Why is Timeless Isle so fondly remembered?

[Lolites]

I always thought Timeless Isle was a bit overrated but I'd say even more now because people throw crap at zones like Korthia or Mechagon yet Timeless Isle was worse than both.

yeah, always makes me laugh when people are like "korthia is terrible you have to chase rares and look for treasures there, timeless isle was so much better" yeah, sure, you could ...chase rares and look for treasures there...

[Pakheth]

Oh I this is a topic I like! There were a lot of reasons.

- it was a beautiful, lush island, so pleasant to be there
- beautiful music
- a lot to do
- fun way to gear up alts
- rep grinds that were pretty fun
- fun for people collecting toys and pets
- the rares constantly created a rush
- the blood coins created the best world pvp (whether you like world pvp or not), probably ever
- because of the world pvp people had to group up again, there were notorious players, hated players and so on
- most classes were actually great in MoP
- because everyone on your realm went there a lot, people started to chat again with each other, creating a community Wow had already lost at that point (and lost since)

It was just great fun all around. After vanilla wow the best time I had with Wow personally.

Blizzard absolutely nailed that island and sadly never managed to do that again.

Agreed with all of this.
Timeless Isle was fun.

[Schizoide]

yeah, always makes me laugh when people are like "korthia is terrible you have to chase rares and look for treasures there, timeless isle was so much better" yeah, sure, you could ...chase rares and look for treasures there...

Korthia has daily quests (which I call an improvement) and the Archivist's rep, which I hate, but is greatly improved in 9.1.5.

It's also extremely small compared to the Isle of Thunder, and has basically just two biomes, the main island and the southwest area with the cliffs. None of the major have any gimmicks or cool bits of note.

The Isle of Thunder unlocked in 5 separate stages. Yes time-gating, but each unlock had a separate scenario and story behind it. Major plus. It had a ton of different looking areas, troll areas, the central bit with the statues, the raid area, beast pens, the area with the leaping monsters, the mine, and of course the troves of the thunder king scenarios. Several of the areas had their own gimmicks; saurok leaping in the crag area, statues coming to life, oozes, lore objects to find, bosses to summon, etc. There was a lot more to do, and it was more interesting to do it.

And even with all that, I was bored of the IoT shortly after maxing out the rep.

[Lolites]

It's also extremely small compared to the Isle of Thunder, and has basically just two biomes, the main island and the southwest area with the cliffs. None of the major have any gimmicks or cool bits of note.

The Isle of Thunder unlocked in 5 separate stages. Yes time-gating, but each unlock had a separate scenario and story behind it. Major plus. It had a ton of different looking areas, troll areas, the central bit with the statues, the raid area, beast pens, the area with the leaping monsters, the mine, and of course the troves of the thunder king scenarios. Several of the areas had their own gimmicks; saurok leaping in the crag area, statues coming to life, oozes, lore objects to find, bosses to summon, etc. There was a lot more to do, and it was more interesting to do it.

And even with all that, I was bored of the IoT shortly after maxing out the rep.

fair point, not sure what it have to do with my coment mentioning Korthia and TIMELESS ISLE though

[scubi666stacy]

Thematically it wasn't anything special, but it wasn't bad either, pleasantly grounded like the rest of pandaria. What i remember the most of it was the exploration and the many ways of it, like in the water, or gliding through the sky. And best of all! WPVP! Got like 3000 bloody coins from that place thanks to that red item, very fun times as a lock with many toys and items to glide and swim very very fast.

It was OK to gear up, I used the drops from there to power up my warlock alt for the Green Fire quest. Was also quite OK from the PoV of a mount and pet collector.
But my best memories from MoP come from the Green Fire questline and the MoP Challenge Mode. Also Lor'themar being badass on the Isle of Thunder.

[Biglog]

I don't think it's as fondly remembered as many think, it was ok. It did a decent job of filling quite a bit of time grinding for max level folks at the end of the expansion. Also, it came at a fairly popular time for wow as the player base was still towards it's upper range and excited for wow. So there was A LOT of pvp that happened on Timeless Isle, which added to the fun.

At the time Timeless Isle was added to the game, wow was facing some competitive pressure from Guild Wars 2 also. So Timeless Isle saw some of the 'borrowed' ideas from other games that Blizzard tried, like jump puzzles from GW2. Another semi-borrowed idea was that Timeless Isle gave a lot more danger to max level players than prior to that, so there was a sense of danger that added some fun challenge. Miss an interrupt and your player could easily die on Timeless Isle. And the spawning loot bosses were fun to follow around in groups, although that was borrowed from Rift and GW2 also. But the borrowed ideas worked well.

Timeless Isle kind of put everything in 1 place. So for example the Pet Battle Challenge was right there with the other dailies. Catch-up gear for alts was right there, not bought with Tokens in a capital city as before that. MoP overall as an expansion also benefitted from coming between (arguably) the 2 worst wow expansions, which helped it's perception as being better than it probably was. MoP had a pretty art style, beautiful music, but hit and miss raids, and ultra-repetitive questing.

