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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWrath Retrospective: Ulduar
by Matthew Rossi 
Jun 11th 2010 at 2:00PM
Ulduar was released with patch 3.1 in April of 2009. Until the release of patch 3.2 in August 2009, Ulduar was the highest level 10- and 25-man raid content in World of Warcraft. It's fair to say that Ulduar was at best tangential to the overarching story of Wrath of the Lich King that concluded in Icecrown Citadel, but I also think it's fair to say that Ulduar took everything that had gone before it in Naxxramas, the Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctum and distilled down to a refined, satisfying raid experience.
Ulduar took the vehicle fight mechanic of EoE and managed to make it fun, interesting and variable, incorporating the hard mode mechanic first developed in Obsidian Sanctum and then expanding on it in several different ways. It allowed for optional bosses that could be killed if a raid was gearing up or skipped once you were ready to move on to the end of the instance. It took the various teleport mechanics first seen in Karazhan and Black Temple in BC and made them part of the instance. It even had a "hard mode only" fight with a limited duration that could only be attempted for one hour every raid week from the first time it was started.
It's no secret that Ulduar is one of many people's favorite raids for this expansion (it's personally #2 for me, as I'm a much bigger fan of ICC than most), and there are quite a few reasons for that popularity.
Blowing the doors off what came before
As much as I think Naxx gets a bad rap nowadays and certainly accomplished what it was designed to do, it's fair to say that in pretty much every way, Ulduar pushes the bar higher. The instance itself when it released was absolutely striking and distinctive, taking art elements from old instances like Uldaman and totally updating them. There really is no comparison between Naxx and Ulduar from an art design perspective. The encounters were well designed, often challenging, and each succeeded in emphasizing different mechanics. Those fights that had hard modes unfolded in organic ways that made sense, whether it was simply killing the Iron Council in a different order or breaking XT-002s or even pushing a clearly marked "Do not push" button in Mimiron's room to work on Firefighter.
Furthermore, achievements in Ulduar felt far less punishing and far more organic. The instance was clearly designed far more naturally to take advantage of them and make them worthwhile, challenging and even sometimes fun without being the ridiculously unforgiving ones Naxxramas offered. Compare Conquerer of Ulduar with The Immortal.
Blowing the doors off what came after
Yes, I'm fairly happy with my certainty here. Ulduar is simply far, far more enjoyable than Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader. The art design isn't even comparable (a sprawling titanic city prison for an Old God versus a round room?). The fight design for Ulduar is far more interesting that almost every ToC fight except possibly Anub'arak (and I'd definitely put both Yogg-Saron and Algalon ahead of Anub for challenge and fun). ToC's hard modes are basically far less organic than those of Ulduar. Furthermore, I generally find the Ulduar hard modes to be superior to the conceit of running the exact same instance up to four times (10-man, 10-man hard, 25-man and 25-man hard) with minimal changes and no real explanation for why it's suddenly harder.
If it's fair to say that Ulduar took on a bright shine for many raiders after coming out of Wrath's introductory content, it's also fair to say that the release of patch 3.2 ultimately led to Ulduar taking on an even brighter shine of reflected glory in comparison to ToC/GC.
Making use of existing lore, creating new lore
Frankly, being tangential to the developing story line of Wrath of the Lich King works very heavily in Ulduar's favor. Ulduar as a raid instance is very heavily tied into the lore of Uldaman, Un'Goro Crater, Ahn'Qiraj and the long-established titan/Old God conflict. At the same time, it establishes the existence of the watchers, servants of the titans who worked to shepherd Azeroth and protect it from Old God influence. The existence of Yogg-Saron helps contribute to the story of the Lich King by providing a source for the strange material he uses to construct darn near everything, as well as providing a rich resource for future stories in unfolding titan sites like Uldum. Furthermore, the presence of an actual Old God of Death working against Arthas/The Lich King has all sorts of possibilities. It's fairly clear from the Yogg-Saron fight itself that ol' Yoggy was tipping us off to Arthas' plan for Bolvar, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that Old Gods like C'thun and Yogg aren't so easily slain as all that.
