I know that MMO’s tend to be a bit grindy in their nature. Heck RPG’s at all have a grind element – I can recall the hours of farming random zones in Final Fantasy 8 after I got my butt handed to me by Ultimeca. With all this, WoW is no exception and I’m okay with that…mostly.
Timeless
Mists of Pandaria has been a little bit if a grind-fest since it’s onset with all the dailies, reputations, lesser charms, and valor (with upgrading) to farm, but we’re seeing something new now, a different kind of beast. Patch 5.4 brought us the Timeless Isle – a new zone with a new quest hub…sort of. After a handful of quests, the actual questing part falls by the wayside. What is left? Slaying monster after monster for hours to collect Timeless Coins, 496 epic pieces for every alt you may ever create and Emperor ShaoHao rep. Timeless Coins buy a handful of pets, a mount, 535 ilvl trinkets and Burdens of Eternity which upgrade one of those random 496 epics to a 535 piece. These 535 epics are, in theory, better than any gear that non-heroic raiders have equipped. Meaning that until you’ve killed enough Seige of Orgrimmar bosses (which, mind you, is grindier since now there are 3 ways to farm it), you’ll need up to 17 of those 535 epics per spec you actively play. On top of that, the coins are also currency for a mount and a couple of pets. This is where the kicker really comes in though.
Reputation
ShaoHao rep can only be gained by a rare couple of quests and endless farming of Yaungol mobs. This is a full rep grind to exalted via mobs that give at most (so I’ve seen) of 22 rep each. 42,000 rep divided by 22 per each mob is 1900 of them to kill. Not only is that a pretty brutal massacre (not sure why either), but given the stiff competition for them and their relatively low spawn rates, you can expect to be at it for a long time.
Endless
Now, I’m all for putting content in and endless game that is well, timeless, but after the massive subscriber losses that WoW has faced during this expansion, I’d wonder if adding another long grind is the way to satisfy the player base and keep us coming around. For myself, I’m only a week into this patch and already I think I need a time-out from the Timeless Isle