Timeless Isle type content a winner

[Buildapanda]

How and where is PvP forced? Is that even on PvE servers?

Faction cities lied about and moved next to ashran.

[Tanro]

Boring as shit. I've tried to go there and care. As much as some LFR runs frustrate me. Piss me off so much I just wanna shove gold up a leprechauns ass, I prefer LFR over TI because it is interesting, more interesting than wandering aimlessly for no apparent reason.

Of course at this point in time I prefer to just craft and camp my AH between raiding or doing guild runs of some sort.

[Soeroah]

I much prefer dailies. I loved dailies. TI was the second-most likely period I was thinking of subbing for a while, with 5.3 being the first.

I'm in the WoD beta and the "Timeless Isle type content" currently implemented...I like the way the rares are being handled. The bonus objectives are just large quests without an NPC giving them to you. They are personal, so there's no rush to get to them, and no real competition, which is good, but I struggle to call them "events".

I'd much prefer multiple daily areas, like at the beginning of MoP, just more along the lines of 5.1's and less "thou must doeth dailies to progress".

Thankfully it's easy enough to make gold and profession materials on the beta.

[Deleted]

Faction cities lied about and moved next to ashran.

But you will only be flagged for PvP when you enter Ashran, right?

[Trickname]

I like the idea but I have no idea what to do there, I don't play an alt so I have no need for the gear offered there. Hope if they continue with the model they offer something to grind for / work towards for main characters which isn't just waiting for a rare spawn.

[Tenjen]

Each content patch in MoP was both content unto itself and a test with new things. the kasarang war, ToT isle features, the barren spawn/collection/gear events and finally timeless isle. you'll see features and elements from each previous one included in in some of the future ones, usually in a more developed manner.

using all this data, they made a more refined set of features in WoD

[Einsz]

Mindlessly running around with no real reason on the island with 0 lore or any story. No thanks, its so cheap from blizzard side. Its the most retarded content type

[Deleted]

Just shows how people have different tastes I hate quests hubs. I would rather have a zone with nothing but a few vendors and tons of mobs to kill.

[aziras]

Timeless Isle is great "small group" content. Got nothing better to do? go grind some elites in TI. Yes, it is grindy! but some players actually like a little grind in their MMOs. Your's truly being one of those.

WoW have had these elite areas in vanilla. In vanilla, they didn't really give much in terms of rewards (chimaerok meat being one of the few). It is also something that is in almost every other MMO out there (especially the Asian variants). You grind hard mobs indefinitely, with a small chance of something nice dropping, but otherwise just a bunch of regular loot.

The combination of an elite grind-hub like TI and something like IoT (as the daily quest-hub alternative) is great for non-group endgame. As long as they continue to keep the rewards current (or just add new hubs as needed) they can keep a lot of activity in the game. MMO's need this kind of casual grinding. And by "casual" I mean that you can step out at any time without a penalty. It works to keep queue times filled with activity, and the fact that they scale up to 5man in group size makes it ideal filler content for guilds at off-hours. Because if you have 5 people online with time to commit, there is other things you can do. But with less than 5 people, it is this kind of content you need.

The fact that they made it a massive gear catch-up trap slightly clouds the endgame viability of it though. IMO they should have stuffed the "timeless gear tokens" in 5man HC endboss loot tables and made people chain-run 5mans to get them. Still BoA so it did not make any difference which character you went on, and so you could still pile for alts. TI would have been fine without the free loot, so there was no reason to stick that ugly badge on it to downgrade the perception.

I surely hope that WoD endgame will contain elite grindzones and daily quest hubs. If the only endgame they will offer is raiding, it will be pretty stale very fast.

- - - Updated - - -

Just shows how people have different states I hate quests hubs. I would rather have a zone with nothing but a few vendors and tons of mobs to kill.

I'm with you on this. The WoW-style MMOs could learn something from EVE online. Grinding "mobs" in EVE online involves searching for pirates in the middle of nowhere (hoping you don't hit something worse than pirates). WoW should have massive "connection zones" with nothing but mobs in them, which you could bypass when going from quest-hub to quest-hub, but go adventuring into when you got bored at maxlevel. Add in some random event spawns for flavor and you would have the foundation of my all-time best MMO.
These zones would also serve as a rough awakening for new players. Because it would be like Son of Arugal on steroids if you happened to venture too far off the safe path at low level.

Right now WoW is huge, but it has no desolate areas. Everything is connected by a max 5min flight. After they allowed flying everywhere, it hardly takes any time getting from a random A to a random B. It used to be a journey getting to Maraudon. These days you don't even have to go there!

