Timeless Isle is the worst idea created in any game ever!

[Deathgoose]

Biggest turd ever Laid? I take it you never have played friday the 13th on NES?

Oh noes! Jason just spawned, and I haven't found a pitchfork yet. Run away, he's immune!

... I mean, what is this game you speak of?

[Mihalik]

The changes I would have made would have been to enlarge it a bit and more carefully delineate where easier mobs are versus where more difficult mobs are so that if you wanted to gear up there would have been something of a ramp in difficulty from one end of the island to the other. I think I would have liked it more if there were just a few more dailies or something there.

Well I thought there was a pretty clear delineation between the easy mobs and the harder ones.

Easy- Turtles, Cranes, Yaks and the Monk village thing. (There are some Death Adders there the can oneshot people without gear, but they have like a 1 yard agro range.)

Medium difficulty range would be - Tigers (mostly due to numbers), also the big stone giant patrols, Frogs (if you hit 10 stacks of poison you get insta kill) and possibly the lower end of the Ordos Hill before the first bridge, and the steam elemental beach.

The really hard stuff starts beyond Huolons spawn point on the beyond the first bridge, and the tiny hill where the big Ordor fire boss is spawned, next to the elemental beach. (I'm looking at you Cinderfall!)

The difficulty and HP pool of the rares also increases in the same order, depending where they spawn.

[Obtuse]

In summary, your anger stems from the fact that optional achievements aren't handed over, the gear is too easy to get, but isn't good enough, and that you can't tag every single rare every time it spawns? Alrighty then.

I was going to try and summarize but this says it all.

As an aside, I levelled a new toon for the first time in ages and to be honest with out the timeless isle, attempting to gear for current content would be almost impossible. The ability to grab my 496 gear along with a timeless isle valor piece and a little LFR ToT luck has made it so I am capable of jumping into current context with in a week or two as opposed to when Warlords comes out. This is why timeless isle exists. It's not for your main, it's so that over the next 6 to 8 months you can take the opportunity to try out that new class you always meant to try but haven't and participate in current content. Honestly who wants to be stuck in HoF for another 4 months just to get enough gear to go to ToT? While I'm daily guy and preferred 5.0 or 5.2 dailies, I'm excited about the prospect of a mishmash of all these things come WoD.

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The changes I would have made would have been to enlarge it a bit and more carefully delineate where easier mobs are versus where more difficult mobs are--mainly by mixing in elites and rares in higher density--so that if you wanted to gear up there would have been something of a mild ramp in difficulty from one end of the island to the other.

There literally is a ramp up, as you move up the ramp and work to higher ground the mobs get harder and harder.

[Louis CK]

I agree with everything you said. Except one thing you failed to realize is the target audience for timeless isle. It's not aimed at new players, it's purely intended for the 7+ million subs Wow lost. One of the biggest challenges Blizzard faces is reducing the barrier to entry in the game or a return to the game. That is the precise reason they are giving everyone a "free" 90 in the next xpac. Regardless of this point, Blizzard still fails miserably cause it's only a matter of a week or two before former players realize - Wow is just painted rust.

I produced a Machinima video on Timeless Isle a few months ago. I intended it to be an overly exaggerated parody. Little did I realize, I wasn't far off the mark.

It sounds like you were trying to make that video without waking up your parents. Slow, obnoxious and absurdly unfunny.

I hate to be "that guy" but I'm a little mad that I even sat through as much of it as I did.

But hey, follow your dreams!

[MoanaLisa]

Well I thought there was a pretty clear delineation between the easy mobs and the harder ones.

That's where directed versus undirected comes in. A few daily quests that direct you into areas where things are simpler would do a little bit to mitigate what happens when players wander over there for the first time excited to go and explore something then set out and wander into the more difficult things without knowing and getting one-shot. And perhaps that's fun for some people. It wasn't really so much for me. Once I went over with a group and spent an entire afternoon getting a feel for the place it was better. Experiences vary. A lot of people in our guild had more or less the experience I described: went there to get some gear and quickly ran into things they couldn't quite handle on their own, got one-shot, said 'fuck it' and never went back. That's on them of course but if there were more of a clear path given when the place was new I think some who didn't enjoy it might have stuck with it a little longer.

