Think Horses Not Zebras – Siege of Orgrimmar Timewalking
The simplest explanation is often the right one, and looking at the event name ‘Panda‘-monium from this perspective could simply point to what datamining has hinted at, Timewalking Siege of Orgrimmar Raid for Mists of Pandaria!
We previously datamined updates to Siege of Orgrimmar raid items leading us to speculate that Siege of Orgrimmar would be returning as the Timewalking Raid for Mists of Pandaria.
Timewalking raids previously released one every year or so, but it’s been almost 4 years since we received a new one, so this would be a long overdue update.
Timewalking Raid Releases:
- Firelands Timewalking – Battle for Azeroth Patch 8.2.5 – September 2019
- Ulduar Timewalking – Legion Patch 7.3.5 – January 2018
- Black Temple Timewalking – Legion Patch 7.2.5 – June 2017
But is that all that we can expect from this event? Why would we need to run instead of walk through this reprised raid? Could there be more difficulties of Timewalking coming?
Think Zebras – Challenge Modes Return?
I think we can safely assume that the ‘Panda’ in Pandamonium does refer to Mists of Pandaria expansion content, but the Timerunning aspect is not yet fully explained so let’s wildly speculate.
Timewalking is a difficulty added that scales down a character’s power and gear allowing players to queue up for a dungeon or raid from a previous expansion. The difficulty of Timewalking dungeons and raids is roughly equivalent to Normal Raids and is considered a more casual experience in WoW.
If I was looking to amp up the difficulty of that experience and perhaps require players to complete the content faster maybe even on a specific timer, I’d probably modify the name to indicate a tougher challenge, ergo Timerunning!
What past content first playable in Mists of Pandaria scaled down player’s gear and had them race to complete a full set of dungeons on more difficult timers for unique cosmetic rewards…Challenge Modes! Challenge modes are the original precursor to the modern Mythic+ dungeons we know and love today!
Potential Rewards?
Challenge Modes came with 3 sets of a rewards based on the timer completion ranks: Bronze awarded a title, Silver awarded a mount, and Gold awarded a cosmetic class set with unique visual effects and dungeon teleports.
At the end of Shadowlands and throughout Dragonflight, we’ve seen dungeon teleports return as a unique reward for completing Level 20 Mythic+ versions of the current season of Mythic+ dungeons. Blizzard has repurposed these rewards for a modern activity in current content.
The no longer obtainable class sets from MoP Challenge Modes, however, have been some of the most requested cosmetics to return for newer players, so seeing them, other color variations, or new class sets return with this feature would be a big boon for WoW albeit slightly controversial.
In the past, Blizzard has tried to avoid negating the prestige associated with having these no longer obtainable items, but they’ve made some recent changes that has indicated a shift in this philosophy like Naxxramas & Tier 3 being craftable. A return of these cosmetics wouldn’t entirely be out of the question.
It’s possible we could see an entirely new reward as well as was the case for a similar returning piece of the content, The Mage Tower from Legion. When the Mage Tower challenges returned in Shadowlands, players were able to receive a Tomb of Sargeras Tier Set recolor for their class instead of the original reward of a unique Artifact Weapon appearance.
Final Thoughts
While this could all just be wild speculation playing on a writer’s hopes and dreams for content I truly loved, I’m hoping there could be one tiny morsel of truth. Unfortunately outside of the Siege of Orgrimmar information, datamining is not currently on my side, so we’ll likely just have to wait and see if anything turns up in the 10.2.7 PTR.
Would you like to see Challenge Modes return as part of the new Timerunning event? Were you able to obtain all 11 class sets when they were available in Mists of Pandaria?
