Forbidden Reach zone was cool then it wasn't

[Tojara]

If you play a lot you're going to burn out of the content regardless lol, it's just how it works.

For a mid season patch it's a pseudo new zone that is basically designed for catch up on alts, among a host of other things like collectibles that people generally seem to enjoy. It has a single high iLvL item that may or may not be good for your class that doesn't take long to get and more ways to catch up on reputation in addition to crafting as well. It also has a bit of story build up, although not that long as a preamble into the next patch.

For a patch that is suppose to just be a tide over until 10.1, I'd say it's pretty good all things considered. I don't care about my alts that much and only real play one character, so I did the questline, checked out the vault (was kind of cool), and am back on maintenance mode until 10.1.

It's not required in the slightest and the ring is hit or miss depending on what you play. It's just a solid catch up zone IMO that is great for people who are still actively playing or care about any of the things listed above. It basically does what its set out to do pretty well honestly. If the Forbidden reach was suppose to last us 4-5 months I'd agree, but the next patch is coming out what, mid May to early June at the latest?

[shane brannigan]

my only issue with the zone is the placement of some rares being annoying and that one event that keeps bugging out.

Other than that it's good for what it is, a boost zone for alts.
That being said, I think the ring and the acquisition of gems could of been more involved. I just feel a little cheap walking away with BiS gems fully upgraded after only opening half a vault. Because I could crush the gems to target stuff, the pay out on that was too good.

[Rozz]

Tbh, I'd be okay with them making theme park islands an occasional thing and not every X.5/whatever patch. I'll never be able to recapture the fun of the Timeless Isle/Isle of Giants. It was really derpy, lethal, and engaging all at the same time. I can't think of one where besides that one I actually enjoyed. Maybe Mechagon was close because it was really quirky.

I'd rather spend X.whatever patches on other activities besides rare-spawn camping and the like.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

All Timeless Isle clones forwent the game design decisions that made the original Timeless Isle so compelling. I've talked about the failings of the prior ones before.

The primary issue with the Forbidden Reach as a TI clone is that there is no tension. There is no challenge, no fear of failure or real consequences for failing.

In Timeless Isle, you could not fly straight to the rare. You had to navigate around the terrain and avoid and deal with the mobs. It could take 3 to 4 minutes to travel from the graveyard or the flightpoint up to Cinderfall's area/Ordon Sanctuary. It was very possible to die along the way. The Yaungol mobs up the hill were especially dangerous, incentivizing players to group together. The actual rares themselves were very deadly and many, many people died. Groups were wiping to Cinderfall even after a full year while in normal/heroic SoO gear or Prideful Gladiator gear. Also, the time to kill the rares was pretty quick. They would go down in 10-20 seconds. A fight longer than 30 was unusual. As such, your death had consequences. If you died along the way to, or at the rare fight, you would not make it back in time to tag or loot the corpse before it disappeared, and that rare would not spawn again for another hour. Another issue is that repair bills were VERY EXPENSIVE. It was entirely possible to go broke and get stuck and have to ask other people for some gold, so you REALLY did not want to die. That really changed how you thought about the game and played it.

This is not the case in the Forbidden Reach. With maxxed out dragonriding (trivial to obtain), you can boost to any rare on the island within 30 seconds or less. You are at no risk of dying to mobs along the way. The rares themselves are not threatening. I have spent 5 hours at the Forbidden Reach and have only ever seen one person die. He died because he was level 66. I intercessioned him, but even if he had to fly back to his corpse he would have easily made it back in time anyway given that you ride a flying mount while dead AND because Forbidden Reach rares usually survive for at least a minute. Also, the game has experienced bonkers gold inflation. Repair bills are peanuts. If you die, you just zerg back into the action without a second thought.

There are a few other issues with the Forbidden Reach. Unlike TI, there is no reputation or currency grinds to work towards, as in pets or mounts to buy. The rares also dropped unique pets, mounts, and toys like the highly covetted Falling Flame, which had charges and kept people coming back to kill Cinderfall to get more charges. Also no sandbox PvP system and grind like the Censer of Eternal Agony, nor the challenging Celestial Tournament. People still do TI to this day for that reason. I doubt anyone will be doing the Forbidden Reach after Dragonflight is over.

The Forbidden Reach isn't as pleasing of a place to hang out in for hundreds of hours on end like TI was. The colors are desaturated, there is menacing music playing, and the story context of the zone is rather oppressive given that most of the island is occupied by hostile forces. You're not chilling out an island filled with mostly wild animals like TI, listening to beautiful music.

[Irian]

But the quests? Beyond dull.
The new characters? Beyond one dimensional.
Plot? Predictable isn't even the word, its the lowest tier of writing wow has ever had.

You just described the massive majority of WoW's history. That's how Warcraft is written, if you don't like hammy, over-the-top fantasy stories then you're playing the wrong game.

