bdew

But there was one huge explorable cave in WOW that you could easily get lost in and have to HS out...

It was called BRD, and most everyone hated it with passion

 

Celebrimor

BRD was an instance though, it would be a normal zone instead that you would not need a group to walk around in.

But yeah, when wow was new the average wow player got lost in undercity so that wont happen really >.<
Otherwise it would be nice with an underground zone as large as eastern plaguelands.

 

Kumar

 

• Phara

I suppose you never got to experience the wonderful Wailing Caverns when WoW was released? Huge instances where you can get lost are only enjoyable for two kinds of players; those who like to explore, and those who know the most efficent route in it. If we take Wailing Caverns as an example, we know that the dungeon was completely different depending on how experienced your teammates was. Having people who had been to the place before made it close to trivial, doing it in a group where no one had been there before made it a living nightmare. Clearing dozens of packs, only to figure out it was the wrong way when you reach the end, isn´t particularly enjoyable.

 

• Falk

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7...y038634en7.jpg

Holy cow, this seriously is amazing homage to the original WC3 mission in terms of architecture and style.

 

KrinKer

I actually understand the reason why Arthas would send his Major ally (if I can say it like this) into azjol Nerub, He wants someone there to make sure that the nerubian (which are still a threat to him) won't rise in numbers and try to overthrow him. My problem is the fact that ARthas' second in comand will be a lvl 72-73 boss. Makes absolutly no sense at all whatsoever !

I'm still hoping that Azjol Nerub's raid will be a HUGE zone (size of Naxx please) and that we'll get to face the Forgotten/nameless ones ( although for some reasons I think that we will gain rep with them in Azjol Nerub for some odd reasons)

 

Lanlaorn

People only hated BRD because of the alliance Onyxia attunement quest though. You had to constantly do BRD just to key yourself, and all your friends/guildmates, and all your alts, their alts... And please no talk about finding Rexxar, walking along a path in Desolace/Feralas really doesn't compare

BRD as a zone I think most people love, it just had a lot of things you could do, lots of bosses and lots of good (for the time) loot.

I actaully had a recent discussion with some friends about this and I think it's an important design element to carry through into WotLK. Several instances in original WoW, especially the new ones, Maraudon and Dire Maul, had an "open" design. Rather than being a long hallway filled with trash and occasional bosses like every single TBC instance and the more boring original instances (Scarlet Monastery), some instances were like an entire instanced outdoor zone that you could move around in as you pleased.

People can have bad experiences in Wailing Caverns while a 'long hallway' like the Deadmines can be a very enjoyable instance, but I don't think either is necessarily a steadfast rule. When Maraudon and Dire Maul were added we went in and immediately knew what we were doing and I don't know of anyone who had Wailing Caverns-esque trouble getting lost. But there was still this element of choosing your own path towards the end, being able to skip to this boss or jump down here and farm this trash, etc.

Stratholme and BRD are other examples of places you can walk around in, although many people may not remember them as fondly simply from having done them so much, heh. Even Scholomance, just little things like choosing what order to clear mini-boss rooms in Scholo or those pits down to Razorgore. That bat boss knocking you out of the zone, heh.

I may be in the minority but I think instances that aren't short, 3-4 boss "loot corridors" are more enjoyable and feel more alive. I know when I first entered Magister's Terrace I look down and thought, oh hey, we could jump down here and skip to the third boss, but I bet there's a locked door to Kael himself or something, but still could be useful. But when you try to jump? Invisible wall! Argh! If people really want to risk jumping down into the middle of a trash pull and just do one boss trying to finally get their fury warrior friend that Shard of Contempt, why stop them? Why force us into an artificial hallway?

 

rhea

Yes, I experienced WC in wow beta, at release I started alliance, altho I rolled horde alt later too...
There's no need for dead ends. Just huge vaults and passage ways to many places on ground. The complexity comes from shortcuts to other passageways and crossroads. There could be even quest hubs etc. with their own tavern. Multiple instances in different parts of the cave (not just one hub). It's not an instance and there wouldn't be mobs in every corner (only couple "residents" of dark dwarves and what not occupying their own separate area).

@Lanlaorn, Well said. The more enjoyable instances are long with multiple ways and depending where you start you get the certain bosses. Also when you clear the other part, you can take a shortcut to another boss, pretty much like Maraudon and BRD. You are free to explore and clearing one way only means you get shortcut to another way. This doesn't mean you have to clear it all in one run, just like you usually don't clear Stratholme all at once. One way in the instance isn't any longer than any of the TBC ones.

