I always imagined that if we paid for previous expansions, even today, we should somehow have access to everything that was made in them. They should create ways, quests, or events that allow us to obtain each item or complete every part of that expansion.
Things that remain locked or inaccessible feel strange to me because they had a designer back then to produce the appearance, a team to write the text, place the NPCs, create the quest/event and… after the expansion ends, some items gets “locked.”
For example, I think it’s been 12–13 years since MoP, and there’s a dark red DK set from elite PvP 2.2k back then (something that would be around 1800 today) that got locked, and I’ve never seen anyone using it in-game. I see people wearing the blue and green ones, but not that dark red one.
Why would a set like that stay locked away with no access? They paid a designer, a programmer, a team to create it, color it, place it on the NPC, etc… and now it’s just there, forgotten in time…
For a completionist, this must be a nightmare…
For someone who couldn’t play the expansion due to financial issues, health problems, or life circumstances… it must be sad…
For someone who started in the following expansion, it feels strange…
They should create events or something like the PvP mounts, where you can earn a currency after reaching 100% of the current mount — there should be a percentage system where, as you make progress, you earn a token and can buy an old locked item.
For PvE, it could work like this: by playing dungeons/raids through LFG with classes marked as “call to arms,” we would gradually fill a bar that gives us a token to claim a mount or some old locked content.
For PvP, the same idea.
Then Blizzard would just need to manage what role are more necessary for every modality — usually healers/tanks for PvE and healers for PvP. They’d be solving two problems at once.