Or are you going to argue that Illidan was a totally deep and interesting character? Or that WoW's questing has ever been anything but dull? The game even pokes fun at it sometimes.

[Kokolums]

New zones pretty as usual the art team kills it, every damn time.

completely disagree. forbidden reach looks like trash. normally these zones are forgettable at best but this one is truly an eyesore.

[arandomuser]

its not even a .5 patch its a .7 patch a starting zone repurposed to add stuff is amazing, ppl complain about anything nowadays

[Ielenia]

- Why aren't there Flight Paths around Forbidden Reach?

The Forbidden Reach is a rather small zone. There isn't exactly room to just litter it with flight paths.

it's a pain in the butt flying around there due to the steep mountains, and my dragon always running out of vigor to fly around the zone easily.

I don't know what to tell you. I rarely run out of vigor while flying around the Forbidden Reach, even back and forth while going from one rare ot the next. If you have all the glyphs, it's just a matter of managing your Thrill of the Skies buff.

- See a Rare on the map, then get to that area, but the Rare's not there, but hidden down below or something. It can be difficult to find some Rare's because not easily noticeable or accessible.

Get the Handynotes addon for the Forbidden Reach where it marks the rare locations on the map with an icon, where if you hover your mouse over it, it'll tell if it's underground, and if so, where the entrance is.

[Dristereau]

It's pretty basic, with the Vaults being the more interesting aspect and otherwise being a good catchup mechanic for Alts. Some of the Rares are annoyingly located to the point I ignore them (creche ones) but it's a little power spike for our Raid Team (6/8 Mythic) so a bit of a content nerf as well as an easy set of 359 gear for being there for about 10 minutes. The BOA Tokens drop like candy and I'll be using them to unlock the Normal/Heroic Tier set mogs so its a win for me. There's also a bit of transmog for the Overflowing currency that gave me two achievements in 5 minutes.

Overall its not going to make you jump out your seat but a little bit of filler content for players to spend time in. The only real gripe I have is that I don't get why the 395 upgrade tokens are not Account Wide, I have 6 on my main and I don't get why they can't be BOA like the tokens. Also it would be nice for a way to spend 5k Overflowing currency for the Storm Sigils to upgrade to 2/3.

[Kokolums]

it would be nice if they actually removed spam block from general chat in zones like this, so people can actually, you know, COMMUNICATE zone wide about the state of things, like what is going on at a given rare, which faction is in control, percentage, etc. its SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stupid that you are playing an MMO where people SHOULD be communicating and blizz outright blocks communication because people are too lazy to just switch off zone chat if they dont want it.

[Jester Joe]

In Timeless Isle, you could not fly straight to the rare. You had to navigate around the terrain and avoid and deal with the mobs. It could take 3 to 4 minutes to travel from the graveyard or the flightpoint up to Cinderfall's area/Ordon Sanctuary. It was very possible to die along the way. The Yaungol mobs up the hill were especially dangerous, incentivizing players to group together. The actual rares themselves were very deadly and many, many people died. Groups were wiping to Cinderfall even after a full year while in normal/heroic SoO gear or Prideful Gladiator gear. Also, the time to kill the rares was pretty quick. They would go down in 10-20 seconds. A fight longer than 30 was unusual. As such, your death had consequences. If you died along the way to, or at the rare fight, you would not make it back in time to tag or loot the corpse before it disappeared, and that rare would not spawn again for another hour. Another issue is that repair bills were VERY EXPENSIVE. It was entirely possible to go broke and get stuck and have to ask other people for some gold, so you REALLY did not want to die. That really changed how you thought about the game and played it.

This is some weird glorification that shouldn't exist.

It was very easy to run up to Cinderfall unless you were drastically undergeared, especially on any server that was populated since there was probably people already running in front of you.
But even if there wasn't, it was pretty easy to take a path that would tether the mobs before they would really do much of anything.

Also rares dying in seconds is awful. There is nothing fun about being forced to wait in a single spot if you want a rare for an hour to hope you don't have to pee or look away for a few moments. Huolon was especially toxic when you'd have people pulling him on top of the bridge so no one could tag him.

[liyroot]

The games developers are simply out of touch now. I have a strong feeling wow is on maintenance mode and the fans just don't want to accept it.

New zones pretty as usual the art team kills it, every damn time.

But the quests? Beyond dull.
The new characters? Beyond one dimensional.
Plot? Predictable isn't even the word, its the lowest tier of writing wow has ever had.

Yet we'll play, because it's what we do.

For some reason WoW fans think a billion dollar company cares about them and not their debit cards. They will always do the bare minimum that keeps you subscribed.

[Kallisto]

The games developers are simply out of touch now. I have a strong feeling wow is on maintenance mode and the fans just don't want to accept it.

New zones pretty as usual the art team kills it, every damn time.

But the quests? Beyond dull.
The new characters? Beyond one dimensional.
Plot? Predictable isn't even the word, its the lowest tier of writing wow has ever had.