[Dristereau]

On PVP Servers being ganked by a Group of 5 Guildies in Heroic Gear on your own Faction wasn't fun. Also I think the place should also compensate Melee, given as usual almost every mechanic seems to be designed to kill them. Finally, Yaungol's. Yaungol's that charge. /rage

Have I enjoyed Timeless Isle? Not really. As I've said, it essentially was punishing to play my Horde Alts on a PVP Server simply due to Guild's running round in Full Heroic Gear slaughtering people with the Ordos things. In terms of my Alliance, it was a way to earn Valor and some pretty crappy 496/535 Gear with little to no effort, making most of the first Tier of Raiding, especially LFR, obsolete. It was a grindfest, focusing on a slow reputation or Valor grind from killing Mobs, often Gulp Frogs, and attempting to run to rares that were either impossible to solo or died before you could get there. Evermaw was essentially ignored on my Realm before the connection, because it had so much health and took so long for it to die, especially given it went into fatigued water.

For the Characters that needed the Timeless Items, mobs were extremely difficult to kill, given their mechanics, especially Gulp Frogs and Yaungol. For those that didn't, it was pretty darn easy to kill things. The Random Stats on the items also meant that Burden's could be wasted, or you could get something that was completely useless.

Also there is no linearity in the zone at all. Not really a story to develop besides those Hourglasses, which were locked behind a grind. I felt that Isle of Thunder and Lion's Landing worked much better in developing the story, advancing the plot, and giving some sense of direction, which I feel Timeless Isle lacks.

Timeless Isle for me is essentially a Grind fest. I go there because it is the most recent content and most rewarding, giving Timeless Coins for ToT Bonus Rolls and Valor, Valor from the Daily/Weekly/Timeless Coins, Lesser Charms, and World Bosses.

[Daffan]

It's only extremely popular because the choices are narrow at this point. Do I go toTI? Or run SoO for the 700th time? Or do I sit in SW.

ding ding ding winner

Where to get skip gear for alts? TI

Where to grind the mounts or whatever? TI

.......

Real options here! Personally i last about 25 minutes on TI with tomtom macros and than leave on new characters.

[morislayer]

I only do TI to get Valor to upgrade my gear. It's a necessity I don't want to do. Now do I want to do dailies / dungeons instead, no I don't want to do any of that crap.

TI is basically go get a buff, go get a quest, go kill mobs (and I play on PVP server so sometimes shit goes down). I am a robot basically once I land, just like dailies....It's awful, but it's something to do till my bg que pops.

I have faith that Ashran will be better. The whole chests, rares, coins for easy loot was nice the first month gearing alts. That part I won't disagree with.

TI did have that weekly quest...They also should have put in a monthly event with new quests since it will last a year.

[Kelimbror]

TI has been kept relevant with character boosts. Most people looking for gear out there are boosted and want to get into SoO LFR. Others are achievement hunting or just hanging out, same as they do anywhere else in the game.

[quras]

I didn't even realize TI has dailies.

Why anyone spent more than 5 minutes a week there for anything other than ordos is beyond me.

I think people spend time there now because after a year of no content to live, what else are you going to do?

[Deleted]

My experience varies from realm to realm.

On super realms rares die in seconds and are camped like crazy, mobs are dead everywhere. People are behaving like selfish dicks. TI is a pain.

On high populated realms people announce rares and most of them give others chance to get to rare. People are cooperating. TI on such realms is awesome.

On low populated realms there are not enough people to kill big rares, sometimes its hard to find group for rep/mobs farm. TI on such realms is boring.

Overall I like it and looking forward to more content like that. Beats doing dailies any day.

[Varabently]

I'd really like to see TI without the gear being so good. 535 gear is just too much and 496 negates LFR for a whole tier (MSV+HoF+ToES) and is really close to a second tier (ToT). I do not like catch-up content like this.

I'd much rather have seen 476 gear with upgrades to 502. That way, it's in line with LFR, so you can choose to do one or the other. Hopefully Blizz won't make it such a loot pinata if they bring another TI-style zone. It's a fun zone, I like getting pets, I like the pvp, etc. It just shouldn't be used to render older content useless. It should supplement the already existing ways to get gear.

It's nice that the gear is random and doesn't give you optimal pieces though. They should continue to do that, but make the LFR gear more optimal, since it's harder to get (you can't just farm it all up, but it limited to weekly).

In general though, I agree. It's a good content style that's much better than just doing 50 dailies a day. It's dynamic and random, which keeps people interested. I'd like the gear to be scaled down as described above though.

[Venziir]

I disliked TI, it was so pointless after the first few hours. No, 5.1 and 5.2 was where it was at.

[Sevyvia]

Honestly, I hope they abandon that type of content entirely. I hate the fact that there's no quests, just rares that nobody I know gives a fuck about to kill.

[Varabently]

My experience varies from realm to realm.

On super realms rares die in seconds and are camped like crazy, mobs are dead everywhere. People are behaving like selfish dicks. TI is a pain.

On high populated realms people announce rares and most of them give others chance to get to rare. People are cooperating. TI on such realms is awesome.

On low populated realms there are not enough people to kill big rares, sometimes its hard to find group for rep/mobs farm. TI on such realms is boring.

Overall I like it and looking forward to more content like that. Beats doing dailies any day.

Don't the rares scale with the number of people around? I guess I never realized the super rares don't do scaling like that. The normal rares certainly do, but I guess those aren't really the issue.

[Lotus Victoria]

TI is fun, but can be boring sometimes. Still, TI > Dailys.