Also, Ulduar contains the ultimate in high stakes. Yes, if we fail to stop the Lich King, he'll continue to try and destroy or subvert all life on Azeroth, and while the idea of a cadre of heroes like, say, you and your fellow raiders as servants/soldiers of the Scourge is indeed very bad news, even that has a hard time topping the idea that if you don't beat Algalon in one hour, Azeroth and everything on it will be broken down into component elements and recreated from scratch. There's simply no way around it. The stakes here are as high as they have ever gotten in WoW -- and the best part is, if you have ever run the Halls of Lightning, it's possibly directly your fault that the world is about to end, because you killed Loken. Killing Loken, Yogg-Saron's enslaved prime designate among the titanic watchers, is what activated the Algalon Protocol in the first place.
In the end, Ulduar took what had gone before it and very handily separated the wheat from the chaff, and then made some really awesome bread out of that wheat. (I just did irreparable damage to that poor idiom; I'm a monster.) It either improved upon or created everything we currently enjoy in raiding and was, by virtue of its freedom from the overarching plotline of the expansion, totally able and willing to create awesome new antagonists for us to murder for loot. It is definitely a candidate for best raid of this expansion.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Nighthavk Jun 11th 2010 3:16PM
Oblivion in the mountains!
Goradan Jun 11th 2010 2:57PM
The art and architecture of Ulduar was so inspiring it just begged you to swing the camera around and gape. I remember standing in the corridor between Razorscale and Ignis and I looked up for the first time and the whole thing just awed me the first time.
I remember stepping into the Antechamber and seeing the health totals on the mobs. Or the light sculptures that hung in space. The broken chains of Yogg and the cracked dome leaking madness into the whole place...
When all 4 keepers are cleared and they stand watching over the prison is an image that I still love to see before sending them down.
Seeing the cultists on the way down to the General is a great touch, and the adds around General who needed CC when you first got down there was a great touch. I still remember the by-word in the guild after we first got into Antechamber was "Ulda trash is no joke!"
Our first time getting Firefighter is still one of my favorite raid memories, and finally opening the door to the Planetarium and hearing Algalon's amazing voice say things that were existentially terrifying.
Man, good times. GOOD times. I miss that place so much.
Sky_Paladin Jun 11th 2010 2:58PM
There are two defining moments in Wrath of the Lich King. Everybody knows the first one. It is the Wrathgate cinematic.
The second one is for those people who play with the music on.
The first time you step in to the Antechamber of Ulduar and stare down the staircase before Kologarn, that strong Russian-themed music playing...
That, to me, is the crowning moment of awesome in the whole game. There has been nothing like it before, and nothing like it since. And I have been all over the damn place, from the ruins of Anh'Qiraj, the darkest parts of Outland, and before the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel.
It's perfect. I can't really put it into words. You've either been there and lived it, or you haven't. That music and that vision is what set me to decide that there might be more to this 'raiding' than I had believed; and whetted my appetite for more.
I'm not dis-satisfied, but I am hungry for more of this kind of thing. The something that made me feel, "Today I am doing something important." No matter how many times I ran through Ulduar, that staircase was always special. It still is.
Robert Jun 11th 2010 3:20PM
Seconded. The first time I stepped into the Antechamber I was in complete awe of the music. Every single time I stepped into the Antechamber for the next three months the music would compell me to say in raid chat "I love this music so much!" such that it became a running joke in the guild. ("Sorry, I couldn't hear you over vent, I had the music turned up too loud.")
The only music that's potentially on par with the Ulduar music is the Karazhan Harpsichord; and *maybe* Sunwell.