An unfortunate by-product of Timeless Isle has been that it's become the model for every expansion since, which might have stifled innovation somewhat. We know every expansion will include a similar massive time sink of a zone for max level players with catch-up gear and cosmetic items, maybe mounts if you're lucky. So that's probably why each iteration of the Timeless Isle model has been a bit less fun, starting with Tanaan Jungle.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

No, it was just a worse Isle of Thunder.

I hated Isle of Thunder honestly. Was dark and too dangerous and thankfully it was also the last hurrah of the old Dailies System.


Which is also probably why people remember Timeless Isle well. It was really Blizz's first foray into what would become World Quests. Also looking back on it, it reminds me a bit of the gameplay of FF14's Exploration Zones. Where you basically run around from rare spawn to event to rare spawn farming currency.

[Zyrinx]

Didn't you have to do some bizarre seagull thing to even access some areas?

I remember that being very very slow and obnoxious.

[Santti]

I liked Timeless Isle, although I think I liked Isle of Thunder more.

The worst part about Timeless Isle was probably the frog massacre, although I don't think it was ever designed or an intended part of the Timeless Isle. It was just something the players noticed was simple and easy enough way to farm for the Charms and the Coins.

[Schizoide]

Didn't you have to do some bizarre seagull thing to even access some areas?

I remember that being very very slow and obnoxious.

Yes, but only for a couple of one-time chests and battle pets. It was just a neat gimmick since you didn't have to do it every day.

You could also fly up to the edge of the island and then goblin glider in to avoid the gulls entirely.

[Santti]

Didn't you have to do some bizarre seagull thing to even access some areas?

I remember that being very very slow and obnoxious.

I think it was used for some treasures, and some rare mob(s), but not much else. I certainly don't remember doing much of it. But it sure was slow, and I seem to remember some funny guys shooting it down, as you were riding it.

[Stormwolf64]

I dunno. Always found it weird and boring with only a grind going for it. Must be nostalgic feelings as it this type of zone was new at the time

[Firefall]

I have better and more vivid memories of the adventures and enjoyment I had from Isle of Thunder, WoD's Tanaan Jungle, Argus, Mechagon, and even earlier the Argent Tournament grounds and Cata's firelands daily hub, and I personally never understood the appeal of Timeless Isle. It felt empty and was just desperately running for a rare spawn or sitting AFK while another spawned. There's a delicate balance between too little and too much structure, and there's a time and place for both of these, but Timeless Isle to me was too minimally structured and too focused around rare spawns to be enjoyable for very long especially with how long the content had to exist before Legion. MoP was a pretty good expansion but Timeless Isle really was not the peak for me.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It was relaxing in a way that no TI clone has been since.

• There were no convoluted or arbitrary systems being shoved down my throat.

• There aren't half a dozen different systems and grinds and storylines competing for my attention.

• The mob density wasn't so obscenely jammed packed that I can't AFK for 30 seconds and come back to seeing my character having been eaten by mobs.

• There isn't tense violin music playing all of the time.

• The environment wasn't some ugly wartorn wasteland.

• There isn't a narrative about DEATH and WAR and people dying left and right.

[Zka]

TI was actually fun.
Subsequent farm zones were bland and built to slow down and inconvenience the player in every possible way. That's retail design anyway.

[Empower]

I dunno. Always found it weird and boring with only a grind going for it. Must be nostalgic feelings as it this type of zone was new at the time

I think it has to do with the fact it was optional. The problem with the new systems is they simply shove more and more required content in what should be a treasure hunt place.

[Video Games]

I didnt care much for it. I liked iqd, argus and mechagon more

[Draknalor186]

Thematically it wasn't anything special, but it wasn't bad either, pleasantly grounded like the rest of pandaria. What i remember the most of it was the exploration and the many ways of it, like in the water, or gliding through the sky. And best of all! WPVP! Got like 3000 bloody coins from that place thanks to that red item, very fun times as a lock with many toys and items to glide and swim very very fast.

You could actually farm mobs out in the world for something worth while.

I remember killing those frogs for hours

[muto]

Lots of things to do. The zone wasn’t terribly oversized like Tanaan, and Mechagon, but also wasn’t extremely small like Korthia. There was also PvP, which you couldn’t avoid, because back then we had these things called PvP servers, and you could also fight your own faction. Most people just play with Warmode off now.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Because the rest of MoP was already quite good, and class design overall was in a pretty good spot. People who wanted some daily grinds could do them there, since by the time TI was introduced you'd have easily finished any of the rep grinds over a year prior. It introduced a lot of toys in a fairly small area, so it appealed to people who were looking to collect things. Also the terrain wasn't that bad to navigate, bamboo>trees when you're locked to the ground because there aren't all the damn roots to get stuck on.

Also something really simple: It actually looked nice. It wasn't some bleak zone, it was a vibrant and colorful one. I don't remember any of the daily hubs since TI looking remotely as nice in their aesthetic theme. They're all depressing or gloomy in some regard, or just poorly laid out (usually a combination of the two).