For some time now Blizzard has been trying to reproduce the popularity of Timeless Isle. Without success.
So let me tell you what made the Timeless Isle so good for me:
It had cool and unique rewards everywhere. So I would zoom around from rare to rare trying to get cool stuff all day long.
There was a rare that dropped a blue fire elemental pet, and then a rare that dropped a beer pet, and then a rare that dropped a dragon mount, and then a rare that dropped experience potions for alts, and then a rare that dropped a toy to turn into a skeleton monkey, etc etc etc etc etc.
Interesting rewards everywhere. That’s the secret.
Now look at the Maw.
You kill rares and what do you get? Stygia. That’s not an interesting reward. I care nothing for Stygia. And it’s not even a solid amount of stygia. It’s like a drop of Stygia. The Maw fails not because there isn’t anything to do, but because there isn’t a reason to do the things.
WoW has always been all about Rewards. The real kick isn’t doing stuff, it’s getting stuff.
As long as the reward design in these Timeless Isle sequels remains uninspired, they will keep failing.
The Maw is designed to be hostile to you. They want it to be harsh and not a place where you wander around. Which is fine when you are trying to make a zone people don’t want to ever go in lore. I think where they missed the mark was making it rewarding. They should of given more than QoL buffs for Torghast and a ridiculously expensive socket lot.
Timeless isle was successful because there was stuff to do all day. Rares dropped loot every time you killed them, it was an easy terrain to navigate, ordos was something to look forward to for progression, treasure hunting for alt gearing, lots of potential gold from pet farming. It was just fun.
Blizzard’s design philosophy back then: “Lets make content that maybe a good portion of our base will want to do repeatedly.”
Blizzard’s design philosophy of today: “Lets make content that players MUST do if they want to be competitive. What, me worry?”
Ugh, all the things I’ve heard about The Maw, Torghast, Anima and Renown all make me want something simpler to do.
Right now, all I am doing is leveling alts to lvl 60 to try to decide what will be my main going forward. Which, honestly sounds a lot more fun than whatever endgame content currently is.
idk if its that easily, players get way worst in their demands with each passing year, until to this day people complain that argus didn’t had fly even tho pandaria had a bunch of flyless zones.
during bfa people complain about the drop rates of toys/mounts…but to this day I still haven’t collect everything from timeless isle.
while interesting rewards is a necessity the players heart is way more complicated than that
The thing i hate about SL is that it has trained me to largely ignore rare spawn stars and chests on my map because it’s rarely a case where you can just kill a rare to get an item or loot a chest, i got sick of running to the icon only to discover there were other gates/hurdles in place.
It’s just no fun to explore and run around anymore, why must everything be so god damned convoluted? In trying to pad the hell out of everything, Blizzard has succeeded in making sure that i play very little now, i do my daily calling and log off… yay i guess?
Some drops toys, pets and there is the mount from the shadehound event.
The problem is they made the Maw a pain to navigate and put a death penalty in the zone.
Timeless Isle was also a new thing for WoW, trying to recapture that is essentially impossible.
I don’t think the Maw is intended to be like Timeless, other zones I’m SL do though. There are plenty of rares and events going on all over the four other zones to keep one busy chasing that next dopamine hit.
Mechagon island was pretty damn close. Even Nazjtar was pretty close once you had flying.
I think a lot of the answer is in the “once you had flying” part. While the maw is light on goodies I think the main problem is the game play is so overwhelming annoying and punishing.
