The New Year has given WoW raiders a little something to look forward to. Just now, a dribble of information about Ulduar has started to appear in blue posts. Nothing of substance exists yet–all we know, essentially, is that Ulduar will have lots of encounters and a corresponding amount of loot. Thrilling, isn’t it?
I decided to take advantage of this moment when we know practically nothing about what is to come and imagine what my ideal raid instance might be like. Of course it’s not Ulduar, or even my own design for Ulduar. I don’t think I’m invested enough in the lore surrounding the Makers to give anything like an approximation of the story.
I thought it might be enjoyable to start out 2009 with a series of posts sketching out the kind of instance that I would like to play over and over. I’m very interested, though, in what the readers think is fun–so don’t be shy about making suggestions in the comments!
In this first post, I will be looking back at past Blizzard instances and analyzing what makes them fun (or, I suppose, un-fun). It is my hope that I–and of course the Blizzard designers–can learn from the strengths and weaknesses of past content.
What Makes an Instance Fun?
All truly great dungeons have to follow a set of general principles–let’s call them the 6 Rules of Playability.
1. There must be an engaging story line that develops throughout the dungeon and gets at least a partial resolution at the final boss.
2. There must be adequate rewards for the time spent.
3. Boss encounters must be numerous and varied.
4. The length and difficulty of trash clears has to suit the difficulty level of the dungeon.
5. No part of the dungeon should feel like a pure timewaster. Everything–trash included–needs to serve a purpose.
6. The design should support a sense of gradual progression. The most visually stunning environments and encounters should accompany the end content.
Wait, have there been ANY great instances in WoW?
If I go by my own Rules, WoW has had a lot of misses and only a few hits. I will say that, in general, the trends are encouraging. The Burning Crusade dungeons are a step above Classic, and in Wrath. . . well, we have yet to see.
In order to reveal the areas where I think dungeon design most desperately needs improvement, I’m going to go through a few popular dungeons in terms of the 5 Rules and highlight their strengths and weaknesses.
Instance #1: Deadmines
I know, I know, it isn’t a raid. However, it’s my feeling that the developers took their time with this content. Just like, say, the Northshire Abbey area, it’s a starter zone that stands up extremely well to repeated playthoughs. Deadmines scores 6/6 for my rules–it’s just the right difficulty at the right moment. The story of the Defias gang develops through quests in Goldshire and Westfall and receives an extremely satisfactory conclusion when you finally make that scurvy scalawag Van Cleef walk the plank. Moreover, the letter in his pocket and its resulting quest chain really gives your poor little lowbie the feeling that he or she has affected the game world for the better. As far as the rest of the rules go, the Deadmines hits every high note. You can’t tell me that it wasn’t at least a little bit exciting to blow open the door at the end of the cave to reveal an underground harbor with an enormous pirate ship. Not to mention the rewards–which were always pretty good and got a significant buff last year.
Instance #2: Karazhan
There’s quite a large jump from the Deadmines to Karazhan, and if you, dear reader, choose to take that as censure of the many instances that fall in between, well, I won’t try to dissuade you. As I see it, Blizzard made a lot of raid experiments at the end of Classic, of which the best was surely Naxxramas, but my own thought is that the developers were still learning what made instances fun. Karazhan, the flagship instance of BC, scores 5/6 on my scale, and is in my opinion the best-designed Blizzard raid instance for its level to date. Let’s take a close look at its successes.
1. Story
Karazhan did an excellent job of introducing familiar lore characters–Medivh and his father Nielas Aran–and giving them life. When you play through Karazhan, you’re hanging out in Medivh’s house, interacting with the ghosts of his friends, loved ones, and servants. The Moroes encounter is particularly great–you can even imagine the kinds of conversations Medivh and his steward might have had (Oh dear….). In addition, Karazhan did two things that made the story develop over multiple instance runs. First, the quests give you story information in stages, culminating with the cut scene you get as you learn to summon Nightbane. Those quests give insight into Medivh’s personality. In a certain sense, it’s a shame that Medivh himself never appears as a boss, but I must say I do enjoy him as an opponent in the Chess event. Secondly, the Violet Eye faction and their reputation rings give players a reason to repeat the dungeon. In general, I am always in favor of reputation rewards in dungeons. The interaction with the rep-giving faction is always a plus.
