Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines will be released with Cataclysm
by Mathew McCurley 
Sep 1st 2010 at 3:00PM
Good news, everyone! I've fixed the poison slime pi -- wait. We've got other good news! Heroic Shadowfang Keep and heroic Deadmines, which were said at the Cataclysm press event to have been scrapped until a later patch, are now slated to be in at release! Valnoth has confirmed that the new versions of these classic dungeons are being released with Cataclysm.
Valnoth -- Re: Now when Valnoth said ALL dungeons...Quote:
Heroic SFK/Deadmines are not being released with Cataclysm, but with a patch after it goes live.
Heroic SFK/Deadmines are not being released with Cataclysm, but with a patch after it goes live.
Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines WILL be released with Cataclysm. You will not have to wait for a later patch.
Players can now expect Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep to join the heroic ranks of Throne of the Tides, Blackrock Caverns, The Stonecore, The Halls of Origination, Grim Batol, Vortex Pinnacle and The Lost City of Tol'vir when Cataclysm releases.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Sarkimo Sep 2nd 2010 1:42PM
Nice, cant wait till they can be tested.
t0xic Sep 1st 2010 3:06PM
That seems like a lot of dungeons to push at launch. As long as we don't end up with a 4.1 or 4.2 like TOC I'll be happy. I'd gladly take less dungeons at launch to even out a dry spell later down the road.
Rhabella Sep 1st 2010 4:10PM
That’s only 7 new instances and 2 revamped ones. tBC launched with 11 (2 in hellfire, 2 in zangar, 4 in terrokar, and 3 in netherstorm) the back when heroic grinding meant something and you had to grind them out for the gear to use in the first tier (t4) of raid content. Keep in mind, the devs have said they want this philosophy to return.
Even if you don’t believe that and you think 5 mans are over sold and you shouldn’t have to grind them out for the first tier of raid content, this expansion launched with 10 (UK, UP, Nex, Ocu, AN, OK, HoS, HoL, GD, DTK). 7 originals and 2 reworks actually seems a little lacking.
t0xic Sep 1st 2010 4:45PM
I'm looking at the fact the expansion is 5 new levels instead of 10. I never expected the same number of dungeons as Wrath with 5 fewer levels.
Artificial Sep 1st 2010 4:58PM
@t0xic: You're using Berra-logic. e.g.
Waitress: Would you like your pizza cut into four pieces or eight?
Yogi Berra: Four. I don't think I could eat eight.
(The amount of content and how many levels they decided to cut it into are independent factors. Expecting a different *amount* of content based on how many levels its cut into makes no more sense than expecting more pizza if you cut it into eight pieces instead of four.)
Natsumi Sep 1st 2010 5:03PM
@Rhabella
My count is different than yours. By my count it's 15, not 11 for BC. 1 came out in a later patch.
Hellfire had 3 (Ramps, Blood Furnace, Shattered Halls)
Zangarmarsh had 3 (Slave Pens, Underbog, Steamvaults)
Terrokar had 4 (Crypts, Tombs, Seth Halls, Shadow Labrynth)
Netherstorm had 3 (Arc, Bot, Mech)
Caverns of Time had 2 (Old Hillsbrad, Black Morass)
My count on Wrath Dungeons is different too, I have 12 not 10. 4 came out in later patches.
1)Ahn'kahet
2)Azjol-Nerub
3)Culling of Strat
4)Drak'Tharon
5)Gundrak
6)Nexus
7)Oculus
8)Violet Hold
9)Halls of Lightning
10)Halls of Stone
11)Utgarde Keep
12)Utgarde Pinnacle
Not to mention it started with 3 raids. (Kara, Mags, and Gruul). Honestly, it's a step down as far as Dungeons are concerned, with Raids being the same as BC and Wrath (Naxx, Maly, Sarth), but it also only covers 5 levels instead of 10, making the number of Dungeons that much more impressive. 7 Original Dungeons and 9 Heroics for Cataclysm is more than I expected, what with the complete revamp of every item, zone, quest, talent tree, and several revamps as far as Dungeons, game play mechanics, and resources, not to mention the addition of 2 new playable races that have starting zones just as intricate as the Death Knight Starter Zone in Wrath. I think You, and the other bah humbug peoples should step back and take a look at the amount of work they put into the rest of the game while still pulling 7 new places to hunt for lewtz in before the first set of raids. That and learn to count instances. :p
macster Sep 1st 2010 5:05PM
"back when heroic grinding meant something and you had to grind them out for the gear to use in the first tier (t4) of raid content."
Did that happen? Most folk I know started raiding Kara in a mix of crafted gear, rep gear and normal dungeon drops - you wouldn't go near heroics unless you'd got some raid gear already...
Natsumi Sep 1st 2010 5:09PM
@Artificial
Please don't comment here anymore, reading your comments actually hurts. It's 5 new levels PLUS A REVAMP OF THE FIRST 60 LEVELS. The fact that they had time for 7 is mind boggling! They have reworked SEVERAL of the 1-60 Dungeons AS WELL AS A MAJORITY OF THE QUESTS.
For those of you bad at math, that's 65 levels of content, revamps of 10 classes, 2 new races, redesigns of nearly every zone, 3000 quests, plus 7 Dungeons and 3 Raids. You tell me why I should have expected MORE Dungeons from the Dev team.
t0xic Sep 1st 2010 5:13PM
@Artificial
I'm not trying to draw a correlation between the number of levels (slices) and the amount of content I get. I guess I wasn't specific enough.