[RyanEX]

Biggest turd ever Laid? I take it you never have played friday the 13th on NES?

The horror...THE HORROR!!! How dare you open that wound.

[Obtuse]

That's where directed versus undirected comes in. A few daily quests that direct you into areas where things are simpler would do a little bit to mitigate what happens when players wander over there for the first time excited to go and explore something then set out and wander into the more difficult things without knowing and getting one-shot. And perhaps that's fun for some people. It wasn't really so much for me. Once I went over with a group and spent an entire afternoon getting a feel for the place it was better. Experiences vary. A lot of people in our guild had more or less the experience I described: went there to get some gear and quickly ran into things they couldn't quite handle on their own, got one-shot, said 'fuck it' and never went back. That's on them of course but if there were more of a clear path given when the place was new I think some who didn't enjoy it might have stuck with it a little longer.

You're telling me your guildies gave up after dying once? You need to find a better guild. I remember the first time I ran from Felwood to Winterspring. I was level 49, mobs were all 53. It was the most terrifying ordeal at the time. Running running, daze, dismount, dead. It was a slow go but when I made it to the otherside the snow had never looked so beautiful. We need more mobs that put you in your place when you aren't ready to be there. But why you would want to play with people that immediately give up at the first sign of difficulty is beyond me.

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The difficulty and HP pool of the rares also increases in the same order, depending where they spawn.

Leafmender would like a word with you

[Celeclop]

Quite the opposite, the isle is one of the best ideas Blizzard has had in WoW thus far. It brought back the feel of old school world PvP with the "no-flying" rule. It's great to be able to kill a rare elite with other people without having to sit at the spawn point for 45 minutes to have a chance at tagging it first. Having the world bosses in the middle of the island is tons of fun having to kill it with other people and getting loot even though you're not in a group. There are so many things I love about this island, Blizz has really learned from other MMOs like Guild Wars and is improving the game.

[MoanaLisa]

You're telling me your guildies gave up after dying once? You need to find a better guild. I remember the first time I ran from Felwood to Winterspring. I was level 49, mobs were all 53. It was the most terrifying ordeal at the time. Running running, daze, dismount, dead. It was a slow go but when I made it to the otherside the snow had never looked so beautiful. We need more mobs that put you in your place when you aren't ready to be there. But why you would want to play with people that immediately give up at the first sign of difficulty is beyond me.

They are good friends, family and most are very casual twice a week players. Most of them died horribly several times in fact in the space of half an hour their first day there. And that's on them (as I said before). But having read a lot about TI and player experiences there they weren't the only ones and Blizzard would do well to perhaps make difficulty progression a little clearer in cases like TI. That's all. You can climb down off your high horse. I'm more interested in an improved experience for everyone instead of detailing my awesomeness or reading about how awesome others are. Neither am I asking for anything to be nerfed. Just a little more direction next time around. Which I think is what is going to happen.

[Annoying]

"Mandatory" is a bit exaggerated for something that simply offers more convenience. I just started doing anything with the farm at all like 2 weeks ago, and it's not been mandatory, nor has it felt mandatory. More like "something to do" each day.

Sure, it can be convenient for getting some passive mats, but it's definitely not mandatory.

It's mandatory in the sense that buff food is required for raiding, and it provides the best time-to-reward ratio of mats for buff food. Thus if you want to optimize the amount of buff food you can farm for raiding, you have no choice but to farm everyday. Obviously, not playing farmville doesn't prevent you from doing anything else, but if you don't use it, you're wasting time.

[MoanaLisa]

It's mandatory in the sense that buff food is required for raiding, and it provides the best time-to-reward ratio of mats for buff food. Thus if you want to optimize the amount of buff food you can farm for raiding, you have no choice but to farm everyday. Obviously, not playing farmville doesn't prevent you from doing anything else, but if you don't use it, you're wasting time.

Efficiency is not always the best path to fun (although sometimes that works). The game, by definition, is wasting time. I don't bother with stuff I don't like. The game is more enjoyable for that. If that's how you have fun that's fine. It's OK to value other qualities over efficiency. I personally think that all of this labeling of X and Y as being mandatory is harmful.

