Originally Posted by
Ravenblade
There was no single reason for why ToL was changed: There were many reasons and I believe gear was just a popular argument they used because let's face it many people are not much into game design and philosophies revolving around it. The looks and therefore the presentation sometimes carries a higher value than a deep and wordy explanation. The fact that people are still trumping the gear argument even though it was never the real main reason just proves that.
It is true that Moonkin was added in 1.8 and as far as I remember it the initial implementation and the reviews were atrocious at best - and that's me being using the kindest term in dictionary. Many people looked down on Moonkin-specced players with disgust to the point of denouncing these players and deny them the status of a human player.
Tree of Life was added in 2.0 and was equally atrocious, however there were two twists around it, it was a healer - a role widely if still for a great part even the only accepted role for a Druid and it's got its own unique dance, heh.
Anyways both forms sort of collided with the Druid form design philosophy which was not being the clown-in-town but having forms for purpose, combat forms and mobility forms. Mobility forms let you assume the form of a swift animal but stripped you of all your abilities whereas combat forms added new strengths, powers, abilities, resources in trade for your caster form abilities. The whole point of Druid gameplay mastery back then was - and I still recall their initial descriptions - to know when to choose which forms as the shifting was expensive, the choice was crucial and was supposed to make an impact on your gameplay.
Originally combat forms however weren't all that powerful and were not supposed to be attained permanently. There was initially a great emphasis on caster form - which artistic aspects aside was still a form too.
Now that being said the new forms were effectively matryoshkas (you know the Russian doll-inside-a-doll-inside-a-doll), they hid caster form beneath another caster form without adding a new resource to toy with, without own abilities, without deep impact on gameplay, without any special power, instead they were just bland buffs castrated by a huge malus (negative bonus). Moonkin couldn't even use Innervate in its original inception, Tree of Life was in fact moving at snail's speed which ironically forced you to shift out and thus at least retained a minimum of Druid gameplay. There were closer to a Shadow Priest's Shadow form by design than to a their original animal forms. It were two different designs colliding right there, one of them being an alien intruder even. It was said back then by the most wisest of all Druids back then that this design clash will haunt the class and the game forever. And indeed it did. Look at the road and turns which each of those 'caster'-forms had to take.
During Cataclysm beta there was a fierce debate going on about whether Moonkin at the current state at that time shouldn't be turned into a cooldown as well as it was nothing but a weak buff shell with a clunky mechanic pretending to add new gameplay twists. The designer in charge - a famous one whose name you shall never guess - designed to put it on steroids and keep it. I personally suspected then and I still do that it was merely a diplomatic move. Players were still raging about the "loss" of the Tree of Life and removing the more ancient Moonkin as well would have turned Cataclysm into Armageddon for Druids.
As the game will move on things will still change, Moonkin is still not safe, its death may have been merely postponed. However I think the new ToL design was a gesture of goodwill as well - as the developers said it has been there for a long time for the good or the bad part - and instead of just sticking to the bad part they hybridized the originally clashing design philosophies and forged it into a new super-weapon. It may not be perfect yet but it is certainly expandable.
Overall I still think the original animal-based form was sound and well-rounded, adding caster-caster forms just diluted, confused and put the class on roller-coasting state for far too long.