having a lot of gold, which means being loaded isn’t enough, and if you prefer that, you still have to deal with bidding wars and the item frequency scarcity via the Black Market Auction House.
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The second part of the crafting aspect is arguably the best part of all; It’s a genius example of design that gives the power to the players who did it when it happened, and finds the perfect balance between gatekeeping and accessibility. It puts their money where their mouths are; they hold the power to gatekeep (not exactly condoning that but alas) other players from getting Tier 3, but they also hold the power to allow others to have tier 3 at a price they set on top of the phat 2.8 mil overall price tag. It’s diabolical, but it’s also extremely clever.
To those who protested Tier 3 ever returning because they got it originally now have full control on whether they want to stand their ground with their gatekeeping, or succumb to their own greed and sell out, proving they clearly don’t mind other players having it that badly if it makes them a pretty penny. Classic.
Now, everything I said can be logically applied to other cosmetics that have gone the way of the dodo. This entire design ideology has so many barriers of access, requires so much time, gold, patience, and dedication, that it perfectly highlights how to correctly implement older items that are gone now.
Using this rationale that aims to make the process a living hell, a gigantic time sink, a gigantic money sink, and require the approval of the original players who got it (on their own terms), my ideas below are for the Challenge Mode sets from Mists and the Legion Mage Tower appearances, but could also be done for WoD Challenge weapons, or other items that have become unobtainable. Hopefully you’re entertained by the ideas I’ve stewed up.
MoP Challenge Mode Sets
- A questline with the lorewalkers;
- You explore the tales of the “Elite challengers of Pandaria” who conquered their foes at a breakneck speed.
- What follows is a breadcrumb trail questline, that retells the history of how these coveted armor sets were originally created to begin with, and to earn the favor of the ghosts of the original wearers from centuries ago (cool npcs blizz makes idk)
- Those original wearers send you on a great journey collecting materials across pandaria raids and dungeons (like scholo and naxx for t3)
- Quest line ends with those ghosts telling you that the set has been passed down through generations, and one’s blessing to recraft a duplicate requires the current wearers (any players with the CM sets that are the same class as the player trying to get it) approval
- Much like the Naxx sets, the “approval” is in the form of a crafted item that, when combined with all of the other required reagents, lets you create a bad-luck protected item that when used, has a 10% chance to be a piece of your class’ challenge mode set. If it isn’t, it will be a piece of the Legion order hall set (aka the cheap copy). Every failed attempt increases your odds by 1%, and at 100% odds, it is a guaranteed drop, which means this process is costly, even if the stars align for you luck-wise.
- Also like the Naxx sets, the crafted items come in bundles of Wrist + Gloves, Helmet + Shoulders, Chest + Waist, Legs + Feet.
- This means the unluckiest person out there would have to pay for crafting 32 times
- This also means theoretically they could never get it if all challenge set holders unionized and refused to sell out!
- Once you’ve acquired all 4 combo pieces of your class’s challenge mode set, you can then combine them into Ensemble: [your class’s challenge mode set]
- However, the Ensemble cannot be consumed to grant you the transmog set without first having the character-specific achievement [Blessed by a True Conqueror!].
- To get this achievement, you must find a player with the [Challenge Conqueror: Gold] feat of strength, who is also currently transmogged with at least 4/8 appearances of their challenge set, and kneel to them within interaction range next to the original Challenge Mode Set vendor in Shrine of the Seven Stars/Two Moons.
- Doing so grants you a 30 second buff called “[Their character name]: Respecting One Of The Greats”, and grants them a 30 second buff called “[Your character name]: Being Paid Due Respect” (this is so in a crowded environment with a crowded chat log,
you can find each other). - If both buffs are active, If they /salute, /nod, /bow, /cheer or /clap while targeting you, before the buffs expire, you get the feat of strength “[Blessed by a True Conqueror!]”, allowing to finally consume the ensemble and get the challenge mode set. They will get the feat of strength “[Rise, For I Knight Thee!]”.
- This means they can still run away, they can refuse to emote back until you pay up, or create whatever terms they want, (maybe an I scratch your back, you scratch mine arrangement? World’s your oyster) before agreeing to do it back.
Legion Mage Tower Weapons
- A new reason for players to take up archaeology.