[Obtuse]

They are good friends, family and most are very casual twice a week players. Most of them died horribly several times in fact in the space of half an hour their first day there. And that's on them (as I said before). But having read a lot about TI and player experiences there they weren't the only ones and Blizzard would do well to perhaps make difficulty progression a little clearer in cases like TI. That's all. You can climb down off your high horse. I'm more interested in an improved experience for everyone instead of detailing my awesomeness or reading about how awesome others are. Neither am I asking for anything to be nerfed. Just a little more direction next time around. Which I think is what is going to happen.

Oh I'm not awesome, and I don't think anywhere in my post history have I ever stated that I'm awesome. Quite the opposite in fact. But beyond literally drawing lines on the ground I don't think they could have made the difficulty progression path any clearer. And if your family and friends can't figure out that they die when they walk into a Yaungol area then what is Blizzard supposed to do? You have to apply a little common sense. You don't start a new character and immediately head Redridge/Ashenvale, so why would jump on the island and expect that you can go everywhere with no consequences. Safety proof the world I suppose.

[Apexis]

So? Why not let others get it on Timeless Isle, if they don't like LFR (wouldn't ever call farming/grinding lazy tbh)

Have you seen the poll on MMO, it was done twice and both times Timeless Isle had a whopping 50% of people choosing it as favorte patch.

A: This is because the give me people just want to get token gear for not doing nothing but killing rare the drop in less the 5 seconds, what a challenge

Yeah, and doing a LFR (which is not lazy in your opinion) is actually progressing the story??? Get real. ENdgame MMORPG is basically always a grind fest, be it farming raids or farming stuff. Personally I like the Isle and hope they expand on the idea. You can just go about and do your stuff and discover things along they way. Which is fun, as opposed to going into the mine and killing stuff for days/weeks in a row. I actually don't mind doing the occasional grind on Timeless Isle while I disliked doing dailies and feeling I had to do them.... This si so much more freedom, and I totally disagree with almost everything you said.

Yea, at least all the LFR stuff tied into all the questing and 5.1-5.3 content, Timeless Isle barely touches on anything but a small portion of the emperor and is nothing but a grind not much to see and do there. Yea, they should just open more crap up for the give me crowd. There are already enough people complaining about the given epic in the LFR crowd, we need to give them away for doing absolutely nothing now, great idea.


See that is the problem with people like yourself you feel you have to do something instead of choosing to do something. No one makes anyone do a damn thing they do not want to do in this game, you yourself chose to do. I am hoping this is not the only concept in play here, because if it is, its going to be a very boring game to play.

[Deathgoose]

The horror...THE HORROR!!! How dare you open that wound.

Actually, come to think of it, ET for the Atari 2600 is one of, if not the, most universally panned game of all times. Far more so than Friday the 13th for the NES.

(And *cough* I've played and beaten both of them back in the day.)

[Sleepy Time Gamer]

So I know this is crazy but why can't we have both dailies and Timeless Isle like stuff?

I mean it is fairly clear from recent polls that the Timeless Isle is popular. Why not tweak it to make it appeal longer? Adding dailies into the mix seems like it could be a good idea. I mean that was part of the appeal from GW2 to me.

[Apexis]

Well, not me personally, but I know a lot of people that was afraid to 'fall behind'. DOn't forget there was decent gear to be had from the reputations. If there is no more gear or anything that helps you as a character in the game, then the pressure is off. BUt as long as you can get gear, enchantments or whatever that improve your toon, people will feel like they need to keep up and log in every day.

I can tell you I do not feel I am being left behind if I do not login everyday, that is crap. If you feel that way then you feel that way in every game out there right now. Token gear is by no means decent gear, it is 5.0 content rep gear with a different ilvl that people are just to lazy to farm out themselves. If they simply would of created more dungeons between 5.1 and 5.3 they would have ever had to create Timesink Token Gear Isle in the first place. If some feel the need to keep up or are feel the are made to do something. They themselves are the ones forcing themselves to do things thing, no one else is making you do nothing you do not want to do. You just feel the need to be even more lazy then the person that goes AFK in the LFR.

