Why is Timeless Isle so fondly remembered?

[Surfacin9]

Pretty boring. THey just popped some environemt, mobs, rares, treasure chests. Most people who loved it were super casuals who just liked killing stuff, and pvp griefers who loved the idea of messing with people. it had a good amount of various toys and alt-catchup gear, which justified going there for me.

Other than that it had no story, no explanation why all of it is there. Celestials had their training grounds right next to Ordos..... why didn't they deal with him? Tanaan was far better with story, purpose and different activities. Even the Maw was better despite not being able to mount. I like story-driven zones, even if they're as bad as the Broken Shore, Argus and Korthia.

Another major problem with Timeless Isle - it never stopped you. There were no goals apart from the ones you set for yourself, no limits. So it facilitated mindless non-stop grinding for the currency. And because of that, the prices for the items were pretty high, again forcing you to do the mindless grind if you wanted something.

[Nathreim]

I don't understand why ppl claim it had no story. It was there if you looked closely it just wasn't spelled out to you. The island is stuck in a time anomaly and the bronze dragons have a quest chain learning about its strange properties. Different people sometimes landed on the island and became trapped when the island phased out of time (pirates, Yaungol, Pandaren).

Sure we never learn exactly why the island is the way it is but thats part of the reason it worked. If you explain everything you take the mystery out of it. Did we really need an explanation of on how demons could return after death? No and blizz took all of the mystique out of it in Legion when it wasn't necessary. The shadowlands was a much more interesting concept before the expansion was announced because our imaginations were so much greater than what Blizz can do.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I have honestly no idea, like many things MoP, people tend to glorify it nowadays. It's probably some kind of survivor bias, as most of the people that made it through MoP and it's content are obviously those that could stomach it.

I personally found aimless isle to be the most lazy approach to design Blizzard ever did. But some people seem to enjoy standing in the middle of the zone and rushing to rare spawns. The trasure stuff was kinda nice, but it works in any zone as WoD showed, no need for lazy hyper dense zones like isle and the many following later.

Edit: But I also absolutely don't get the appeal of Nazjatar, such a rank place...

[Rustedsaint]

Death squads everywhere rogues ganking everyone, people pulling spawns into places others couldn’t reach to be dicks. It was a glorious place to be an asshole, other then that it wasn’t really special.

[Aphrel]

probobly for the ffa pvp thingy.

The zone overall was annoying as fuck, with rares dying be4 you got to them and ppl hanging out on Houlon bridge for hours..
It was certainly not a masterpiece.

I think the best outdoor content patch theyve done would be the nazjatar/mechagon one.

[Ventrix]

Why was TI popular? Plentiful and easy loot!

[WowIsDead64]

While I accept, that some players may like sandbox content, I personally hate it. I prefer open world content in opposite to claustrophobic one. Open world means that there is certain freedom of movement in opposite to freedom of goals in sandbox content. And here is where Blizzard had misconception. They assumed, that their playerbase was constant and therefore players, who played, let's say, Cata - were the same players, who had been playing Vanilla and TBC. They didn't take into account, that several years passed between xpacks and playerbase might change. For example - I'm Wrath baby. And it was Molten Front, where I encountered so called "instanced" outdoor content for the first time. It was after 3 (+private Classic servers) years of playing open world content. And it was natural, that I didn't like "instanced" content at all. So it was big hit for me, when Blizzard continued to push that content in MOP. But back in that time I was still optimistic about Blizzard and thought, that it was local mistake - not pattern. So I simply quit game in hope, that next xpack would be better. And it was better, but only after patch 6.2, when all that "no flying" nonsense finally ended.

[Pakheth]

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.

That's your opinion. I don't mind it when the team reuses assets where it makes sense, and when Jade Forest is literally my favourite zone I couldn't give a damn that we get more Jade Forest. It was simply an extension of Pandaria, the same way the Dino island was and to a certain extent Thunder Isle was. It sticks with the theme of the expansion.

[Lochton]

It was great fun with PvP, really. A little crowded at times but else, it was quite fun. I don't really have a nostalgic fondness for it though, Isle of Thunder rates a bit higher than that, but the Isle of Quel'danas is a bit lower rated.

[Schizoide]

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.

Yep. Haven't played ele since they took that away. Hate the turret lifestyle.

[Nelle]

If you played on PvP server you could kill the shitters from your own faction over and over and over. Felt so damn good.

[Athulua]

It was okay piece of content that grossly overstayed its welcome. Like really, 14 months without any new content? It was a sandbox, they could have thrown some new stuff in there for players to do. Such as new world boss, new treasures, new events. But no, we've received this piece of content in September 2013 and had to contend with it until November 2014 in its 'out of the box' state. Without any tangible changes to it for over a year.

Thunder Isle was much better designed. It gradually opened up by server-wide effort, there was a refreshment of pace every few weeks with new area unlocked. And it wasn't the only questing hub for well over a full year.

[Schizoide]

Yes, beyond IoT being just plain better in every way, the fact that it wasn't current content for well over a year makes me think back on it fondly.

[Onikaroshi]

Timeless was boring, only good for gearing alts and killing world bosses.

[Kalisandra]

probobly for the ffa pvp thingy.

The zone overall was annoying as fuck, with rares dying be4 you got to them and ppl hanging out on Houlon bridge for hours..
It was certainly not a masterpiece.

I think the best outdoor content patch theyve done would be the nazjatar/mechagon one.

While Mechagon was okay - mainly because you could fly sometimes before normal flight was enabled, which removed a lot of the pain, Nazjatar blew as far as I was concerned. Once we had flight it wasn't quite as bad, but prior to that it stunk. Massive mob density, very 3-D landscape with pre-determined paths that you had to follow... all the bad features of Timeless Isle, none of the good.

[Demontjuh]

Falling-Flame

/win-thread

[Mardux]

That's your opinion. I don't mind it when the team reuses assets where it makes sense, and when Jade Forest is literally my favourite zone I couldn't give a damn that we get more Jade Forest. It was simply an extension of Pandaria, the same way the Dino island was and to a certain extent Thunder Isle was. It sticks with the theme of the expansion.

That's your opinion. I don't like it when the team reuses entire zones when it doesn't make sense, and when Jade Forest is literally my least favourite zone I give a damn that we get stuck with more Jade Forest. It was simply an lazy excuse for Pandaria, the same way the Dino island was and to a certain extent Thunder Isle was. It sticks with the theme of the company.

[rrayy]

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..

I didn't hear them so they are silent. That doesn't mean anything. Just because you didn't hear it from your 7 buddies does not mean it is never said. Anecdotal is anecdotal.

[DeltrusDisc]

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 pretty.
The music was pretty.
It was an all-round pleasant experience with a wonderful teamwork-esque feeling for everyone on the island.

Man, I miss that...

[Dartz1979]

No, it was just a worse Isle of Thunder.

oh come on now i enjoyed isle of thunder my waifus jaina and vereesa had a unique connection during that stage of the game.