[WoW]Wotlk:Raid instances to have 10 and 25 man versions, Death Knight starts at 55

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

The grip of death might be cool if you can drag people off roofs/windows/bridges/towers/etc.

"COME HEREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

1: Jump backwards off a cliff, use Grip of Death on nearby enemy or party/guild member you decided to duel.
2: Use Noggerfogger.
3: Profit!

[Cybsled]

Noggenfogger isn't reliable. You'd want a parachute cloak.

Speaking of which, I did a cool thing in AV the other day with Rocketboots Xtreme + Parachute cloak. The horde were being lame and blockading the road again, so I went to the top of a hill and did the boot + cloak combo. I flew over the blockade and then tried to ninja retake a GY....which literally turned .000001 seconds before I was done ;( Then Alliance died. GG.

[BurnemWizfyre]

They are going to allow you to give people rides on your epic flying mounts in wotlk, and have stated you're old ones will still work, but will be 310% speed. DONT TAKE RIDES FROM DRUIDS.

"can i get a ride mister fast mount guy?" sure thing...take off....fly as high as you can, Dismount......swift flightform, and follow them down /laughing the whole way down......bonus points for doing it to gnomes.

[Agraza]

You probably won't be able to dismount with a passenger to prevent griefing and problems.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

Wow well I guess BRD does have awesome loot if your a minmaxer and need that one trinket or dagger... I guess everyone here is a rogue.

I'm sorry I just can't let go of your ignorance on this front.

A) HoJ was the best melee trinket until deep Naxx, not just for rogues.
B) The Barman's Shanker was the best dagger until Ragnaros until they changed AP normalization.
C) Even if you weren't a DPS warrior or a rogue, you might still, I don't know...be social and help your guildmates to get these items
D) There were invaluable FR items to be gotten
E) There were numerous really great items other than the highly dominant shanker and HoD items, they didn't all last as long as the HoD but they were raid-level good.
F) I can't even remember all the shit, engineering schematics, blacksmithing plans...the list goes on and on, not even counting forge and anvil runs, and running in to acquire patterns, and the people who busted their hump farming DI to get your guild crafters rep, getting people attuned to MC...running IN to MC before that...

Basically, if you raided and you were not a tool (either an incompetent tool or a tool who didn't help his guildmates) you probably visited BRD many, many times. If you didn't raid and you weren't a tool and you belonged to any of probably most classes in the game you visited BRD many, many times.

Now, that is completely besides the point. As has been explained, BRD was the shit because it was an epic dungeon. Could it have been designed slightly better for flipping in the pursuit of its goodies, sure. Were parts of it still challenging at 60 up to a certain point in gear? You bet. Were the encounters all that great? For the most part, no, but compared to its peers they were still good. Encounter design in 5-mans simply didn't get that good in vanilla WoW, especially at launch.

The point is, and I've lamented the lack of this so many times it hurts my brain, BRD felt like a functional place, with lore. Part of the problem with the winged system in TBC is the fact that you didn't enter the dungeon until you were already in a wing...for immersion purposes this is just wrong, and bad. I'm going to call it Badong. The SM model as the basis for all instances, for the purpose of immersion, is Badong. Even though not having it would most likely add some trash to the beginning of each purposed clear, and it caused some issues with random grouping, there isn't a dungeon I've run in TBC, not fucking one, that really felt like you were diving deep into enemy territory. Even though the attunement process was necessitated by the badong realities of putting raid zones inside of five man zones, it was still more immersive than just walking up, trash-free, to a zone that would immediately challenge a 25-40 man raid group.

Essentially, what I'm saying is, even though, due to the development cycle, BRM got really fucking old, the overall picture was outstanding. It was a center of badongitude that you picked apart tier by tier, dungeons within dungeons, lore on lore, and the interior of BRM is still the most awesome thing to ever be put in this goddamned game, and stands as an incredibly fitting hub of adventure.

BRM for life. May I never return. PEACE.

[Maxxius]

I suppose if you have 8 hours to play at one sitting with a static group BRD design owned, but most don't, hence the SM model.

[Agraza]

BRD was great. I liked Stratholme and Scholomance far more, but I spent plenty of time in BRD to my enjoyment. It would have been better with summon into instance and new meeting stone functionality. Replacing people happened often, and BRD was among the less convenient dungeons to get to.

I think the reason they chose this route, emulating SM, was of the way they save heroic dungeons. That doesn't excuse the linear design, but it does slightly excuse a lack of big epic dungeons with multiple avenues. There is a middleground that we're missing out on.

I want more optional bosses. I liked there being scholo runs where you just went to gandling, and others where you spawned the gargoyle, fought jandice, and farmed for lifestealing. Similarly there were anvil/forge/attunement runs to BRD, emp runs, bar runs, fiery enchant runs, etc. etc. etc. You could go into BRD for any number of reasons and ignore more than half of the dungeon. Most of my BRD runs were specific. I performed a full clear maybe five times. You could basically roll your own path through many old world dungeons.

Anzu, Kirtonos & Marduk & Vectus, tribute runs, 0.5 set spawns, etc. are awesome. They're less about assbeat like heroics and more about skill and rewarding environment-specific effort. Lateral effort, rather than just getting another 500ac to trivialize more content.

[Ellsworth]

Originally Posted by Agraza

BRD was great. I liked Stratholme and Scholomance far more, but I spent plenty of time in BRD to my enjoyment. It would have been better with summon into instance and new meeting stone functionality. Replacing people happened often, and BRD was among the less convenient dungeons to get to.

I think the reason they chose this route, emulating SM, was of the way they save heroic dungeons. That doesn't excuse the linear design, but it does slightly excuse a lack of big epic dungeons with multiple avenues. There is a middleground that we're missing out on.

