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by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 19th 2008 at 11:00AM
Bornakk chimes in to say that The Burning Crusade dungeon design was heavily influenced by player feedback, wishing for more Scarlet Monastery-esque dungeons. I can see that, and to an extent, I agree with that, too. Scarlet Monastery, while shorter and more linear, was also pretty cool.
Personally, I don't think that it really comes down to one or the other. Take Dire Maul, for instance. Each wing could be tackled in a straightforward, linear fashion. However, each of them also had alternative routes, and some of them even had alternative ways of defeating them. For example, Tribute Runs in Dire Maul: North. Plus, they were even connected via the library. If you really want to, you could go from one wing to the other without any loading screen.
Stratholme was also mostly linear. You go in the side you want to do, you kill the bosses in your way, and you kill the boss at the end of that side. However, there were also extra bosses you could do if you wanted to take a turn off of the main road. If you wanted to do the other half of the dungeon for some reason once you've finished the first, you can fight your way over there. It gave these dungeons the feeling of being much larger than they actually were, not to mention more 'epic.' There were a lot of little side quests you could do in addition to the main, linear dungeon.
I don't think the problem is that there are too many short dungeons. The problem is none of them have anything that can be done outside of the norm, like alternate routes you can take or things of that sort. Short is good. Options and side quests are also good. That being said, the Utgarde Keep preview Blizzard gave us awhile back makes it seem like they have realized some of this. The preview mentions additional rooms on Heroic mode and things of that sort, so maybe this has been addressed in one way or another.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Anteia Apr 19th 2008 4:46PM
I don't think it's really fair for people to claim that ALL of the new dungeons have no lore - Durnholde, Black Morass, and Magister's Terrace are huge on lore. But I do have to agree with the complaints about the new instances not having enough quests. The only one I feel that really had enough quests to justify going into (and this is not to say I haven't gone into most of them, but I meant justified) is Underbog. Sporeggar gives you quests for the place, you go in and do it, and you feel like you got at quite a bit done at the end of the run. That's what's missing from alot of the instances... the "I got something done!" feel. Instead, we're expected to work for keys, go into instances, kill the same bosses over and over, and half of the ones I've gone with, shard what falls because no one in the group needs it. Then at the end of the run, everyone rolls on a shard. Does that really give satisfaction to anyone? I actually prefer when there's not a sharder now, because that means I can roll on those robes that no one else wants simply because I think they look pretty and I want them for my wardrobe.
It just seems like the new instances are lacking the epic feel of fights.. while adding in the 'die more'. I'm really tired of dying because I stepped wrong instead of dying because I -fought- badly. In raids, I can understand those types of fights to keep raiders on their toes...but normal instances having them is just annoying. Someone mentioned ZF before and I think it's a good example. That stair moment the first time in ZF was totally "What... the heck....did we just do?" and even now, it's exhilarating to pull off even at 70 when I run a guildie through. I can't really think of any fight like that in the new 5-mans.
Urthona Apr 21st 2008 1:53AM
The only thing wrong with BRD and Scholo was that they only had one door.
Sean Apr 19th 2008 10:15PM
BRD took what? 3 or 4 hours for a level appropriate group? There's already enough cool content hidden away behind the 10 man, 25 man, 4+hours gate. Casual players like myself need the shorter dungeons in the game.
Let the raiders have their game, but please leave the 5 man game accessible for those of us who have other things to do in life.
Savonti Apr 20th 2008 9:08AM
I always found it hard to believe that people wanted to see things more like SM.
I always hated SM, take the armory for example, it was long and windey for one boss at the end. It always seemed to me it wasn't worth the effort.
I've always been more of an SFK man, plenty of bosses, cool design (my fondness for worgen) it was short and there always seemed to be a boss "around the corner" keeping the tedium of trash pulls to a minimum.
M Apr 20th 2008 1:43PM
Sigh... here is the deal people:
1. the design (what you think the game should be played inside your head) is vastly different from the reality (how the game is played in the live realm). All valid and interesting thoughts, but I'd be surprised that Blz never thought any of above ideas. It simply cannot be done... Think of this way. The idea of letting raid group split up. How do we define the split? Is it melee vs. caster or based on certain class? No matter what we decide, we gonna have massive forum posts of "QQ, is so OP. must have it to proceed in "
2. If we did 90% of feedbacks wanted us to do, all we gonna get is more QQ. Don't kid ourselves, nobody wanted BRD or ST. Do I miss BRD or ST? You bet. I pride myself over knowing my ways in these instances. However, the frustration of learning curve is simply not worth the efforts. Go into the instance, kill last boss, return quest and collect loots are the only way to go.
Most of suggestions in the comments are simply backtracking pre-tbc dungeon designs. Optional route, optional bosses, more quests that do not involve last boss... They are BAD ideas and are exactly what Blz tried to avoid in TBC.