More on making the old instances new again
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 24th 2007 at 2:37PM
Yesterday, I suggested a few ways that Blizzard could make the "old" instances (Scholo, Strat, UBRS, MC, and on up) relevant to players again, and from that conversation came a few good points that I figured were worth mentioning. The problem isn't that the old instances aren't fun (they are still fun, and I've heard that some guilds are still planning to run them, even if they don't need the equipment from them). But the problem is that if you want your character to have the best gear in the least time, the "old" instances are a waste of time. At 58 you should be in Outland, doing 15 minute quests for better-than-tier 1 items.Tobold agrees with me-- it's very likely that players who reach 60 after expansion release will never run Molten Core or the other instances the way they've been run in the past. Either Blizzard will change the levels on them, or players will go back to them for fun with a mix of 60s and 70s. Both of those are very different experiences than the one of learning as a guild, week after week, how to run MC. I don't mean to be depressing (the idea is a little bit softened by the fact that the same thing will be happening at 70 now, only in smaller, easier to manage groups), but it's true. Goodbye, MC.
There is one more idea, however, that came out of yesterday's thread that I thought was pretty good. Reader Skew came up with an idea that seems so ingenious, I wish I'd thought of it. What if Blizzard turned all the pre-Outland instance gear into BOE? That would create a demand for someone to constantly run them, not just for the gear, but for the enchanting mats and so on. Yes, it means that with enough money, you could come by a set of tier 2 without ever going to BWL, but also remember that tier 2 isn't that valuable anymore-- the stuff in Outland is what we really want. I doubt Blizzard will go for such a "giving" solution, but you gotta admit: it solves a lot of problems with a pretty simple change to the code.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Quests, Raiding, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Seper Jan 24th 2007 2:58PM
I would luv to collect all the sets. If only to say yah ive done everything in the game. I also think some of the sets are cool to just where around. The green druid healer set is just super cool in my opinion. Classy but bad ass.
Again... some people run the instances for fun and not for items or anything in particular. Last night a 63 ran ZF with a friend and I because he never got the chance to finish it at his lvl. He had as much fun running the instance as we did and we got alot more item and money wise out of it.
I like the BOE solution. And possibly go as far as to lwr the lvl a bit so that its worthwhile to buy at like 55. If what you say is true.. green gear is better at 58 then why not lower the lvl. Its just going to be vendord or banked in a few lvls anyways.
Threat Jan 24th 2007 3:00PM
That BOE solution is a F A B U L O U S idea! Big ups to the person who suggested that.
Threat Jan 24th 2007 3:01PM
I should add that I am married and have whelplings, so due to uninterrupted time constraints I mostly solo and have to buy gear from the AH. So obviously for people like me this solution would rock.
Sylythn Jan 24th 2007 3:25PM
I had an interesting talk with some guildies last night...for the past 2-3 months, I've been working my ass off to get materials together for the Sageblade (the ultimate pre-bc warlock sword). Now that all the hard work on my part, and help from the guild is finished, I asked for the sword...guess what, I got a 10 minute lecture on how it's not worth it, and the BC quest rewards will replace it in no time...and I find out they haven't even had a smith learn the recipe yet, it's just sitting in some guys mailbox.
Now I fully understand the gear is better in Outlands - but I just hit 60 a month ago...I'm not ready for Outlands, there's tons of Azeroth I haven't seen yet, and I want to do that before I skip over 30% of the content in the game for the new stuff. I put all that time and effort into getting my 2nd epic, and I want it - and no, I'm not replacing it with some green, it's an epic, and I worked hard for it - just like my robe of the void...I'm hanging onto it for a good long time!
I feel the same way about the instances, I've never run molten core or any raid except UBRS and ZG - and even those we didn't do in full. I don't want to hit 70 having never downed Onyxia. I want to experience a 40 man raid despite the gear being "useless", or the run being "pointless". I don't think it's pointless at all - it's fun!
The way this expansion is going, I worry that when the next one hits, I'll just barely be hitting 70, haven't experienced the high end content yet, and the new one will come out - totally negating the TBC end-game stuff, and causing me to have to skip another 30% of content...
Ignacio Jan 24th 2007 3:21PM
still need MC for thunderfury
Druid dude Jan 24th 2007 3:59PM
The BOE idea is pure genius!
The other thing that would need to be done is to ditch the attunement requirements. I can't see many people, if any, doing the Ony quest line anymore just to get their Ony key for example. I doubt that people will take the time and spend the money to get Naxx attuned either.
If Blizz goes with the BOE idea, and removes all attunements for pre-BC instances, we could have a winner!
Kabira-Fenris Jan 25th 2007 2:34PM
Do we need more stress on our respective server economies? This seems like it might be a little over the top. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea...
Dave Jan 24th 2007 5:03PM
I think a fun idea might be to add a couple of lvl 70 quests to MC that require you to go through it with a group of 5 level 70's.
Personly it would be boring to continue to run these again and a again. But for a quest or two or maybe as part of a "key" questline or something I'd step back in at 70 for a little while.
Theadrick Jan 24th 2007 5:34PM
I don't understand what the big fuss is about really. I played EQ for 5 years and saw this happen with the release of each expansion. It's the way MMORPGs work, an evolution of sorts.
For example, when Kunark was released, there was little reason to continue running Lower Guk when you had places like Karnor's, Sebillis, and Howling Stones available.
Qix Jan 24th 2007 5:58PM
@7: I love your idea of making a "Return to MC" quest. Would make for a whole new experience as a smaller group. Would be great to see the improvement or your character by running a 40 man as 5 man group. Hell, if 3 level 60's can down Onxyia at the top of their game, a group of 70's should be able to fine. Would make for some pretty epic feeling content without a lot of developer time involved.