 

Rannasha

Level doesn't necessarily equate to power. I believe there was a Blizzard post on this some time ago as well. Edwin vanCleef is only level 20, but that doesn't make him a weak character. The level difference between bosses is more to put them in the right chronological order story-wise (i.e. first you rid Westfall of the Defias in the Deadmines, then you slay Rivendare in Stratholme, afterwards you venture into Outland to defeat an unleashed Murmur and finally you go in to A.N. to combat the Nerubians).

 

Liebestod

I never imagined A-N being like a huge Wailing Caverns, just as more of an open underground zone that happened to have an actual ceiling rather than an arbitrary height limit. Maybe it could have its twisty tunnely portions, but that would hardly be the entire thing..

otoh, the A-N layout that was in the alpha (which may never be seen live now?) did seem somewhat "tight", I suppose. Maybe that's why it was scrapped..

 

Pyros

While I wholeheartedly agree with all you've said, especially BRD being one of the best instance ever(unless you were grouped with idiots), this is purely a rhetorical question since you obviously know the answer. You can't have people skipping all trash and get to last boss, simply because if you do, people will only do this, skip all trash and get to last boss. It's the same with strat for example, remember the postal stuff? No one was doing it, ever. It was in the middle of strat, and you could easily skip it to get to scarlet or rivendare. It was a pain getting people to do the fras siabi too. Optional content usually means skipped content.

DM was a nice instance the first time we went in. We figured we'd just follow the path, see how it goes and all. But as we went in the very first, we figured we actually didn't need to make the little imp run around, and kill the warlock girl, for next runs. It was a one time thing, for the quests. And even then, only the key quest was useful, and you didn't actually need the key yourself, just someone in the group with it. Result? Out of shard farming and stuff like that, I think I've killed the imp twice in 2years, and the warlock girl once. However we killed that water elem or that satyr a lot, because we had to, to get to last boss.

This is probably one of the reason blizzard is designing their dungeons that way, so they don't design "wasted" content. BRD was mostly wasted, because people only wanted to do the stuff they had to do. They didn't care if you could do one quest on the molten giant at the end of the corridors with all the patrols, quest that had a prereq in searing gorge or burning steppes. They didn't care about the arena, when a rogue could just open the door and activate the bridge and skip it. Or the coffer room, out of the particular fire resist farming groups. Hell some people probably did BRD multiple times, and still haven't killed every boss(not counting the rare spawns, which are well, rare enough).


The 2nd obvious reason is simply time. When you try to design dungeons that last 1hour, you can't have people running around aimlessly. If you offer them the choice, they'll still run for the fastest clear to last boss, since last bosses always have better loot, and we go back to point #1. The only way to have a decent open dungeon is with door restrictions on last boss, and a choice on how you open this door. Like Rivendare, have to destroy the 3zigs, you can do them in any order. After that it's still a one way to rivendare, but it offers an illusion of choice. The issue is, to do this in 1hour, you pretty much want 15mins on each "wing" then 30mins to last boss, and 15mins on a wing is really really short. 3 20mins wings and last boss pops in the middle maybe.

That's how they need to design some of their dungeons at least, because yeah, I hate the linear stuff. I like it in Shattered Halls, because there's a timer, and it's built around it. I hated it in Shadow Labs, and that remains as one of the worst instance I've ever done. Probably has to do with having to farm it 50times for my mace back at BC release though ^^.

Oh and one last note since I just remembered. CoT Hillsbrad is actually one hell of a rail instance, but the story and quality of script/situations made it very enjoyable.

 

Camaris

I only got the BRD key last night because some low-level guildy needed help.. Maybe I'm in a minority, but a large number of people only every ran BRD to get their Onyxia attunements. It was too large, certainly for PuGs. It's only now as a level 70 can I really appreciate the admittedly quite fantastic design. It really was a whole city, complete with lore junkie bits like Twilight ambassadors.

So, while BRD is definitely a fine piece of design, it's not the perfect 5-man. IMO, something like a subterranean city that BRD was works better as either a raid, or even a non-instanced quest zone.

 

flyingtoastr

MMO-Champion just added screenshots of a ton of new profession skills.

Of particular note, it seems Blacksmiths will be crafting the "entry" level northrend tanking gear (which is heavily itemized with Strength), green Northrend gems are better than epic TBC gems (12 strength greens for example), Enchanters will make useful wands finally, the new primals are called "Eternals" (Eternal Shadow, Eternal Water, etc.) and the "AH Enchants" will require a reagent made by Inscribers.

Lots of cool stuff.