Yet we'll play, because it's what we do.

So wow is basically the same game it's alway been?

[liyroot]

You just described the massive majority of WoW's history. That's how Warcraft is written, if you don't like hammy, over-the-top fantasy stories then you're playing the wrong game.

Or are you going to argue that Illidan was a totally deep and interesting character? Or that WoW's questing has ever been anything but dull? The game even pokes fun at it sometimes.

So wow is basically the same game it's alway been?

I love this argument. "WoW has always sucked! If you're just realizing that now you should just GIT OAUUUT." Even the people defending the game have to resort to saying it's terrible in order to say you're dumb for saying it's terrible. God my brain..

[Jester Joe]

I love this argument. "WoW has always sucked! If you're just realizing that now you should just GIT OAUUUT." Even the people defending the game have to resort to saying it's terrible in order to say you're dumb for saying it's terrible. God my brain..

I dunno what I expect anymore from this honestly, but that isn't the point.

It's that it's silly to complain about content being similar if you enjoyed it in the past.

It's like buying pokemon to complain that it's still pokemon. Like, yeah, of course it is.


I really shouldn't have to explain this.

[liyroot]

I dunno what I expect anymore from this honestly, but that isn't the point.

It's that it's silly to complain about content being similar if you enjoyed it in the past.

It's like buying pokemon to complain that it's still pokemon. Like, yeah, of course it is.


I really shouldn't have to explain this.

I know you have a pact with Satan to instantly disagree with anything I say, but both those guys are literally arguing the game has always been bad. That's their argument for defending the new content.

[Jester Joe]

I know you have a pact with Satan to instantly disagree with anything I say, but both those guys are literally arguing the game has always been bad. That's their argument for defending the new content.

No, they're not saying the game has ALWAYS BEEN BAD. They're saying, and I quote, "if you don't like hammy, over-the-top fantasy stories then you're playing the wrong game."

You're misattributing words in ways that weren't said. They said questing itself can be dull, not that the story ITSELF OR the game is bad. No one said "Wow has always sucked", that's entirely on you and I have no idea why you're so intent on constantly saying how bad everything is.

[arkanon]

If you play a lot you're going to burn out of the content regardless lol, it's just how it works.

I love this argument. Its not bad content, everyone is just burnt out. Played since cata? burnt out. Played since vanilla? burnt out. Played since legion? Burnt out. Play 10 hours a week? Burnt out. Played 10 hours a day? burnt out.

When the game had over 12m players, anyone who quit had burnt out. When it had 8m - burnt out. 5M - burnt out. 2m - burnt out. 0? everyone burnt out.

Does it EVER cross anyones mind that possibly, the product just isnt as good as it once was? I can openly accept SOME people suffer from burnout - zero doubt in my mind. But EVERYONE who dares say something negative about wow? Makes no sense at all.

There was a thread during SL where a person offered their anecdotal guild experience, going from a solid Mythic raid team, down to heroic due to people quitting, then being forced to pug just to get 10 for heroic, before only 3 remained. Peoples reasoning? "its just burnout".

[Lolites]

I love this argument. Its not bad content, everyone is just burnt out.

literaly nobody but you said "everyone is just burn out"...
the guy you responded to said OP, who spend there days killing stuff on all his characters is burnt out, which seems to be pretty much the case from the little info we got from the post...

- - - Updated - - -

What's next? What else is there to do here?

its a sandbox-y catchup zone, if you want gear or rep play in it, if you dont, you dont have to...
its a minor patch, if you dont feel like exploring vault, kiling rares, checking treasures, race, pet battle, or pvp with WM (not sure if that is a thing) you can skip it, like lets say timeless isle, or broken shore...

- Why aren't there Flight Paths around Forbidden Reach? it's a pain in the butt flying around there due to the steep mountains, and my dragon always running out of vigor to fly around the zone easily.

not sure FP would help as you would still have to navigate to them, it would just slow your movement to use FP...
also, if you have issues with dragonriding on the isle you need to learn how to use it properly, i havent run out of vigor once in the week there...
at leat not for longer than few seconds midair, while at full speed...

- See a Rare on the map, then get to that area, but the Rare's not there, but hidden down below or something. It can be difficult to find some Rare's because not easily noticeable or accessible.

ill give you this one, it would be nice if map have some indication for under/above ground rares, but after few days its not hard to remember rares "altitude"

- What comes next for Forbidden Reach?

nothing... like for majority of patch zones in wow history...

[Zorachus]

Don't know how people don't run out of vigor so quickly? The main hub area of forbidden reach, across the bay the big high mountains just flying up to them, there's no way I have enough vigor to get over to the top without having to glide down and rest for a couple minutes to regain more vigor. I never have enough vigor to get to the top of that mountain.

Just kind of annoying blizzard made the place so hilly with huge tall mountains, that you need to fly very high to get over.