Reopening the Mage Tower with Legion Timewalking in 9.1.5

[Clozer]

"We don't want to diminish the rewards of Mage Tower"

"HERE'S WEREBEAR FEL STYLE FOR EVERY GUARDIAN DRUID OUT THERE!"

The guardian druid one was outstanding. Even in Legion I felt like this was too much. PS: I have done every challenge on every spec.

[Pakheth]

FUCK YEAH!! The compromise on the werebear form means another werebear for for those of us owning the original, and is awesome for the druid players that missed out!

Yeah, I'm okay with this myself. It's such an unique form and I've had so many new players ask about mine and it's nice I can now tell them it's possible to get a version of it

[Mehrunes]

So, it's fine to "diminish" the feats of guardian druids by releasing same form, just better looking, but all others must stay unavailable? The reasoning is such a joke. Either make them all available, or keep having new druid players unsub upon hearing they're shafted without ever having a chance.

Yeah, pretty much. They could have simply made a new color variant of all the weapon models and simply made it so it doesn't unlock the old colors. A black Affliction one would be cool, for example. The reasoning isn't even particularly consistent, because the Prot Warrior/Paladin weapons are the only two flails in the game (that are also Class-exclusive so it's not like you can have two on the same character).

[SinR]

The guardian druid one was outstanding. Even in Legion I felt like this was too much. PS: I have done every challenge on every spec.

Good on you. I didnt get the Werebear and I won't be getting this one either. All I ever got was the Arms, BM, and ... Affliction (?) ones.

The fact that Blizzard is saying "we dont want to diminish the reward they earned" in one paragraph and later saying "But here's the Werebear for all Guardian druids that beat it!" is pretty... bad? they may as well just release recolors of all 36 artifact skins at this point.

[Mardux]

So, it's fine to "diminish" the feats of guardian druids by releasing same form, just better looking, but all others must stay unavailable? The reasoning is such a joke. Either make them all available, or keep having new druid players unsub upon hearing they're shafted without ever having a chance.

Jesus... Even when druids are given preferential treatment they need to complain about not getting enough.

[Pandragon]

How nice. Monks get a color variant of a set a gear that already has that color as a variant, just the new one has different colored trimming and the mythic animation.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

No new challenges or boss fights? Underwhelming rewards?

[roboscorcher]

I'm ok with recolors as rewards, but most of these recolors are worse than the originals. Some are barely different tints. Why is it so hard to choose a unique color scheme from the existing sets??

Billzard, you're already cutting as many corners as possible by using recolors. Please take a second to look at your work after using the paint bucket tool in photoshop.

I'm a pally. Give me t20 in the color scheme of t2, please.

[Clozer]

Good on you. I didnt get the Werebear and I won't be getting this one either. All I ever got was the Arms, BM, and ... Affliction (?) ones.

The fact that Blizzard is saying "we dont want to diminish the reward they earned" in one paragraph and later saying "But here's the Werebear for all Guardian druids that beat it!" is pretty... bad? they may as well just release recolors of all 36 artifact skins at this point.

Can you read? Like they even gave you their reasoning for this:

But for Guardian druids, the Mage Tower prize was an alternate bear form with a unique silhouette and animations. There is simply nothing else like it in the game. For years, we’ve heard feedback from druid players who are frustrated that something so transformative is no longer available, and we agree.

It was outstanding. This isn't devaluing any of the artifact skins that you unlocked in Legion.

[SirReal]

That's cool, WOW isn't really for the woke, entitled crowd. The safe space is -------> that way. I promise, there will be no bigotry there and no one will try to hurt your feelings. I heard they had clowns there too.

Ha! Says the snowflake offended by what people say on forums. Take your own advice homie and hit up that safe space.

[Yarathir]

Figures.

Still.. "accomplishment," lol.

[exochaft]

No new challenges or boss fights? Underwhelming rewards?

If I had to hazard a guess, the reasons for recycling the content and rewards is because this was a last-minute plan that fits into the Timewalking scheme easily enough. They don't need to redo the Legion mechanics that lead up to the tower (quests and outdoor content/gating), they just would need a NPC you talk to who teleports you to the mage tower encounter relevant to your spec/class. Do a bit of retuning, and it's all basically done from the mechanical end.

