Why is Timeless Isle so fondly remembered?

[sam86]

With PvP, yeah. If you PvP'd, you probably liked this zone. If not, not.

i love pvp and i hate that zone
world pvp is alliance vs horde, i have best memories of pvp in isle of giants where we had for 2 weeks alliance vs horde vs Oondasta and result of corpses every single spot on island
timeless isle was get red and slaughter anyone during attacking rare spawns make them die and steal their kills

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MoP class design was the best to date. The most alt-friendly expansion I can recall too.

I played nearly ten classes to a high gear/content level.

SL was supposed to be alt-friendly again. So much for that.

agree
i hate pandalands theme, but no question they have the best class design ever, the time u had most buttons and utilities and tool in every single class
why the fuck they refuse to repeat it is easily answered by being too lazy to work the insane balance issues from that era

[ipoststuff]

For me it's one of the worst zones later added to an expansion. It had no story. Just an island wih rares.

[Daffan]

welfare gear

and

special collection items

[Pheraz]

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.

Personally I think it was okay. I think the best iteration of this idea was mechagon (which had nazjatar as a nice second zone).
The worst is definitely Kothria though xD

Timeless isle had those nice birds to fly you around which was nice of cool. Apart from this not so super cool as some say

[Nyel]

To be honest, I don't know. I fondly remember Isle of Thunder, as that was the peak of "new zone in a content patch" for me. Timeless Isle? Uhm... boring?

[Hitei]

One of the biggest factors is the aesthetics.

It looked very pleasant. Nice music too. Depending on the type of content you were doing, it was relaxing too.

Compare that to many of the other 'sandbox'-type hubs that Blizzard can't help but make. I'm thinking Broken Shore and Korthia. Dreary, depressing hell-holes. Generally boring. Dull.

Now, some could accuse Thunder Isle of being all those things - but unlike Broken Shore and Korthia, it actually had great quests/lore to prop it up.

Timeless Isle is everything the likes of Broken Shore and Korthia wish they were - but inevitably aren't, given the severe talent/imagination shortage on the WoW team nowadays.

Not sure if joking, but Timeless Isle is literally just reused jade forest assets.

[Shadowferal]

last actually good expansion for many

Oh my yes...overall it was just a lot of fun to me. Memorable for its aesthetic artistry in creating a specific aviance in respective zones. And well-written...up until they fucked up The Vale of Eternal Blossoms because they couldn't write Garrosh any better.

[FuxieDK]

Your opinion, not fact. Lots of people loved that stuff. They aren't wrong for doing so.

I have never ever seen/heard anyone in-game that liked any of the zones I mention.. But they were often cursed to great extend.

I don't say, that zero people liked them..... But they are extremely silent..

[DarkAmbient]

It was a fun zone at a time when the classes were arguably the best they've ever been.

[Al Gorefiend]

It felt like nothing I was doing was a waste of time.

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It was a fun zone at a time when the classes were arguably the best they've ever been.

Not shaman. I think MoP shaman was the worst iteration

[orderchaos]

no idea I hate it

[Kantoro]

[Amariw]

A bunch of reasons:

-It rewarded currency for any mob you killed. This means people like me who liked less trivial solo content had a fun dopamine inducing reason to test every new mob there was there. Learning to kill elites paid off. There were more efficent methods, true, but you could play it how you wanted and also progress your character power/get closer to mounts.
Had Nazjatar done this, i'd have a much funner time there, cuzz it also had fun elites. But only a single uncommon daily sent you to hunt elites.

-Those elites were mostly unnamed. This means people didnt gang up on them because they didnt had specific rewards. So you actually could face them as they were designed, in solo combat. You could still form a group if you needed to make things easier though or if this wasn't of interest to you. In Korthia (and Nazjatar, and Mechagon...) you either only get rewards from named elites which are consistently ganged up on, or there's barely any unnamed elites in the first place. For me, unnamed elites are part of the immersion of the outdoor world, worthy enemies which make you more wary and require attention to survive.

-Very little "miss it and lose it" content such as dailies or weeklies. This let you consume or grind at your goals at whatever pace you feel comfy with. I never felt the need to optimize, because i knew i will get why i want by just killing those cool red crystal giants eventually, or whatever else i did.