- You’re tasked by the Explorer’s League/Reliquary to uncover certain ancient weapons that were buried beneath the rubble of the first mage tower many many years ago (aka whichever weapons you didn’t get on your account).
- First barrier of entry? You’ve gotta max out archaeology (it takes ages), then you need to get all Pristine Legion (Highmountain, Highborne, Demonic) artifacts
- Once the Exp. League sees your finesse with treasure hunting, you’re tasked to collect fragments of the forgotten gate, scattered across the Broken Shore. The fragments are easy to collect at first, but the more you have, the more rare they become.
- You’re then tasked to collect some powerful Fel energies from within the Tomb of Sargeras, which is a grind equivocal to shadowfrost shards in ICC
- You’ve collected all fel energy needed, and with the fragments of the forgotten gate, can reassemble a gateway that spawns a portal into the first mage tower, back in time.
- Any time you go to the mage tower, you can instead do the “first mage tower”, a separate portal that leads you to the challenge for your spec/class once per week.
- Each successful weekly clearing of your chosen spec’s “first mage tower” challenge grants 2-10 shards of “fleeting memories of [artifact appearance]”. At 100 shards, you can combine them to create “memory of [artifact appearance]”.
- You can only pursue one mage tower artifact spec for your class at a time. Each spec will take MANY weeks to complete, at least 20 if your RNG is good.
- If you already have/once you have all of the mage tower artifact appearances for your class, you instead get random “fleeting memories” (shards) towards any of the class/specs that share your classes’ mage tower challenges.
- (i.e, Let’s say I’m a Warrior, with all 3 MT appearances- If I specced as Arms, and entered the challenge mode for the first mage tower, my weekly fleeting memories would instead randomly be towards Frost Dk, Havoc DH, SV Hunter, or Sub Rogue’s mage tower appearances.
- You will only get shards towards appearances you don’t have, so the players who completed more of them back in the day will have way less of a grind.
- And unlike your class’s appearances, which you can focus on to earn shards for week by week, these are totally random- which means even if you’re grinding for just the Frost DK appearance, you’d still get SV shards, Sub rogue Shards, and Havoc shards.
- RNG willing, you might end up completing the memories of every other weapon before even getting the first shard towards the actual appearance you want, and it could take literal years.
- This means once you have all 3 artifact appearances on your class, you have to choose between potentially weeks or months of weapon shard RNG mentioned above, or farming archaeology again on another toon to 950 (oh the horror) if you’d rather farm towards a specific mage tower weapon.
- Once you finally have enough shards from x weeks/months/years of farming, you take those shards to the bronze dragons, ask them to repair the shards through time for you.
- Part of that item’s recipe is “fel-touched sands” a rather expensive item that is needed in abundance and costs a lot of money.
- Only one problem, once you have all of the shards of [memory of [artifact appearance]], and the pricey mats for it, the bronze dragon says they cannot restore it without the final item; “Demonslayer’s approval” a crafted item that, much like the Naxx set recipes, can only be made by the specific players of the same class as the desired weapon appearance who also have the Feat of Strength “A Challenging Look”.
- This creates “Blessed memory of [artifact appearance]”, a BoA weapon that can only be wielded by the associated class + spec. It is quite tame in its stats, and when wielded, simply looks like the default spec artifact weapon. It also has a unique Use effect: Combine with “Demonslayer’s blessing” to reforge the great [artifact appearance]"
- How do you get Demonslayer’s blessing? Well, unlike the previous examples that simply require a work order made by the veterans, this requires something a little more devious…
- You have to defeat the same veteran who gave their approval in a duel, where both combatants are scaled down to equal ilvl. If that veteran logs off and never returns? Or griefs you? After 90 days, it simply requires any “A Challenging Look” holder of that class/spec to duel.
- This puts the same moral dilemma onto the veteran player as the with Naxx sets. The veteran could willingly forfeit for a hefty price, or they could put a price tag on even duelling to begin with. Or if they believe themselves better, stomp you over and over again and gatekeep you from getting the appearance.
Congrats if you’ve made it to the bottom. If there was still ever any doubt, watch and bare witness as <1% of the playerbase see through to even unlocking the Naxx sets. Proving that even if the items were to return, the overwhelming majority would most likely give up somewhere along the way, and preserve the original scarcity that made the items so great in the first place.