2. Rewards
In terms of bringing down the purples, Karazhan was one of the best instances ever. The sheer number of drops per player for a full clear is truly mind-boggling, and yet the loot tables were varied enough that it took several months to get everything.
3.Variety
Karazhan introduced what I like to think of as 2.0 boss mechanics. I won’t replay the whole dungeon for you, but I think that Shade of Aran, Chess, Netherspite, Nightbane, and Prince were all quite innovative. None of the encounters may have been particularly “hard”–though they certainly were difficult for me personally at the time–but they were all very different from each other.
4.Trash
Here is Karazhan’s weakness. I think that it was originally conceived of as a multi-day instance, and as such it might have seemed appropriate to build in some long slowdowns. However, the trash clear between Curator and Shade should have been streamlined at some point. The rest of the trash in the instance seems proportional, but I remember when it took an hour to clear between Curator and Shade. I think a lot of people used to stop for the night after Curator–I know we did. I would think that–at any difficulty level–a trash clear of even half an hour between bosses is too much. For the sake of fun, 10-15 minutes would be best.
5. Sense of Purpose
The reputation gain with the Violet Eye helps keep even an enormous amount of trash from feeling superfluous. In addition, the trash epics soften the impact of long clears.
6. Design
The movement onward and upward–from the servants’ to the masters’ areas of the castle, and always up toward the parapets–gives Karazhan a nice sense of progress. In addition, the most visually interesting encounters–in my mind, Nightbane, Netherspite, and Prince, are at the end. I like the feeling of creeping through an enchanted castle, room by room, progressing ever onwards toward the source of the place’s madness.
Instance #3: Black Temple
I know, I know, I’ve skipped SSC, TK, and Hyjal. There were good things about them, of course, but I’ve decided to run ahead to my personal favorite instance of all time, Black Temple. Illidan’s House of Pain scores a 4 out of 6 on my scale. Let’s look a little closer at how different aspects of the dungeon measure up.
1. Story
By the time I entered Black Temple, I had been hearing about Illidan and fighting his minions for months. I had talked to Akama and Maiev as part of a quest chain, and I had even spent hours upon hours masquerading as a Fel Orc, only to score an interview with Illidan himself when I became exalted with the Netherwing. I think that of all of the BC instances, Black Temple made the best connections to content outside of the raid itself. Moreover, when we killed Illidan, I really had the sense of participating in a drawn-out battle of epic proportions. It was just right for the story. I didn’t even mind Illidan’s speech–and I agree, Akama’s duplicity was hardly surprising. I saw that one coming a mile away.
2. Rewards
Thanks to the purples, the Hearts of Darkness, and the epic gems, adventurers certainly profitted from BT runs. The only change I would have made concerns the allocation of tier pieces. I would have spread them out a bit–I would have put the shoulder token on Gurtogg Bloodboil just to motivate people (ahem, healers) to pay the utmost attention in the pickiest boss fight in the instance.
3.Variety
All of the bosses of BT test different skills. My personal favorites for the sake of sheer ingenuity are Teron Gorefiend, Reliquary of Souls, Illidari Council, and Illidan himself. Gurtogg Bloodboil has unique mechanics too, but I didn’t particularly enjoy that fight. However, I realize that BT offered a chance for players to challenge themselves with many different mechanics.
4. Trash
No points awarded here. The BT trash is monotonous with its reused models and much longer than it needs to be. Particular weak points are the clears between Naj’entus and Supremus and the clear between Akama and Teron Gorefiend. It’s a relief to get to the shorter clears of the end of the instance. The total clear time for BT for an average raiding guild was just too long, especially when BT formed only half of Tier 6. The only “good” trash in the instance is the gauntlet of ghosts before Reliquary. I would like to see more mini-clears of that type.
