One of the absolute boons of the new patch cadence, consisting of two minor patches in between major ones, is that there are more opportunities for Blizzard to add interesting events into World of Warcraft, which in turn helps to keep everything more lively. Two of these recent events were part of the 10.1 patch cycle. While they both provide new cosmetics, pets, mounts, and catch-up gear, the way each event functions is very different, which has affected how much I enjoy them and participate in some unexpected ways.
Time Rifts
Time Rifts were an event added in the 10.1.5 patch, and they happen every hour on the hour. The first phase consists of players doing various tasks to earn better rewards and more rep with Soridormi. In the second phase, we would travel through a portal to an alternate timeline and fight a boss to stop them from invading our timeline. The entire event takes about 12 minutes to complete, which is perfect as a small bite-sized bit of content to jump into quickly. The downside is they only happen on the hour every hour, so it can be easy to miss and then have to wait around for the next one.
The altered timeways of the second phase were always interesting to see what content we were revisiting. My biggest issue is I wish they made some of the bosses about 15% bigger than they are so we could see them more clearly. A few are just about the same size as players, making it hard to appreciate the differences between the version we knew and the one we were fighting. I felt this the most when fighting the alternate Varian Wrynn. It was impossible to tell who we were fighting other than by the nameplate because he would get lost in a sea of players. If he had been just a bit larger, this wouldn’t have been an issue, and it would have been neat to see some visual differences in that version of him.
As neat as seeing some of the different timeways are, there are only seven different timelines, meaning there are only seven bosses to fight. Their fights are always the same as well. So, there’s not a lot of variety, and for anyone who wanted the various mounts, pets, transmog, and Soridormi rep, those seven encounters got repetitive quickly. The mechanics of their fights never seemed to matter much either, which also helped to make everything seem the same. The one exception to this was the Lich King. Records had to have been set for the number of people who stood in the defile and caused it to go all over the platform.
What gave Time Rifts staying power and has kept them from getting incredibly dull is that players can be assigned a considerable variety of tasks throughout the first phase. In fact, I did a Time Rift a little bit ago and had a task to pick up fel pinecones and then clog up a cannon with them. This is the first time I have done that one. Sure, many of them can be classified as “go kill x thing(s),” but there are a lot of other tasks that are not that, and those make Time Rifts shine. For example, I am always highly amused when I get tasked with throwing baby murlocs back through the portal, or I need to steal a motorcycle and bring it back to Soridormi. It’s an element of silliness and fun I wasn’t expecting from Time Rifts.
I also liked that it was difficult to farm all the collectibles, and I couldn’t just get them on the first day. Some players complained about the slowness of collecting the paracausal shards, but they always seemed to stack up quickly to me. This was, of course, helped by the fact that I enjoyed doing Time Rifts in the first place, but I also had a good amount of luck in collecting the mounts and pets and often didn’t have to buy them. What did take forever was Soridormi rep. I was sadly stuck working on that long after my main was done with everything else involving the Time Rifts. I wish that had been across account because I would have preferred to take my alts to more Rifts, but my main had such a massive lead with rep it felt like I was hurting myself by taking alts until I finished getting exalted.
Dreamsurges
Unlike Time Rifts, Dreamsurges continuously run in one of the four original zones for Dragonflight. During the normal phase, rares will spawn and be empowered by the surge. These still tend to die fast but do spawn immune initially, so getting across a zone to them before they die isn’t generally too difficult. The world quests in that zone will also give rewards related to the Dreamsurge event. There’s also a zone buff, and everyone can vote between two options, which rotate every half hour. Sadly, to vote, you must return to the spot in the zone where the Dreamsurge NPCs are. This isn’t a huge deal, but it did feel like it ruined my flow a bit.
Every 30 minutes, a large group portal will spawn and start a mini-event. The first phase of the event begins with waves of enemies pouring out of the gate, and players have to kill them. There will also be some fiery birds flying overhead, which you can dragonride through as well to disable them. These activities fill up a progress bar, spawning one of six lieutenants for everyone to fight. That’s the entire event.
Since the Dreamsurge is always going, players can easily hop in at any time and work on collecting the currency needed for the rewards. Additionally, since the big event happens every half hour, it’s never very long before the next one happens, which also makes it much more accessible for players who have sporadic playtimes. Farming out all the needed currencies to get all the rewards offered is much easier and quicker than it was for Time Rifts.
Which is the better event?
When the Dreamsurge event was announced, I thought I would enjoy that way more than I did Time Rifts. This was coming off me grinding out the rest of my Soridormi rep, so I was ready for a change of pace. However, two things about each event conspired in a way I didn’t expect, and in the end, I vastly prefer Time Rifts over the Dreamsurge style of event.
I thought I’d enjoy the ability to jump into Dreamsurges anytime and that not having to pay such close attention to the time seemed like a great thing. Since I could jump in any time, I quickly discovered that Dreamsurges took a backseat to doing anything else. With Time Rifts, every time I noticed the hour rolling around, I’d get a little excited and think, “Oh! Time Rift Time!” This, combined with the fact everything in the Dreamsurge is so easily obtainable, meant that I never felt any pressure to do it because it just didn’t matter.
The other aspect that surprised me was just how little variety there is in the Dreamsurges. Even the large group activity with the six lieutenants who could spawn always seemed to rotate between four and often would repeat. As someone who has a hard time with repetition, especially when there is no danger, Dreamsurges got stale quickly. Of course, I’m incredibly grateful that it was paired with easily obtainable rewards because doing the Dreamsurges for weeks on end would get tedious.
That said, there’s room for both types of events in World of Warcraft. While I prefer events like Time Rifts more, having every event run that way would be boring. I hope we get even more variety in the special events we see in the future, and they keep matching the length of time it takes to obtain rewards with how repeatable the content is. My one request is that if we get another rep tied to an event that is supposed to take a while to max out, please allow the rep to go across the account.
