Breakfast Topic: Stockades, the anomaly
by Matthew Rossi 
May 26th 2010 at 8:00AM
Stockades, or Stormwind Stockade as it is often known, has one huge glaring downside for Horde players. If you're Alliance, you can almost ignore the complete and total lack of boss drops (unless you get lucky and a rare spawn pops up) because you can clean out a ton of quests in here for a huge XP boost. But as a Horde player, all of these quests are completely inaccessible, giving you the experience of running a dungeon with no lore rationale at all and which rewards you with nothing but XP and greens. Now, XP and greens are fine for trash, but I've been in several Stockades groups now where I had to inform the group that we were, in fact, fighting a boss.
Psychologically speaking, the utter lack of loot off of bosses feels bad. It feels weird and empty to run the place and get nothing. Now, I get that it's a prison, and for the most part it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to have a lot of great stuff, but I'm already teleporting into the place on an orc to kill Defias who have no real ax to grind with the Horde anyway. We've seen several dungeons revamped or modified in the past ... I think the dungeon finder necessitates a revamp for Stockades as well.
I could be overreacting to the 10 sequential runs of the place, though. So what do you think? Leave the Stockades be, or toss some loot onto these guys? And what other instances do you think need some cleaning up ... Does Ragefire Chasm need buffing? Is SFK too Horde-centric and does it need Alliance quests?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Tomatketchup May 26th 2010 8:02AM
Looking at Stockades now, I wonder how Stormwind Vault would've been...
Falgorn May 26th 2010 8:16AM
It's a limited dungeon which visually has little going for it. It has some interestnig lore but nothing to write home about.
My feeling is - it's in the game and both sides can access it. I'd rather it be in and accesable than not in at all. Yeah they could upgrade it, but I'd rather new content.
Basically what I am saying is 'meh'. The lack of standard instance structure is a novelty and it's a good xp trap for players that need a break from levelling.
Certainly instances in the future need to be tweaked with the LFG tool in mind, but I think sleeping dogs can lie with regards to the Stockades - I don't think it would be worth the effort.
Anathemys May 26th 2010 9:00AM
@Falgorn
It doesn't have to completely go away. Places like Ragefire Chasm and the Stockades should simply be turned into non-dungeons.
Face it, there's no conceivable reason for the Horde to be killing Alliance prisoners. Setting them free, maybe, killing, no. Same goes for Alliance and killing Horde cultists. Plus, how could any quest giver expect a newb level 20-ish to be able to sneak into and out of Stormwind without dying. Remember: the dungeon finder doesn't have a lore reason to exist, and you can't make it so people who have 4 other friends can't do the quest.
But, if you scale down all the mobs, you can keep the old quests, not have awkward Horde runs, and you could even make MORE quests to go in there. Make it into a full-fledged quest area, in fact! And if you want to keep groups going in there, just have group quests to kill some of the more powerful inmates.
(Please note that this would also work great for Ragefire Chasm)
ZeroDesu May 26th 2010 9:51AM
OR, they could just make the Ragefire Chasm dungeon Horde-only, and make the Stockades Alliance-only. WOW. WHAT A GREAT IDEA.
I mean, c'mon...
Falgorn May 26th 2010 10:49AM
@Anathemys
I don't disagree - but I think the reasoning behind most dungeon quest givers is that they 'Need a Hero' and aren't too fussy where they come from. Now - realistically, so close to home territory, those 'Hero's' are going to be native - but I think a group of outsiders showing up as Mercenaries for Hire would theoretically be granted access if there was a need for it.
That is.. so long as someone doesn't recognise them from a Battleground!
Regardless - I'm glad to have the extra instances despite the lore issue, it's novelty content and breaks things up.
CDave May 26th 2010 11:29AM
I think they should make it so only Horde players can enter RFC using the Dungeon Finder and only Alliance can enter Stockades with it. This way the dungeon acheivements can retain the same challenge of running into the other factions capitol city.
jair May 26th 2010 12:08PM
@ CDave
I disagree with that. Dungeon Finder gives a free dungeon option to run for each faction that they previously reasonably couldn't do. Sure, I stealthed (most of the way, part corpserun) to complete RFC for the acheivement way back when, but the dungeon was completely lost on me, find boss-kill-acheive. It would be pretty difficult to get a level appropriate 5 man group into the opposing faction dungeon. Why waste a dungeon on only half the players just to keep an achievement slightly difficult?