5. Sense of Purpose
I’m only giving BT a half a point on this question. Yes, we were introduced to Illybeans early on, and we had a good reason to fight him, but other than Teron Gorefiend, all of the other bosses were relative strangers. Yes, the Illidari Council seems like a logical set of advisors for Mr. Illy Dan, but all the others? Why is Naj’entus even in there, especially when he seems to think his boss is Lady Vashj? And why are they even keeping the Reliquary in there? It’s all very unclear.
6.Design
Once again, I’m awarding only a half point. Black Temple is big and scary, and I love that we get to fight Illidan just when he’s stepped out on the rooftop for a moment to collect his thoughts (or maybe smoke a cigarette?), but the instance as a whole reuses too much of the look of Hellfire Peninsula. I think I would have expected something more unique, perhaps with more staircases and outdoor encounters under the eerie stars of Outland. And yes, I know it’s the BLACK temple, but I don’t think that means that every room had to be black. Just a decorating suggestion. . .
Honorable Mentions
I’ve already discussed what I consider the best WoW instances in detail, but some dungeons excelled at certain aspects of design. What follows are my honorable mentions.
1. Best Trash
I have to give this one to the timed bosses of Zul’Aman. The bear run was challenging yet manageable with a well-geared raid, and each of the trash clears was in some way special. This is the one trash clear that really inspired all-start play, and as stressful as it was, I’m glad I did it a few times.
2. Best Boss Fight
Hands down, Lady Vashj is the best ever end-boss fight. To a greater degree than the too-talkative Kael or the overly-emo Illidan, Lady Vashj made a raid really work for a kill. It was all about movement and coordination. I think healers may have had it the easiest of anyone in that fight, but when I imagine what it might have been like to kite a Strider? Pure fun–and lots of difficulty.
3. Best Scenery
This might be a controversial choice, but I have to give the reward to Maraudon. I loved the three discrete areas, each with their own look, color, and indigenous mob types. Jumping down an enormous waterfall into a pool full of Hydras? Very cool. It felt like Elf Fantasyland…except that the princess at the end was rather flatulent and cellulitic. In terms of looks alone, this place is my very favorite.
So what have we learned? It’s no easy thing to make a good dungeon. In the next installment in the series, I’m going to tackle what must be one of the biggest dungeon design challenges–the entryway and initial trash clear. This part of a dungeon can’t give away all the surprises within the instance, but it does have to catch players’ interest.
Very good review so far.
Deadmines is also my favorite instance in the entire game, still, to this day, followed by Karazhan and, ironically, by the original and new Stratholme. I really like those two last ones because of the way that I remember Stratholme from WarCraft III. They adapted them well to the type of things that the players wanted to see and hoped that they would see from the old game.
For my part, the most visually stunning instance for me though was Arcatraz. While there were slow parts within it, I loved being able to look down forever into what seemed like the bottomless drive core of the wing. I thought that was really cool and the bosses were fun in there as well. I loved the two bickering Burning Legion demons and Milhouse Manastorm at the end of the dungeon was always good for a laugh.
“I’m gonna Light you Up Sweetcheeks!”
Classic.
~Frangus
Deadmines is a great conclusion to a very well thought storyline of Defias bandits and their rogue leader, Van Cleef. I would say that both Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns come at least to the same level storywise and with increasing difficulty.
However, lacking all raid experience I found this post very inspiring and made me want to visit the instances to the last one of them.
Thank you.
Copras last blog post..To the Outlands
Did you do any rading pre TBC Syd?
My Favorites include
Black Wing Lair
2 boss fights no trash! Too bad the first one is Razorgore the Guild killer. After the boring ho hum tank and spanks move away from stuff fights of Molten Core you have an intricate multi layered fight like Razorgore. Then Vaelastrasz the Corrupted which will challenge your tanks,healers and DPS in a short but great fight which features the greatest opening lines of any boss in the game
“Too late…friends. Nefarius’ corruption has taken hold. I cannot…control myself. I beg you Mortals, flee! Flee before I lose all sense of control. The Black Fire rages within my heart. I must release it! FLAME! DEATH! DESTRUCTION! COWER MORTALS BEFORE THE WRATH OF LORD….NO! I MUST FIGHT THIS! ALEXSTRASZA, HELP ME! I MUST FIGHT!”