CrimsonEyedDeath Jun 11th 2010 4:08PM
Agreed. Fantastic music in Ulduar. I'm not too fond of the outside music (a little too frantic for my tastes) but everything once you get inside is pure win.
splodesondeath Jun 11th 2010 3:12PM
In the mountains...
Izaach Jun 11th 2010 3:29PM
It saddens me that I'll probably never get the chance to see Ulduar. I started playing WoW on January 09. I could have capped in a month if I wanted but I kept telling myself to pace it out to fully experience the game. That and add in altoholism resulted in me getting my first 80 when 3.3 came out. Now I regret taking my sweet ass time to get to 80. I could have capped months before 3.1 came out. :(
neminem Jun 12th 2010 11:45AM
Fun fact: I had a friend who decided to try out WoW just about exactly when you did. Dinged 80 while the rest of our guild was banging our heads against LK normal mode (horrible timing on his part), so he got bored and left. Our guild this weekend made plans for doing various Ulduar hard mode stuff we hadn't done when it was progression, this weekend, but we only had 9 signups. Well, guess who decided to come back last night cause he was bored? So now we have 10, and the friend gets to see Ulduar! This could happen to you, too!
Or, you know, make a tank and wait until Cataclysm, you'll probably be able to solo it. ;)
cidninja Jun 11th 2010 3:41PM
the worst thing about ulduar is how it's almost totally forgotten. i have seen so many people who have never done it at all, or if they have it's only been the first 4 bosses for weeklies.
ulduar is definitely the best raid of this expansion and it's a shame that a lot of people don't realize it. it kinda makes me miss the model of having to do raids in order to get attuned to the next tier, just so everyone would be more familiar.
Noah Jun 11th 2010 3:52PM
ive got three things to say.
#1: watch this, its so catchy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hgcy6bsg4g
#2: Ulduar was so awe-inspiring i would ask in trade chat if someone wanted to check it out in stealth with me on my feral druid. My favorite part was fighting Kologarn and the satisfaction of crossing his body after that fight that always kept you on your toes in the early days of the instance. The most beautiful part was always taking Mimiron's tram and watching it race through the tunnel while standing on the outside. Though i am a WotLK raider, born and raised, and its natural for me to say this as ive not experianced walking into Karazhan on its first night it was opened, but it is the single greatest thing to ever grace this game. My server dosn't really run it anymore, but every week i go back there and stealth past the mobs and enjoy myself for at least an hour.
#3: maybe Blizzard will bring this glorious raid back in Cataclysm. Like they did with Onyxia. So we will have a reason to go back there and run it again. Maybe if enough of us say this, this will become a reality. Everyone in WoW should have a chance to experience the awe-inspiring scene of defeating Kologarn and seeing the size of the Antechamber, everyone should be allowed to see how Algalon takes you into space, and then cry after trying to beat him but he keeps wiping the floor with you. So, Blizzard, please. BRING ULDUAR BACK!!!!!
ord Jun 11th 2010 4:26PM
I hated Ulduar. I didn't like the Vehicle mechanics, I didn't like XT or any of the mechanical units found in Ulduar. Ulduar felt rushed and choppy, but that's the impression I get from most of this expansion. WotLK could have been so much more and so much better, but unfortunately we got this.
feniks9174 Jun 11th 2010 4:31PM
Ulduar is a prime example of why I don't like Blizzards approach to "accessible raiding". I'm not against the concept itself, and I appreciate that it sucks spending months and months designing an instance that only a handful of people get to see, But the problem still exists in that just about every player who hit 80 after ToC launched will never see past the first wing of Ulduar. When gear rains from the sky because of the emblem system getting reset and upgraded, older (and amazing) content is made unnecessarily obsolete.
Ulduar is still a blast and even in T10 can be challenging enough that you really need to pay attention to what you're doing. You can't faceroll bosses like Auriya and Mimiron. It's too bad no one ever wants to go back there.
Sword Jun 11th 2010 9:49PM
I vehemently agree with you Feniks..
