One of the issues in recent World of Warcraft content has been timegating, not just in the recent World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion but in the game at large.
The same has been true for several expansions. Catching up on Corruption Resistance in Battle for Azeroth was fittingly nightmarish, and things like Class Hall quests and main storyline missions in Legion were equally horrific.
With Shadowlands, though, the timegating has been at an all-time high as the expansion rolls out. Storylines have been given a chapter a week, which can often be finished in under an hour, leaving an entire week until a player is able to progress towards the rewards they want.
This was even worse for alts, as it seemed that the timegating wasn’t global or account-locked, but instead locked to each character. Progress made on one had no effect on the other.
This made it so that a player that made a character on, say, the fifth week of the expansion had their progress set as if it were the first week. Rather than being able to progress until they were caught up, they were perpetually behind, needing to do the content at the same pace as others.
Needless to say, this was unspeakably annoying, and turned many away from doing alts at all. It was also a strange move given that the expansion was generally more alt-friendly in a lot of ways, from leveling to progressing through content.
Thankfully, it seems that, with the near-conclusion (and unlocking of Torghast’s final mode) of the starting storyline, Blizzard is reducing this timegating. It was announced today that much of the timegating would be removed.
The announcement is in the notes of a recent bluepost, and reads only that they’ve “removed some of the weekly delays between certain Bolvar Fordragon Torghast storyline quests.” It’s unclear on if there’s a specific set of restrictions being raised.
Because it’s vague, we can’t say with certainty that all timegating has been removed from the storyline quest for Torghast. Given that Blizzard is acknowledging the problem and removing weekly delays, though, the questline’s timegating seems to have been heavily reduced.
This is good news for anyone who was excited to do Torghast on an alt and push in as far as they can go. With the Twisting Corridors fully unlockable even from behind, there’s more content available for those that want to play more than a single main class.