BWL is great. Very little trash,alot of challenging bosses and at the time awesome loot. Once you mastered it it could be done in 2 hours or less. It should have been a template to future raids but Blizzard felt the only way to keep us playing was to through massive amounts of trash at us
The Black Morass
A great idea. Trash that is timed and actually means something to the overall theme of the instance. A true challenge for the gear level and a short clear time make this the best instance ever made.
Worst
SSC+TK
There was alot of things wrong with early raiding in TBC. I remember the trash in Karazhan hitting our tanks for 10K. I remember a Gruul whos groundslam would hit you for 8K with no one near you. I remember Mag when the trash would Aoe Shadowbolt everyone for 8K with EACH shadowbolt. But the the worse thing was SSC+TK trash. The first thing i can remember is finally clearing the trash to Hydross which would take about an hour or so because the bog lord guys would hit your tank for around 15K and kill them then proceed to kill the raid. If you were lucky enough to kill the Bog lords they would do different things but by far was the 2 adds with 1.5 Million health each that hit as hard as the original bog lords. Anyways we cleared that only to discover that the trash was respawning in 45 minutes during the boss fight.
If I thought that trash was bad the trash before Kaels room at these spinning warriors of raid wipe. Basically if you didnt kill them fast enough and there was 2 of them they would spin instantly killing your melee and tanks and shooting bolts of doom at everyone in the raid.
There alot of Instances pre bc that are just terrible. Uldaman? Huge amounts of trash with terrible boss drops + a level 50 boss at the end when the place is for level 30-36? But for the instance that takes the cake is…
Shadow Labs
I was lucky. I leveled my hunter in 4 days when TBC came out. The first dungeon I ran was the hell known as Shadow Lab. Murmur god bless him decided to drop my Sonic Spear which was just awesome for hunters. I used that baby all the way to Illidan in BT. First of the place is long and filled with mountains of annoying trash. The big demon fearing dudes were just hell before they got nerfed as a fear plus huge hits on the tank would wipe us. The 7 pull trash groups before the 2nd boss were hell. An instance shouldnt take 3 hours to clear and even when I was on my prot pally the place would still take an hour plus to clear.
Amount of trash mobs is what determines the dungeon appeal for me. BWL has an almost-perfect trash to boss ratio for a raid instance. MC was a snooze fest due to trash, Naxx didn’t feel trash heavy since at lvl 60, we used to do it on multiple days, AQ 40 also had a crap load of trash. All BC raids had way too many trash mobs.
Wrath seems to have taken a turn for the better with fewer trash mobs in instances (or it maybe the viability of AoE trash clears in Naxx that makes it seem that way :P). Sarth with 3 drakes up is still the perfect boss fight design in my mind since the tempo of the fight varies and there is lot of emphasis on player skill and team coordination to get the job done (although some spell effects could have been better to make life easier for raiders – I am looking at you all-red target circle/shadow fissure/lava).
There’s only one thing that makes a raid interesting… lewts. =P
Nice post. I enjoyed it. I was in Naxx the other day and I was thinking to myself “How is Kel’Thuzad the final boss of Naxx? This fight is soooooo boring.” Whereas Sapphiron, now that’s a boss fight.
I think they give you 2 minutes of trash spawns on Kel just to get you sleepy enough to make the boss fight seem more interesting.
Two things I was wondering about that may or may not be potential blog fodder:
1. I can’t wait for 3.1/Ulduar to be on the PTR. Will Conquest be putting in some PTR raiding or do you want to keep it a surprise for when it is officially released? Why or Why not?