-Relaxing zone design. I wouldn't have minded more "unnatural" subzones, but the fact the zone was "gentle" in its colors and design made staying it for long a nice experience, compared to say the Maw's opressive and dreary atmosphere. I will say Nazjatar possibly even topped it by being bigger, more "epic" feeling, having geographical depth of several floors, and having more variety in its colors and feel of its subzones, all without feeling opressive. But Timeless Isle felt pleasant to be in.

-Environment had its uses. There's a ton of cool examples, so i'll try to narrow some down. There was a dangerous fire dragon elite that was possible but hard to solo on alts. A special type of trees not to far from its spawn point conferred a 50% dmg reduction buff which made this much more feasible. It was guarded by non elite sprites. This gave you a very immersive method to defeat a commonly desired elite that could drop a mount or useful reputation boosting items.
Blizz continued this trend in BFA and SL's many pickup items and temporary buffs in leveling zones, but the content is so easy you almost never feel there's a point to take them, which is a darn shame.

-Cool solo viginettes you could slowly grow better at. Finding weekly chests hidden on jumping or drop-hazzard puzzles that you could drop fr, or the "ghost mode" treasure hunt with the hide and seek elements in a cave, which had you opening chests while avoiding guardians not unlike Suramar's, where you could easliy get a really good count of rewards but you could get even more as you got better at it. This increased the variety of the experience and added a challenge that is less punishing then the frustration of dying.

-It wasn't required for high end content. As far as i remember, a raider with good gear had nothing important to gain from Timeless Isle except relatively short and finite steps for the Legendary Cloak. Same for pvp players, who already got all they needed from pvp (bless you MoP). You only did it if you wanted easy catchup gear, certain pets or mounts.


-It had a free sandbox elements. Non of the above was forced. Say you just wanted some mount or pet and didnt care for fun combat. You could just group farm frogs for efficency and it was very easy and efficent.


All in all, it was just designed in a way that showed blizz wanted you to have fun, and didnt force you to do content thats not fun.

[Pakheth]

GW2 didn't release its first endgame sandbox grind zone, Drytop, until mid 2014, over a year after Timeless Isle hit the WoW PTR. None of the other GW2 zones before Drytop were really like Timeless Isle.

To be fair I think a lot of the jumping puzzles and stuff was more inspired by Wildstar which had very varied outdoors content with mini-events and such.

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Not sure if joking, but Timeless Isle is literally just reused jade forest assets.

And? Jade forest is an amazing zone visually and a great place to just chill. Timeless Isle made sense having the same aesthetic, just set during sunset, because it's right off the coast of, you guessed it, Jade Forest.

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It felt like nothing I was doing was a waste of time.

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Not shaman. I think MoP shaman was the worst iteration

Really? I loved my shaman during MoP. Lighting Bolt on the move as Elemental. Fun healing as Resto. Enhancement actually making sense, at least to me. I really miss it.

[Shadowferal]

A place where the gods, or in this case the August Celestials let their metaphorical hair down to hang out with us plebes...and got into the arena to BRING IT! (Lost count of how many times I died to Yu'lon's green wave of fire...but fun times!)

[Kalisandra]

It felt like nothing I was doing was a waste of time.

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Not shaman. I think MoP shaman was the worst iteration

I liked MoP's Resto and Elemental, though I liked the late-Cata (Dragonsoul) versions more.

[Schizoide]

Wasn't MoP the expansion where ele could move while casting LB? Best time ever for that spec IMO.

[Hitei]

And? Jade forest is an amazing zone visually and a great place to just chill. Timeless Isle made sense having the same aesthetic, just set during sunset, because it's right off the coast of, you guessed it, Jade Forest.

And so it's funny you'd praise the "old team" for imagination and talent while talking about a zone that was literal copy pasting, especially when the zone was also populated by copy pasted enemies, and super especially when it came out after what was easily one of the worst patches the game has ever had.

[Kalisandra]

Wasn't MoP the expansion where ele could move while casting LB? Best time ever for that spec IMO.

That came in with Firelands, and was removed for WoD. So Ele and Resto had it for about an expansion and a half, and it was grand.

[Kyphael]

I loved it because of the Celestial Tournament. That was awesome and it was challenging enough as a pet battler that beating it felt like an accomplishment. It was also fun well around, more fun than Isle of Thunder and Mechagon.