I compete with no one except myself in this game, If I do not want to do something, I am sure as hell not going to do it. But if I am force into having to do stuff like Timeless Isle to progress through the xpac, then this is no longer an optional thing, it is a mandatory thing to have to go through. If they are going to make such places make them how they are now optional content, except take out the gear tokens for the give me people.

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I agree with everything you said. Except one thing you failed to realize is the target audience for timeless isle. It's not aimed at new players, it's purely intended for the 7+ million subs Wow lost. One of the biggest challenges Blizzard faces is reducing the barrier to entry in the game or a return to the game. That is the precise reason they are giving everyone a "free" 90 in the next xpac. Regardless of this point, Blizzard still fails miserably cause it's only a matter of a week or two before former players realize - Wow is just painted rust.

I produced a Machinima video on Timeless Isle a few months ago. I intended it to be an overly exaggerated parody. Little did I realize, I wasn't far off the mark.

That was a great video, I laughed the whole way through it. I really can't wait for all the whining that is going to take place over "the free 90 with the new xpac thing". I have even read someone asking for professions of your choice, can we make it any easier for people not have to do anything at all except to take the time to login. Free 90, island to get free gear and 2 main professions with all secondary ones leveled 600. People do not want to have to do anything at all anymore they just want to login. From what I have read from many of the hardcore nuts, the LFR would be at least a better concept than having to do absolutely nothing at all.

[Louis CK]

It's mandatory in the sense that buff food is required for raiding, and it provides the best time-to-reward ratio of mats for buff food. Thus if you want to optimize the amount of buff food you can farm for raiding, you have no choice but to farm everyday. Obviously, not playing farmville doesn't prevent you from doing anything else, but if you don't use it, you're wasting time.

Again, it offers convenience to get something "easier" that you can just get in a different way. It's only "mandatory" if the question is "do you want to get your mats from the farm? Then you have to use the farm". I've just gotten everything in a different way. I'm still not getting anything useful from the farm yet, will see if that changes. I just decided to do it because I hadn't done anything with it yet.

[The Usual Suspect]

I wouldn't know. I only go there to gank censer noobs and nasty hordes who don't mind their own bussiness. I haven't done any rep quests or any of that shit. Haven't even done Ordos cause I don't have the cloak. Fuck that shit.

[Annoying]

Efficiency is not always the best path to fun (although sometimes that works). The game, by definition, is wasting time. I don't bother with stuff I don't like. The game is more enjoyable for that. If that's how you have fun that's fine. It's OK to value other qualities over efficiency. I personally think that all of this labeling of X and Y as being mandatory is harmful.

Again, it offers convenience to get something "easier" that you can just get in a different way. It's only "mandatory" if the question is "do you want to get your mats from the farm? Then you have to use the farm". I've just gotten everything in a different way. I'm still not getting anything useful from the farm yet, will see if that changes. I just decided to do it because I hadn't done anything with it yet.

Efficiency is the best path to finishing things you don't care about or don't find fun the fastest. I enjoy raiding. Efficient farming reduces the time I spend farming so that I can have more time to enjoy what I like (the raid content). I wouldn't even mind being slightly less efficient, but you really can't even get close to the farm when it comes to veggies. I mean, I go chain kill turtles in VotFW and trade the stacks, but for time spent, it's still faster to do the farm every day. I see where you're coming from with the labeling. I'd probably leave it as "X is more efficient." That leaves room open for saying "Efficiency is mandatory if you raid and don't have much free time outside of raid."

[-aiko-]

496 items are hardly worth getting your panties in a twist over. That was the first tier of this expansion...

The Timeless Isle is a fun way (NOTE: opinions are opinions) to give your alts a chance to enjoy the last of this expansion. It is also pure RNG/grind based so I find it completely fair: you could spend an entire day on the isle and not get enough to fully gear an alt. Once you get the gear as well, to get 535 items you need to spend time on the alt itself as burdens are not BoA.

This is a million times better than being forced to take an undergeared alt through mindless, dungeon badge/rep grinds. At least with the isle there is some variety and exploration.