I always see people compare patches to Timeless Isle. As if, Timeless Isle was the epitome of patch content. But why is it held in such high regard?
I do have a fond memory of Timeless Isle but mainly because of World PvP. This was pre-war mode and in my opinion, the last expansion before phasing / sharding completely ruined world PvP. The phasing shenanigans did start during MoP but it was still the best world PvP expansion in my memory.
But surely that’s not the reason, as most people hate PvP. So what made Timeless Isle so special?
Rare farm island? Check
Timegated story - Check
World Boss - check
Rep Farm - check
Dailies - check
Treasures - check
So how’s that different than the patches like Emerald Dream? Was it the legendary cloak questline? Was it something else I’m missing? Surely we’re not talking about it in such high regard because of the story. I don’t even remember the story of timeless isle.
It was good because they designed it perfectly imo.
Didn’t die on arrival like caverns did. Most mobs were soloable besides bosses which didn’t even require many people most times. Lot of interesting loot drops too, I actually wanted to get those pets/mounts.
Personally, I blame blizzard for what happened to the newer zones. Its like they don’t want people to mindlessly farm these bosses despite that being their sole purpose. So they give them insane health pools and weird spawn rates. Timeless isle was always supposed to be mindless fun and you could tell that the devs wanted you there.
Timeless isle is also the closest wow has came to those meta event trains you see in other games. People would rotate all over the isle going boss to boss and it was amazing. No flying felt pretty good too
LIke most of the things in WoW, it was only good because it was the first time people were doing it.
Although if you spent a lot of time there, there were some crazy cool and interesting things you could do with the thing that proplels you up in the air and the levels. There was also a mount that basically no one could get that was farmed like crazy, a pvp long-term reward in bloody coins, a world boss, treasues, and I believe the first time BoA gear was used for catch up.
We just have the same thing every patch now forever which is why it’s lame.
It was the first of its kind back then, and it had enough rewards/grinds to keep players busy for a long while. Heck, I practically lived there for months. I enjoyed the place a lot.
I liked Timeless Isle because it allowed me to farm the island’s currency just by mindlessly killing things around the island (instead of farming WQs for their zone’s currency). You don’t know how blissful it is just to kill things in an area when you aren’t expected to expand a story arc through quests.
If you kinda want a challenge, you start killing Gulp Frogs before they will kill you. If you wanted a real challenge you go to the Elite Yuongul areas to farm Emperor Shaohao rep.
Since Chromie Time is a thing, I still go there from time to time just to level by killing things instead of questing. Sure it takes longer, but it can be so fun (for me at least).
I remember a couple of things. When character first arrived at Timeless Isle, I had trouble killing mobs, but after a few upgrades (which were account bound so this was only an issue for the first toon) it was easier to kill mobs. There were always difficult mobs, but there were enough manageable ones for my modest gearing. There were usually rares up quite frequently, and people tried to get in on the tag before it died. One negative I remember is I would get annoyed when I was a missing the shoulder slot upgrade, and it took a long time to finally get it. At the time, I really wanted a way to buy specific upgrades. Overall, it was fine I suppose.
It was the first time we saw content like that in WoW. It was good. In 2013. At this point people are getting tired of it, but I don’t really see what Blizzard could do differently.
I think thoughtful layout was a big part of Timeless Isles success. Outside of the raised elite plateau area past the bridge, you could pretty easily race from one spot to the next as rares and events spawned.
Later zones tended to be overdesigned and a bit more mazelike.
I hated it but it was nice that it had many cool rare drops. I think it was able to pull community together to play during a long long patch. That was the best it did.
Timeless Isle was the first content in WoW that revolved around the idea of having something to do or discover in every corner. It felt like a playground you could spend in all day.
The gear tokens that dropped were good for leveling gear right up through the start of Legion. Now old gear is intentionally nerfed immediately, so levelers have crap gear and will be inspired to do mythic raiding to make the suffering end.
Timeless Isle was great because it was new. We’d seen something like it before, true, such as Quel’Danas, but Timeless Isle perfected the concept. Blizzard turned that into a formula, and it’s since gotten old.
I liken it to Legion and Class Artifacts. Everyone loved them, because it was new. We grew attached to our Artifact weapons for the effort we put into them. Then Blizzard gave us Azerite/Heart of Azeroth, then Covenants… Losing progress to start over again became old and tired. Everyone will always love Legion and their class artifacts, but hate the others, because in Legion it was new and exciting.
So, I’d say it falls somewhere between nostalgia and novelty.