As for the rewards, similar deal since it takes a lot of time and effort to make things from scratch. I'm sort of in agreement that the druid werebear form for SL looks way better than the Legion variants, and I'd assume it may have been one of those discarded ideas that never came to fruition during Legion (and had some assets left of a fel werebear somewhere). It's still feasible they made a new skin for it, but that seems like it could be more effort than the other class set items being recolored since it appears to have an additional effect.

Conceptually, I like that they're making old content (i.e. the Mage Tower) relevant beyond its expansion. However, implementation and intent behind the changes is quite another. All the conceptual decisions seems to be made for the wrong reasons, as this feels like an attempt to keep people from leaving the game (or bring them back) with an even higher level of FOMO than when the content was originally released. Back in Legion, you had soooo much time to do the Mage Tower, but this new version is being implemented in a more restrictive fashion in terms of time. Who knows, they may even relent and allow it to be more accessible.

Regardless, changes like this should've been made or planned prior to Legion ending. More content needs to be akin to the Brawler's Guild, where you get new updates every patch or two to keep it relevant. Ideally, making the Mage Tower a core WoW feature (not just an expansion or timewalking feature) that gets updated every so often or every expansion would be a really nice change to the game. This also allows more unique and diverse rewards (not just hastily made reskins) to be planned ahead of time.

[Varx]

Figures.

Still.. "accomplishment," lol.

Unlocking all 36 skins while knowing they're time sensitive is an accomplishment I would say. Not everyone was decked out in full antorus gear either.

Good for blizzard digging their heels and keeping the skins unavailable.

[Potatowizard]

Least amount of effort in hopes of getting some new subs. Throwing whatever shit at the wall they can. What's next I wonder? Another re-colored Corehound mount? Another Ony mount? Nef mount?

[Clozer]

Least amount of effort in hopes of getting some new subs. Throwing whatever shit at the wall they can. What's next I wonder? Another re-colored Corehound mount? Another Ony mount? Nef mount?

There is nothing they could add that would make you happy. So does it really matter?

[Chriisto]

Good content! I never though I'd say that again.

[Mojo03]

I'd say my faith in their dev team is still gone.

Seems like half the leadership of the team is always stuck in an old Everquest MMO mentality of what an MMO should be, while the other half, wants the game to be more modern.

As a result, there's always these weird compromises, that feel awkward and don't really make either side happy.

It's just bad for the game.

They need to figure out exactly what they want to the game be, after 17 years (hilarious), and stop trying to please both sides, because the compromises are always underwhelming for both and ultimately hurts the game.

Probably ideal to put the people who want the game to be modern on a new MMO project where they have free reign to create something that isn't tied down by the past. WoW's been around almost 17 years now, it's time for something different.

And just let WoW be the elitist game it's leadership desperately would love nothing more than it to be.

[Radaney]

A recolour of an existing set, that's already a reskin of a previous set.

Thank you based blizzard.

Also the fact they forgot about feral druids is fucking hilarious.

Btw time limited rewards are still bad for long term growth.

[Kiwijello]

If I were still playing, the only thing offered that even piques my interest is the druid form, but I never played guardian, so no sub for that. What else ya got coming down the pike that I might want to pay for?

[SinR]

Can you read? Like they even gave you their reasoning for this:

But for Guardian druids, the Mage Tower prize was an alternate bear form with a unique silhouette and animations. There is simply nothing else like it in the game. For years, we’ve heard feedback from druid players who are frustrated that something so transformative is no longer available, and we agree.

It was outstanding. This isn't devaluing any of the artifact skins that you unlocked in Legion.

Am I frustrated that I can't get the Challenge Mode gear? Or the WOD Weapon Skins? Kinda. I see someone with that and its like "yea thats tight."

For a Druid that managed to beat the encounter back in Legion, to see this new skin of something they worked their ass off for could be seen as devaluing their accomplishments. Sure its just a reskin of the existing Werebear, but the original one is still something they worked hard to get. And we're not even sure what kind of tuning we're going to be looking at for these, it could be hard as in ToS level gear hard, or it could be Argus Gear with super inflated Artifact Levels level of difficulty.