I very much do not think content should become obsolete in the same expansion. It used to be up to the player really how progressed they were, now everyone is basicly on the same footing, doing the same raid.
Maybe if they implemented something like the ICC buff, but start it on the lowest raids of the next expansion when the final one is out and work upwards they could revert things back.
That being said though, Blizzard has pretty much been keen on destroying anything good about the game in order to please people with an entitlement complex. I definitely do not think as some do that the game is better now, it definitely has gotten a lot worse due to blizzard's current obsession with accessibility.
I can tell you one thing, a lot of people have already quit because of it or other reasons similar, and unless cat fixes things...they won't come back.
Mr.X Jun 11th 2010 5:02PM
Lets Hope for More Ulduar like Raids in the Future
Where:
1, The Lore is proper and exciting
2, The HardModes dont change by clicking a setting in the UI
3, Each Fight has fun and interesting mechanics and isn't the same repeated mechanics for 5-8min
Neirin Jun 11th 2010 5:04PM
I'm a big fan of Ulduar's organic hard modes, but in some cases I do think the devs had a point about it being too closely related to achievements. In fact, one of the best designed hard modes - Iron Council - was also one of the most bizarre to try to figure out. If you're just standing at the door for the first time, there's very few hints about how to control hard mode. Since there were achievements you could tell that the kill order mattered, but the only reason Steelbreaker was the "official" hard mode was because he was on the meta. Having to not only look through the achievements for a specific encounter, but also look through the meta achievement for the entire tier to decide what hard mode was is a sloppy way of informing players.
I do think, however, that ToC and ICC hard modes have, in general, done a very poor job of actually altering the fight. Aside from H-Anub 25 and H-LK most fights only really added an extra effect or gimmick, or just instituted a gear-check. Let's face it H-Rotface feels exactly the same as regular Rotface, you just get gas every now and then. Ulduar, on the other hand, had several very memorable hard modes because the hardmodes were practically a different fight. Iron Council hard mode was completely different than regular, Firefighter was like something from another planet, and Yogg hard modes took a complicated fight and made it more complicated (in particular, having to keep careful track of sanity and the p3 adds dramatically changed how people looked at the fight).
nekorion Jun 11th 2010 5:16PM
You know how you know ulduar was a good raid?
The achievements names are hilarious and fitting
Personal favorite? You could say that this cache was rare.
Matthew Jun 11th 2010 5:43PM
I wish I was with a group that did more Ulduar. /sadpanda
I did get up to Freya, and thought that was one of the coolest and prettiest fights I've been in!
scimitar Jun 11th 2010 5:50PM
cant agree with you more for me ulduar was one of the best things that happened to wow raid wise and it crushed me to see blizz ruined it with 5mans that give u much better gear for no effort and a raid that does pretty much the same thing.
I loved the hard modes and the vast amounts of achievments that would add a little spice to each boss fight the designs were incredible and the ideas for the bosses and the fight mechanics were great also the loot was very nice.
For me ulduar was the best in all of WOTLK and it should have been the sunwell raid for WOTLK on my opinion because that way it would have been a challenge untill the end of the expansion and wouldnt have been ruined and left behind because some people who were used to easy raids like the earlier ones couldnt handle the mechanics so they made blizz create an easier raid.
And also i believe that even with all the lore and the amount of time spent to ICC it cant be compared to ulduar in any way maybe the loot got a bit nicer but at least for me no boss was as fun as any of the ulduar bosses even the lich king is less fun then yogg since its just tons of stuff you have to kill or avoid in the yogg fight every one had a special role that was essential here its just dps the add then back to boss.
so i think its really great your pointing the uberness of ulduar and maybe blizz will take notice of that and make more raids inspired by it :)
Jason Jun 11th 2010 6:15PM
Speaking of voice acting, who remembers when Sara used to scream bloody murder at random times for no discernable reason? :P
Josho Jun 11th 2010 6:40PM
I never got to go to Ulduar. :( Makes me cry.