Easiest way to do this would be to make a hardcore version like the BC instances that is designed for a 5 man group of level 70's.
Seeing as a couple RL friends want to go back at 70 anyway just to see it with a new perspective, would be great to get some kind of reward for it.
Genius Jones Jan 24th 2007 6:29PM
You know, that's a freakin great idea. Why hasn't someone suggested this before?
Also, I sympathize with post #5, but don't worry -- later when your guildies are bored or at a standstill with BC they'll help you with your sword. Just remember you're doing it to collect it and they should be at least willing.
Dangfraggit Jan 24th 2007 7:40PM
What if they had quests for gear parts or recipies that would assemble into a unique blue item or trinket.
Grab all the pieces and assemble your own epic, without the bother of training?
Make craftable itmes out of raid boss body parts?
What if they took the concept they that they have in BRD to smelt dark iron, and made it so you could harvest essence of water from a fountain that spawns when a raid instance is cleared.
Or how about a questline bonus instance that can only be spawned when you down a raid boss.
Just a few ideas. Sniff sniff, is that bacon I smell?
Christopher Jan 24th 2007 8:59PM
I don't see them scaling the gear stats in a heroic mode. So there's no reason for higher levels to run the instances in a harder mode for the same gear.
I also don't see how raising the levels would help, even if it's only raised when higher level players enter. It would make it a lot harder to get the same gear, which is meant for lvl 60's.
But, I like the BOE solution.
Let's face it, tier 1 and tier 2 is obsolete.
BUT, I'm sure everyone would want to get their hands on the full set for bragging rights/personal want.
dev Jan 24th 2007 10:13PM
Yeah boe would be nice it might make an opportunity for some of the more hardcore raiding guilds to make some gold for future raids pretty easy. However were talking about gear that is really out of date and nexus crystals that have hit rock bottom in the auction houses. For all those players out there that wanna collect their set items do you really want to end up saying "well i hope so and so guild runs mc this week". What would it hurt to put the loot tables from say at least mc and bwl in vendor form outside of the instance. Have people work in the world to collect their sets. The big raiding guilds shouldnt be upset about this cause of what the expansion brings and it would give all those players that want to collect a viable means to get it and not have to depend on a guild running a raid for fun.
Rich Jan 24th 2007 11:26PM
The BoE idea is good. Just some incentive to get people to think about going into these instances. I hit 60 only a couple months ago and I was having issues finding people to do a DM West run for my epic mount. Now, it's impossible to find anyone interested at all because all the good stuff is on the other side of the portal and all I want is my damn epic mount!
kel Jan 25th 2007 2:20AM
Just changing the reset timers would probably make a difference, turn MC/onyxia into another strat/scholo, maybe three days on BWL, the pain of the older 40 mans for me was not that they weren't fun the first few times you run them, it's that you have to run it sooo many times in order to get all the set pieces, which you pretty much needed in order to progress to the next level instance,and you only had one chance each week that the piece you wanted would drop.
Monkeyboy Jan 26th 2007 2:52AM
BoE is an excellent idea, agree with #6 about dropping attunement too - let the casual players have access to these areas and the equipment.
DarkAny Jan 25th 2007 4:44AM
Hello to all, this is my first comment on this blog.
I'm doing it because this subject touches me in an strange way.. here's why!
I've started playing wow about 1.5 years ago. I was invited by some friends who played the game since the beta's. When I reached lvl 60 our guild has just finished ragnaros first kill, therefore I haven't seen many wipes "pre-ragnaros" but I do felt some very annoying wipes on Rag himself.
Knowing an instance is knowing why it should be done like that, I've loved raiding on an high end level, it allowed me to see something that few ppl have seen, and the fun of laughing on encounters was amazing.
Mike Schramm says that MC won't be done by many guilds... the problem is that it's not only MC, it's MC / BWL / AQ and even Naxx, most of guilds will focus on TBC content, because items are better , encounters are somekind new, raid layouts are smaller etc... Therefore IMO what will "fall in desgrace" will be the content we all been seeing for the last 1-2 years... I have an friend who has an 58 Priest he was complaining that he couldnt find an party for UBRS. In my time of 58's-60's finding and priest for UBRS (or any other instance) was an pain in the a** now its an pain in the a** to find an whole party...
Blizzard should do something about it.. don't ask me why, better loot may not be the answer, cuz the DarkPortal is just ahead of 58 and the demand for new XP is amazing...
Ana Jan 25th 2007 8:43AM
There are some interesting discussions happening on this in the Raids & Dungeons forum. For one, the idea of boss scaling (no blue response that I've seen, but testers have found that bosses even at lvl 70 "scale up" so that they're always playerlevel+3) makes these "old" dungeons still relevent. Yeah, the gear isn't there. Yeah, the trash mobs are going to be trivial (a VAST improvement, imho). But there'll still be some challenge to the final encounters, which will keep a lot of the people who raid "for the fun of it" interested without turning it into a gear grind like before.
I'm looking forward to seeing how these changes play out. I wouldn't want to have Blizzard jump the gun and implement some grand fix if it turns out the content isn't broken in the first place.
Still... the BoE gear idea is genius.
cynthia Jan 25th 2007 10:04AM
We've had a blast running people through UBRS the past few nights. Some of them are completing quest lines, some of them want the attunement, the rest of us are getting a measure of revenge on mobs that used to be able to kill us.
Last night took all of 35 minutes to get to and down Drakk; highest participant was 64, three or four 61s, the rest were 58-60.