I want more optional bosses. I liked there being scholo runs where you just went to gandling, and others where you spawned the gargoyle, fought jandice, and farmed for lifestealing. Similarly there were anvil/forge/attunement runs to BRD, emp runs, bar runs, fiery enchant runs, etc. etc. etc. You could go into BRD for any number of reasons and ignore more than half of the dungeon. Most of my BRD runs were specific. I performed a full clear maybe five times. You could basically roll your own path through many old world dungeons.

Anzu, Kirtonos & Marduk & Vectus, tribute runs, 0.5 set spawns, etc. are awesome. They're less about assbeat like heroics and more about skill and rewarding environment-specific effort. Lateral effort, rather than just getting another 500ac to trivialize more content.

Great point.

I liked dungeons that had multiple entrances.

I wish we could get back to that. Gnomer, Mara, Strath, BRD kinda has multiple entrances.

I liked the baron in 45 concept of UD strath. I liked that scholo could be shortened substantially. I still thought it was too much trash after they gutted it and forced 5 man.

UBRS/LBRS. The idea of those instances is good. But the implementation was ackward, and it belies the dev's inexperience in dungeon design. I like how the DM's where all connected, and you could go through them at various points. It made the whole place feel more connected.

[Miele]

While it took considerably longer doing dungeons pre TBC, it also meants something more than just a dice roll to see if an item drops.
The lore behind some of the places was great, many dungeons were great, fun and rewarding.
BRD was one of the best places I've ever run exactly because of his chaotic nature and all the "story" you were living inside it, getting the key to open the gates, activating the machine, pleasing the arena spectators so they wouldn't attack you, getting keys to open the bank vaults, etc.
There was also a story, a huge big story behind the whole Blackrock Mountain which you unfolded step by step.
I'll never understand shit places like the Auchindon and the Netherstorm instances, goddamnit, give me back the old dungeons a thousand times before that crap again.
The 1 hour dungeons are fine and dandy, but there must be bigger places too, or the game feels really damn bland.

[Saban]

Karazhan is the best raid dungeon i've ever done, and has proven to be immensely enjoyable by a large chunk of the playerbase. Lots of unique bosses, lots of loot, nice difficulty scaling as you go through, and only 2 really annoying boss mechanics(flame wreath and infernals).

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Saban

Karazhan is the best raid dungeon i've ever done, and has proven to be immensely enjoyable by a large chunk of the playerbase. Lots of unique bosses, lots of loot, nice difficulty scaling as you go through, and only 2 really annoying boss mechanics(flame wreath and infernals).

I wouldn't call flame wreath annoying, since the room is so small, you don't actually have to move anyway, unless you have ADD and feel like jumping around him in circles while meleeing or something. I'll agree on infernals though, pretty crappy mechanic since it's quite random and sometimes decide to really fuck you up. Can be countered with fast reactions but well. I'll add the whole nightbane first version fear stuff. Nowadays with fear wards on both sides and less fears and stuff it's ok, but in early BC, it fucking sucked.

[Dumar]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

I started playing about 2 days after it was released [...] I agree that I am a retard [...] I've killed the last boss twice and first time probally was around 06 [...]

you started playing the first week, and the first time you killed the emp was 06, 2 years later.

i agree that you're a retard, but you're also a very slow retard.

brd is the best designed dungeon in wow. the complete and utter shitfest that is tbc dungeons don't even remotely compare AT ALL.

1hour instances cool! lol maybe you should play a single player game if you have an hour?! omg epiphany!

[Azrayne]

Everyone is treating it like an all/nothing thing. Can't we have some 1 hour instances and some BRD-style instances, everyone goes home happy?

Of course I always hated the hell out of BRD. Every run felt like grinding my nuts over a cheese grater, the loot sucked (I was a caster, yes FR is nice and all, and it doesn't exactly motivate you to go run instances you hate), it was loaded with trash, and I'm fairly sure I never actually killed the last boss, because I got the fuck out of there as soon as I was attuned on all 3 of my characters.

By contrast, I rather liked UBRS, the completely excessive trash aside. Cool fights, fun loot, had an 'epic' feeling to it, and linked up nicely to later zones (namely BWL).

As much as I liked DM/Strat/SM etc. I do feel that they took the whole concept a bit far in BC, with 'every' instances following in kind. Hopefully we'll see things a bit more mixed up in WoTLK, though I'm not sure if that'll happen, fond of the 'wings' as Blizzard seem.

[Dumar]

deadhorn said it best. it's not about the fucking items that drop (even though brd's was great). it's about immersion and the experience of, gasp, fighting through an environment that feels like a living, breathing place, in this case a gigantic, epic sprawling CITY built into the depths of a mountain. badass. epic. awesome.

vs. tbc instances, which are total complete garbage. there is no redeeming value in ANY of them, ANY. i used to love warcraft lore, but it's been flushed so far down the toilet that metzen's holy plunger won't be able to save the day. what the fuck is auchidoun, a giant stadium full of birdmen, naaru, and profit-seeking aliens? what honest hell is the temp keep dungeons, giant robots and blood elves, with a giant tree druid to boot? okay.

tbc could have been epic. could have been. but it's fucking stupid. end of story. it's an insult to the original wow design and should be packaged and shot to the moon where it and luclin can die with a whimper.

if wotlk doesn't return to the vanilla roots and have massive, sprawling, EPIC dungeons fit for the lore that is the lich king, if it's a giant stadium with different fucking wings for undead, warlocks, lions, tigers, and bears, then fuck you blizzard devs, and woe be to wow.

[Cybsled]

Hey, why so much h8 for the TBC dungeons? If it counts, Old Hillsbrad owns very much