EDIT: The new mana pot seen here makes it seem that the devs still hasn't learned that overitemizing mana potions is a bad idea.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Lamaros

Why are people having a BRD discussion in here (again)? I keep seeing new posts and thinking "oh, more WotLK info" only to find nothing of the kind.

With Inscription Enchants can now be AHed, traded, and the like:



And am I the only one looking at the profession bonuses and thinking "more reasons to pick up leatherworking on my DK/Ret Pally/Warrior"? It seems a bit odd that a plate DPS class would think about picking up leatherwoking, yet things such as the crit bonuses and BoP armor patches seem to promote it. Will we see similar things in blacksmithing and other professions (that make more sense for a plate class to have) to make not getting leatherworking not much of a difference?

 

• Chicken

I wonder why enchanting can't just produce these things itself though. Sure, it's fun to have professions require one another in various ways, and it's probably good for the economy too. But it seems such a basic thing that enchanting should just be able to do itself in this case.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Addled

QFT. BRD was very easy once you figured out the map. I remember pre BC, doing MC attunement and Emperor runs by going through the lava shortcut. One time, during the Winter Veil, my guild ran Emperor runs to collect winter hats, and our runs generally averaged under 20 minutes (and we weren't even trying for a speed run).

I miss these large instances in WoW, hopefully they'll come back in WotLK. One of my favorite instances is Maraudon, simply because you could either make it a short run (Princess run with the staff) or a long run by choosing either orange/purple side. Not to mention that Earth Song Falls is easily one of the most gorgeous, if not the most gorgeous, places in WoW.


Most people are saying that they would prefer a large instance, with multiple options, ala BRD/Mara, instead of the "hallway/rails" dungeon design of TBC.

What profession bonuses are you talking about though? If you're talking about LWing drums, those are severely nerfed due to Tinnitus, which is a Forbearance-style debuff on drums usage. If anything, plate users are getting a decent buff. One of the profession bonuses of mining is supposedly an extra bonus to stamina, which helps plate users as they generally have mining to complement engineering/JCing/Smithing.

 

Axanor

"Infinite Dust" has got to get a name change before the release. "9 Infinite Dust" is just wrong.

 

spanko

I think you're reading it wrong, the crit bonus is for skinning not leatherworking and the armor patches aren't bop, when you apply them to an item the item becomes soulbound, but the pacth itself is boe and usable by anyone.

 

Liebestod

Hey, they got away with "Eternal Essence"..

 

Moogul

Lots of cool new gems, with interesting combinations, and a couple of new additions (expertise and armourpen were noticeable to me - both red).

Ijago <Casual Jerks>

 

Tyrian

We knew current gems would be depreciated, but I didnt expect the new WOTLK green quality gems to be a tier higher than the current epic ones.

 

• Falk

What? It's the law of x2.

Compare the highest-level random suffix greens in WoW to TBC - 60 to 120 as an example.

Generally (put WoW as it is aside for a moment), each expansion is going to have a differential in just-hit-cap gear to end-of-expansion gear of x2-ish (or close enough), if there is to be any real upgrade path in terms of gear (without which you get the issue we had with non-upgrade travesties before patch 2.1). If you combine this fact with the fact that end-of-expansion gear has to be more or less equivalent to the next expansion's just-hit-cap gear, naturally that's where the basis of the x2 law comes from.

Considering that gems in TBC had 6/8/10 stat points from green to epic, it should be expected that in next expansion, gems would have double that (or close enough, though in this case it's proven as exactly x2). I'd expect the vendor-purchasable gems to have 8 stat points each, and epic gems to reach 20 stat points each.

Some of the available stats on gems are -sex-, though. While I question the wisdom of putting ArPen in as a gem stat, stuff like def/expertise, expertise/hit, haste/hit are all going to see high usage and allow many, many more options in juggling gear around.

Edit:
The highest tier of armor patch (roughly equivalent to the current Nethercobra) is both BoP and has a Leatherworking requirement. There's no stam equivalent for it though. (Which would be funny - a perk druids will have over plate-class tanks :P)

 

Axanor

JCing seems to finally be giving us a huge variety of options. (As opposed to the "Want a green spell hit gem? Run Heroics! " stuff we had to deal with in TBC.

 

Shandara

The JC wands using 25(!) void crystals is interesting. Targetted at giving guilds a small edge?

For the final version you need 75 total, that's a heavy amount (of course you'll be disenchanting your old epic gear as you go along, but still... )

 

Copernicus

Stupid armor potions.



Does that do anything for the game except force tanks to constantly down them every 2 minutes? Was really hoping for them to become an elixir/flask variant.