I'm considering that less time was given to the end-game leveling experience (80-85) to spend more time on redesigning zones, changing quest flow, adding new quests/deleting old quests, new classes/starting zone experiences, etc.
That's all. I just assumed they were busy with other things, so I didn't have high hopes for the number of end-game dungeons. Especially when they started talking about pushing heroic SFK/DM to a later patch.
Jack Miles Sep 1st 2010 5:18PM
@Natsumi
How does his comment hurt? It was a mildly confusing way of putting it, but it was true.
What he meant was that 5 levels instead of 10 doesn't mean there is half the content, it just means each of those levels takes longer. If you look at the size of the new zones you'll see this is true.
@macster
"Did that happen? Most folk I know started raiding Kara in a mix of crafted gear, rep gear and normal dungeon drops - you wouldn't go near heroics unless you'd got some raid gear already..."
Even then there wasn't much point it them. They suffered from the same problem as tier 0.5 and its baron 45 runs. To be able to run the dungeon to get the gear, you needed better gear than it awarded anyway.
Hoping they'll fix this for cata. No so easy that you can skip the normal modes, but not so hard you may as well skip them for raids.
Natsumi Sep 1st 2010 5:33PM
@Jack
Because he is forgetting the other 60 levels of content we are getting, the 2 new races, the complete revamp of all items, 3 times the quests added as in Wrath, and rebuilding the classes practically from the ground up. He's basically saying that there is only half (technically) the content in Cataclysm as was released in Wrath, when it's closer to 4 times the content (if not more). That, and his comments are often incredibly ignorant of actual game mechanics and/or the game design process.
Also, he probably plays a Paladin. ;)
Richard Sep 1st 2010 7:19PM
@ Natsumi "You tell me why I should have expected MORE Dungeons from the Dev team."
Umm, because the majority of people paying their monthly fees for this game are in end-game AND we are paying the exact same amount of money for this expansion as we paid for the last one without the same amount of end-game content.
You can argue all you want about the new races, revamp etc, but it all boils down to the majority of players and what they will be doing/want to do in this expansion. We will be getting less end-game regular/heroic dungeons, and less end-game raid bosses overall than we got at launch with BC or WoTLK (they've already said the 3 raids in Cata will have 4 bosses a piece, Naxx had 13 bosses alone let alone OS and EoE).
Personally I'm still looking forward to Cata and all the changes it will bring. I just hope there will be enough end-game content to carry us through to the next expansion. (btw, my comment about the majority of players being end-game comes from the devs, not something I made up)
Natsumi Sep 1st 2010 7:51PM
@Richie (I can call you Richie can't I? :) )
You are correct, but not by much. Wrath did indeed launch with more bosses (Naxx has 13, Malygos is 1, and Sarth is technically 1 as well, a total of 15) it is only by 2 (3 raids x 4 bosses per, plus the "surprise" extra Heroic only boss in one of the raids, a total of 13). The fact that they Retuned Naxx (while still a huge effort, don't get me wrong) allowed them to spend more time on other things (pretty sure if they had come up with a new raid it wouldn't have had 13 bosses plus the 2 other raids AND hit store shelves when it did)
Burning Crusade hit with 3 raids and only had 13 bosses as well (Mags is 1, Gruul is 2 more, and Kara had 10 bosses, grouping Opera Events as 1 since you could only do 1 a week, and excluding Chess and the Servants' Quarters as they were not really bosses, that makes a total of 13).
Think of Cataclysm as WoW 2 only they let you keep your existing characters. Comparing it to the other expansions like this is truly unfair in the extreme, the only real comparison would be to vanilla, which shipped with no raids, broken specs and classes, poorly designed quests and items, and very little innovation from the other games like it on the market. They are correcting their past mistakes (which is more than any other dev team will do) in addition to giving us more content. THAT is why we shouldn't expect more than what we got.
Tamarin Sep 1st 2010 8:26PM
Hmmm, perhaps we're using the wrong measure on this new expansion. I'd rather ask "How long will this keep me entertained?"
Five new long levels, five mans, raids, flying around Azeroth for hours on end reveling in the new flight ability, leveling at least 2 new characters for both horde and alliance to check out the old world changes, relearning how to play all my alts, collecting all the new mounts and pets, a new profession... Oh my, I'm tired just thinking about it all!
Marculus Sep 2nd 2010 12:41AM
Cookie drops the wand
Smite still calls us landlubbers
Eightyfive this time
http://warcrafthaiku.blogspot.com
Magma Sep 1st 2010 3:06PM
That's..good to hear? I wasn't really worried though.
Michael Sacco Sep 1st 2010 3:51PM
We were, considering that Blizzard said we'd need to wait until another content patch for them :)
Natsumi Sep 1st 2010 5:11PM
I wasn't worried so much as impatient :p
Now I don't have to be though :D So Yay!
MrJackSauce Sep 1st 2010 5:29PM
Was the fact that it was a later patch that made you worry? Really? :P They were going to be implemented anyway. This just means it's going to be sooner!
Not saying I'm ungrateful, I can't wait to do heroics of awesome old school dungeons.
Donhorn Sep 1st 2010 3:07PM
Woot! That's a good amount of heroics to have off the bat. Can't wait to sink my Druish spells into them!