Jorges May 26th 2010 12:08PM
What about having a questgiver inside the dungeon that is only accesible via the dungeon finder? This quest would give you and objective and your phat loot. Like the first time you enter the Forge of Souls with Jaina, but this quest would give you a random blue drop from a bag.
As for the quest, who knows... an horde spy for horde players? a desperate guard for alliance players?... that would be Blizzard's job.
vexis58 May 26th 2010 8:51PM
I've always been of the opinion that they should simply change the mobs in Stockades into nonelites and just make it a non-instanced underground quest area. Ever since I first went in there on an Alliance character after being Horde for a year and a half, I've considered it the Worst. Instance. Ever. I always avoided it when leveling characters pre-dungeon finder unless I had quests to do.
They went back and revamped the loot in a lot of dungeons a while back, even changing the loot drops in RFC from greens into blues, but for some reason, Stockades still drops nothing. Every time I level a new character, I hate the level stretch where the dungeon finder keeps sending me to Stockades over and over again. The random dungeon is never some place with loot, like RFK or BFD, it's always just Stockades over and over again.
Trever May 26th 2010 8:06AM
I agree they should do something to Stockades for Horde players, as well as do something for the Scarlet Monastery for Alliance.
CvijaFaQ May 26th 2010 8:08AM
As an Alliance player I can safely say that Monstery is just fine. We get nice drops and there are still a few quests.
Tomatketchup May 26th 2010 8:44AM
But Ragefire Chasm though...
Tokhand May 26th 2010 9:06AM
The difference between the Stockades & Ragefire Chasm is that point of each. There's a jailbreak organized by power-hungry rebels, in the heart of Stormwind. Underneath Orgrimmar, the Shadow Council still exists and plotting to contol or destroy.
Lore-wise, there's a threat with RFC for both factions, though a bit more direct for Horde.
cendrekai May 26th 2010 9:08AM
While Ragefire Chasm has no quests for alliance. You can get great loot and there are identifiable boss fights. First time I ever went into Stockade on my Hordeling, we cleared the whole place before we realized there were some named guys in there.
Anye May 26th 2010 11:51AM
As an Alliance, I agree that SM is just fine the way it is.
As far as Stockades goes... The ONE thing it has going for it is that you have an awesome tank (and at that level, I think only a warrior is capable of sufficient awesomeness via shield block), it's an absolute XP fest. My warrior would get full clears with several minutes left on the dungeon finder cooldown debuff, even with some otherwise questionable groups. So it's a great place to rake in the experience. Actually, despite being a loot vacuum, I much prefer it over RFC, because there are fewer chances for a stray DPS to pull extra mobs.
It would be great to have at least one or two of the bosses in there have some actual loot tables with blues, though.
lemur May 26th 2010 11:57AM
And if you are running people through on lowbie alts..well, lets just say my boyfriend and I compete for best time on it. Its hilarious to run in on my gnome warlock and kill a whole room with one seed of corruption.
Thayer May 26th 2010 11:58AM
In Cataclysm you have to find the instance in the real world in order to get it via the dungeon finder, I seem to recall. So, once the expansion hits we won't have this issue. Hordies won't be doing Stockades unless they sneak into Stormwind to get the achievement, and likewise Alliance won't be doing RFC unless they go out of their way to get in to do it. So as far as I'm concerned, the Alliance can keep their prison full of lootless rowdies.
AltairAntares May 26th 2010 12:12PM
Maybe it's just because it's what I'm used to, but I've enjoyed doing stocks far more then I enjoy RFC, for one thing, it's just nice to be able to see where I'm going..
Stocks is also amazing if you can get an 80 to run you. Often there's people running guildies and they'll ask in trade if anyone else wants to come along, you can level quite fast if you can get a good 80 running you.
Snuzzle May 26th 2010 12:34PM
Well, they already revamped RFC. Before the dungeon revamp, RFC was just like Stocks... it existed solely to complete quests and the bosses dropped no loot. Now, they drop blue loot. Why can't the guys in Stocks drop blue loot?
foxish.sunrise May 26th 2010 12:41PM
@Thayer
In my guild, we call running Stocks, "Scooby Doo!" because it looks EXACTLY like the old Scooby Doo episodes. Lowbies standing on the steps, watching the hallway as the 80 running them through comes out one door and in another, with a pack of mobs trailing him.