2. As a guild, how much emphasis do you place on Achievements while raiding? I find that a lot of people completely ignore the achievements because they are “worthless”. Meanwhile some guilds will spend hours wiping on 3 drakes just for a title and a mount. Does Conquest go out of their way to complete achievements?
I actually think that Sunwell would have scored fairly well on your list of rules:
1. Story – While it did seems a little tacked on after we had already killed the titular villain of the expansion, there was a lot of build up to much of Sunwell. Kalecgos had build up in MT, as did Muru and KJ. The quests around the Isle, which we all did every day, made for a feeling of world progress lacking in other questlines (I missed the opening of the gates). Brut was overseeing the scar while you ran bombing runs, and the battle between Felmyst and Brut inside was epic.
2. Gear – Perhaps the best itemized gear the game has ever seen can make SWP worth doing even at 80 for some willing PUGs. I know I am still using a piece or two of SWP gear even after clearing all the raid content in Wrath thus far. Not by choice, but it certainly has not hindered me.
3. Bosses – Only 6, but quickly accessed after the 1st trash clear. Kalc, Brut, and Felmyst were all amazing. Each testing a different skill set but all challenging the raid on a level I had never seen. Brut did become boring when you out geared him, but Kalc and Felmyst are still some of my favorite fights in WoW. Twins was terrible, but the pillar strat made the fight quick. M’uru… well opinions differ. Punishing would be a relevent word but the other hand is that when the raid finally got it all right, the beauty of a 100% perfect raid was something to behold. KJ was epic, fun, challenging, and visually stunning. Overall, I’d say 4.5/6 bosses were good to great.
4. Trash – Many people complained about the SWP trash, but I never found it bad. I was always wishing for more due to the best-in-slot drops (never did get that wand). After the first lenthy push trash almost vanished. The instance, once mastered, became a quick farm. I think the trash balance was good overall. Challenging but not overwhelming and allowing a quick farm once the instance was put on that status.
5. Timewasting – I felt Twins was the only timewaster built into the instance. Terrible fight. M’uru was the meta timewaster though. The fight was so punishing that it wasted many guild’s time night in and night out. Not good. Had he been just a bit easier, the instance would have been much better balanced.
6. Gradient – The instance did not have a huge ramp up in visuals, being beautiful all the way through. The bright outdoor environment was a nice change from BT. Fightwise, the gradient was flawed. The first 4 bosses each built on each other but then M’uru came and ruined the flow, being significantly harder than KJ for most guilds. A mistake plain and simple. KJ was easily the most visually interesting though, and the fight was epic, fast paced, and fun.
Over all, I think Sunwell manages a 4.75 out of 6, losing .25 for a tacked on story, .5 points for Bosses (Twins and M’uru), and .5 for Gradient (M’uru again). Still, a rather good.
I cannot speak for everyone in Conquest but I know a Majority of us will be on the ptr trying out Uldaar.
My own personal take on Achievments in raiding is this
Things like Sarth with the drakes up giving extra rewards is a very good idea.
Things like rewarding titles for not dieing too any boss in Naxx is a very bad idea.
Getting rewarded via loot for doing things harder is good
Getting aesthetic rewards for doing things harder is bad
I like the idea of raid achievements myself–and I’d do it either for loot or vanity rewards. I like a good challenge, and I’ve always enjoyed silly stuff.
i.e. “Kill Mr. Bad the Really Evil Guy while standing on one foot and drinking a soda through a twisty straw.” I’ll do it. 🙂
I’m planning on a little PTR visit, but maybe not as much work there as some of my guildies. Priorities, right? I still have some work to do on live. If I’m exalted with Hodir and have managed to find or buy a Jet’ze’s bell, then Ill be there.
I love some of the Classic instances for their sheer epic look and feel. My all time favourite is Blackrock Depths. The place used to swallow me up when I wandered around in there. I like the more playable sizing of the newer stuff, but miss some of the drama instilled by the surroundings of the classic instances and raids.
I know that 40 man raids are a pig to organise and Blizz have been wise to step away from them, but it does feel epic to stand in BWL with 40 others. Achievements did breathe a new life into old raids and instances and I’ve enjoyed that.
