How I came to love the Timeless Isle
I make it no secret that I don't have much love for Mists of Pandaria. For reasons I haven't been able to quantify, most of it bored me beyond belief. I can make some guesses, but no individual thing clicks with me as the reason, though all of it combined may be the cause: the tedium of daily quests in the earliest stages of the expansion, the lack of new 5-man dungeons in content patches, a general disinterest in the renewed faction war, and not being compelled by the story or aesthetic elements that formed Pandaria. I kept on trucking through those early months, and I did find some fun in it, but the fun faded quickly and I found myself less and less engaged throughout the expansion. Because of that, I ignored many of the expansion's later additions, particularly the Timeless Isle. When it released, I poked around on the island, but left quickly. Now, in the final stretch of the expansion, I gave the Timeless Isle another shot ... and realized too late that it's wonderful.
One of the things I once loved about World of Warcraft was the daily choice between structured and unstructured gameplay. If I wanted to go questing, I could do so -- and Blizzard's quest design has consistently improved since the game's launch. If I didn't want to quest, just screw around solo and fight monsters, that option was available, and not only available, but rewarding. That changed over time.
In classic WoW, I could rampage amongst the undead for Scourgestones, progressing toward Argent Dawn reputation rewards. Or I could do battle with the various mobs that dropped Whelpling pets, such as the Azure Whelpling from mobs in Winterspring. Burning Crusade had Zaxxis reputation, pets such as the Captured Firefly, and generally awesome treasure from mass-murdering the Illidari on the ramparts of Black Temple. Fighting was rewarding. It never provided the best items in the game, but I never expected it would. It gave me something more interesting than gold and cloth. That was enough. Over time, the rewards that could be found in freeform gameplay disappeared, leaving structured questing as the only real method of achieving (or earning) anything at all.
Sometimes, I don't want structured gameplay. Sometimes, I've had an exhausting day and I want to do something relatively mindless to relax in a video game -- my only objective being fight an endless supply of monsters and possibly come out with something cool. Not necessarily powerful, but cool. I can chat with my friends or watch some television and not worry about quest text or the rails which shuffle me off to the next quest hub. Early Mists of Pandaria eliminated unstructued gameplay in totality, every step of the curated experience meant to be progression into raiding, a place I didn't want to go to begin with in this particular expansion.
The Timeless Isle is everything I felt was missing. The only quests that exist on the Timeless Isle are those that familiarize you with the layout and function of the zone. Once those quests are done, it tells you to go wild. Explore, fight, discover, reap the rewards. Blizzard never tried to hide that -- that was specifically what Blizzard was selling with the Timeless Isle. They were selling my gaming paradise, yet I ignored it due to the early stages of the expansion boring me to tears. While the island is a wonderful place for gearing up alts (or mains that have lagged behind the pack), there's plenty more: toys, pets, unique challenges, achievements, and whatever else you might want. Grinding out tens of thousands of Timeless Coins? It looks daunting, but once you grow accustomed to the island, it's nearly effortless -- and, in my opinion, a lot of fun. Marauding across the island, killing any monsters that stand in my way, and breaking off the beaten path to tackle the island's numerous rare spawns, was a pleasant mix of peaceful combat and the occasional adrenaline-fueled dash across the landscape.
My only real gripe about the Timeless Isle is the wonky difficulty curve. Your first hour or so on the island is probably going to be miserable. You'll feel ineffective and die a lot. Even if you're a seasoned veteran of the Isle and know every monster's little tricks, taking an alt will be painful at first. The difficulty of combat seems based around having a Book of the Ages, Dew of Eternal Morning, and Singing Crystal on your person. Those items take brutally difficult monsters and, in some cases, render them trivial -- they couldn't kill you if they tried. When you don't have them, you're going to struggle. Once you have them, you have little to worry about, and you'll acquire more of them so quickly that you will never be without them again. It feels like an odd choice, a design decision that exists only as a barrier to entry, a method of brutalizing the player's morale before building them back up again. Still, it's a temporary brutality. The pain passes.
Killing frogs by the dozen shouldn't be the entirety of World of Warcraft's endgame. Having the option, however, and being rewarded for it, is something I can appreciate. I let the Timeless Isle go untouched for too long, and now it'll be a thing of the past before I've exhausted the joy it provides. Would it be selfish to ask Blizzard to give us a place just like it in the expansions to come?