I’m looking forward to Ulduar, I think the raiding community can do with a harder challenge than whats currently out there. I hope it will look and feel suitably epic, with interesting trash but not too much of it. in terms of difficulty I would not like to be stuck on it as long as lots of us were in Kara, but I’d like to see it cleared significantly less fast than new style Naxx.
Exciting times ahead!
Very nice post. I do feel one criteria is missing: replayability. When scoring high on all 6 criteria, replayability is more less implied. Still, some instances grow old quickly while others do not.
Replayability depends on many factors, including:
– The entertainment value for experienced or overgeared raiders.
– Scripted or fixed events should be avoided. When overgeared or experienced players return to the same content, they don’t want to be help up by a lengthy scripted event. The flight phase of Nightbane always felt a bit long for me, for example.
– Low player and setup requirement: it should offer different fight mechanics but lack specific build/spec requirements for given fights. You wouldn’t want to respec just for one particular farm run. Players should be able to overrule/overpower or skip such fights. Also low number requirements, say 10 man, allows guilds to leave such farm runs for ad hoc events.
– Flexibility in reward: it should yield upgrades for people with the appropriate level but also something with a lasting value. The badge rewards from Kara made it a superb badge farm instance. The timed events in ZA were an excellent idea. The achievement rewards in WotLK can hopefully pick up the thread.
– Design without flaws: I can’t think of an example in WoW (luckily) but when looking at some games they increase the game’s challenge through obscurity and design flaws: the room is too dark to clearly see what you should do, or, you must jump over a gorge of eternal peril and failure results in a 10 min break/rerun.
I believe Kara and ZA score very high in terms of replayability. I’m getting the impression Naxx will do so too.
Not familiar with most BC raids, but reasons like this are why I think Magisters’ Terrace is the best instance in the game.
Story: everyone knows Kael’thas, if you’re either a casual whose last experience was with WC3:TFT or a raider who took him down in Tempest Keep. There’s even an orb that shows you the sunwell and Kil’jaeden and really gets you into the story the first time they’re there.
Gear: best 5-man gear in both normal and heroic. Always worth the effort to find a group.
Bosses: none of the bosses are a real tank + spank — usually people DPS through Selin Fireheart, but he has a mechanic that makes it interesting. Vexallus is Curator-lite. Priestess Delrissa is an excellent boss encounter that makes _everyone_ contribute. The Kael’thas boss encounter is insanely fun and not too difficult assuming the tank doesn’t get 1-shot by the flame bolt and the phoenix doesn’t blow anyone up.
Trash: Trash pulls are not boring, and require knowledge of every unit’s special ability, good crowd control, and good pulling. There are actually only a few trash pulls in the instance — 6 before Selin, maybe 10 between Vexallus and Delrissa, and only one before Kael, but because of the difficulty you’re not ever getting tired of fighting trash.
Sense of Purpose: Not hard to find motivation to kill Kael’thas given how his story was built up over BC, especially in the draenei starting zone (and I expect the blood elf one too).
Gradient: I guess this is the only point where MgT doesn’t live up to your standards — you fight Kael in a small room and that final trash pull is in a corridor.
Definitely my favorite instance because of sheer variety in 5-man bosses wasn’t something you got until LK. Very little of the instance puts you to sleep, making it valuable for time spent.
Great post (as always), I really agree with a lot of what you said. I also totally agree with Zusterke – replayability is a must.
Both of your comments that Kara was a great raid made me cringe at first. “Not Kara again!” But when I think about it, I ran that instance at least one night a week for maybe… nine months? RL, distance group of our friends, it was our chance to hang out. But obviously Kara was good enough!
But I think Vashj and Kael’ are still my favorites (I didn’t do past Kalc pre nerf). The required a guild to run like a well oiled machine! I loved that feeling on those bosses. Archie, Council, and Illy came close – but just didn’t give me the “I love this guild” feeling the same way.
As for trash – I think post boss high can always outweigh any amount of trash.
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