I admit, if BRD were sectioned like SM, it would be awesome. It's design as it stands, is fucking horrible and you should all feel bad for defending it.
Considering it takes a 5 man group just as long to clear BRD as it takes a raid to clear MC is just wrong.
So? It was fun. Unlike Molten Core, for that matter.
And no one ever did full clears of BRD. There's a ten level range in that place.
Which is part of the reason it's so horrible. You guys can't seriously think that BRD was well designed can you? o_O
I still don't understand your problem with it. You seem to think your suppose to do the whole place every time, and its not meant to be run that way. The place is split up so you can kill a couple of bosses easily and do small sections of it if you want or just head straight towards the end boss in which case it should take you about an hour or so.
edit: So becuase its not explicitly winged it's a bad instance?
Doing emp runs in shitty dungeon blues was a fucking challenge and so much fun.
BRD may not have seperate portals but it's pretty explicitly winged. And the layout is incredible, I love the encounter design in modern instances, but the linear hallways can get kind of boring.
In BRD there were all sorts of little shortcuts and you could take differing routes to get to the same place.
admittedly LBRS was like that too, but that place just was not fun.
Actually now that I think of it the Hakkar fight in Sunken Temple with the torches was pretty badass.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
I think my biggest problem with BRD is that it's not terribly clear which sections you're "meant" to go to in terms of your level. The earlier stuff is weak by the time most people ran it (55 or so), and to get to the final boss means slogging through a bunch of that shit. Plus those packs of sentry dogs, fuck I hated those things.
I admit, if BRD were sectioned like SM, it would be awesome. It's design as it stands, is fucking horrible and you should all feel bad for defending it.
It IS winged though. It's just done WELL, instead of dumbly like in TBC where dungeons were just linear corridors with loot pinatas in the way.
There's many paths in BRD. And many short-cuts. Your supposed to go in and hit specific areas and then leave, not clear everything.
And the best part of BRD is that, more then any other instance, it actually looks like a real place. Or closer then anywhere else.
Although I've noticed alot of the WOTLK ones are good like this too. Even if they are linear, they use rubble and such to make them look non-linear.
If you know where you are going, the clearing of early sections you need to do to get to the juicy parts is minimal, but part of the fun of those first few runs is figuring that out.
Now, there is still a TON of trash in that place, but all vanilla instances are guilty of that.
BRD should've been done like Dire Maul or BRS were, and I'll never understand why it wasn't. There's no reason that there couldn't have been another instance entrance somewhere past the bar.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
I don't know, I personally had more fun with instances like Stratholme and Dire Maul. Those are places that felt really atmospheric (not that BRD didn't, I just didn't prefer the "dingy hole in the ground" atmosphere it had going for it, but then that's also why I hated MC).
I think I had some of my worst experiences with Gnomeregan when playing through the first time, but I somehow still love that instance. I also realize I'm in the minority there.
My favorite wipe there was a time when someone's pet aggroed a mob in an area where it couldn't get us. It ran off and disappeared from sight. Someone noticed we were still in combat, but we thought it was a bug. About 2 minutes later, the mob appeared in front of us, and behind him, the rest of Gnomeregan.
Those are the very best times, to be honest. If a mob disappears from sight and doesn't reappear within a few seconds, you're going to be fucked. The beautiful part? The quality of the fucking is directly proportional to however long that mob is out of view!
edit: also I liked Sunken Temple but I wish it had been just the troll and dragon boss fights, which is kind of odd considering it allowed me to showcase how awesome I am at pulls!
BRD should've been done like Dire Maul or BRS were, and I'll never understand why it wasn't. There's no reason that there couldn't have been another instance entrance somewhere past the bar.
BRS only has 1 entrance.
Dire Maul was made later and, just like all the TBC instances, follows the SM model so many people liked.
And with the key, you can skip large sections of the instance.
I think a lot of it has to do with my extremely negative experiences in BRD. Running in there with a group of people who have no idea where to go or what to do, is compounded exponentially in the spider-web like layout of a place like BRD.
Learning the layout was no small feat either. I can imagine the instance being somewhat enjoyable if you ran with a group of guildies who knew what they were doing and where they were going, but even then I didn't find anything special about it.
But hey, ymmv, like it all you want, I hate that fucking place.
And yes, had they seperated the sections with portals like SM I would have liked that place a lot more. It would sure as hell be easier getting a group of people on the same page.
"I want the barman shanker"
"I need my Ony Attunement escort!"
"I need the fire dude for my anvil quest!"
"I need my key!"
/facepalmheaddesk
I stick by this. Horrible. Design.
Oh, don't forget the dude that would go buy all the beer from the bar and have no clue how to open the door, basically stopping your group cold since you couldn't get through the door.
God the more I think about it the more I hate that place.
The waterfalls area in Mara is the best looking place in this game, god I love that whole bit, especially the atrium with the giant boss at the top.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited November 2008
BRD would make a great zone. But it makes a shitty instance. It's just simply too big to work as an instance. While it has some cool elements, it also leads to 4 or 5 hour groupings. Which for a five man instance is just retarded.
BRD would make a great zone. But it makes a shitty instance. It's just simply too big to work as an instance. While it has some cool elements, it also leads to 4 or 5 hour groupings. Which for a five man instance is just retarded.
Which is why I would no longer recommend it to anyone levelling, in the 50s, but it's probably my absolute top recommendation for instance to visit in all of vanilla wow, if not TBC as well.
A group of my real life friends and I "cleared" BRD at the appropriate level(s). It took multiple visits, and yes, it was frustrating at times.
But each one of us, looking back at it now consider it one of the best experiences we've had in wow, ever. We learned so much about the classes we were playing at the time, how to work as a group, tanking, healing, focus fire, etc. One friend refers to it as our "wow birth", as corny as that sounds, it's pretty much true. Up to that point the instances we ran we were able to just kind of dps through them. Hell we ran a bunch of shit with a group made up of 4 warriors and 1 rogue. We were idiots.
So while I agree that BRD is long, difficult to understand, and can be a gigantic pain in the ass (Lyceum ftl), in my experience, it was a great time spent with friends, and a great wow learning experience.
BRD would make a great zone. But it makes a shitty instance. It's just simply too big to work as an instance. While it has some cool elements, it also leads to 4 or 5 hour groupings. Which for a five man instance is just retarded.
Thank god, at least one person is backing me up here.
BRD would make a great zone. But it makes a shitty instance. It's just simply too big to work as an instance. While it has some cool elements, it also leads to 4 or 5 hour groupings. Which for a five man instance is just retarded.
Which is why I would no longer recommend it to anyone levelling, in the 50s, but it's probably my absolute top recommendation for instance to visit in all of vanilla wow, if not TBC as well.
For me, it's Deadmines. That was when WoW went from some "neat game that i'm trying out" to "Oh my god i'm so addicted to this shit I never want this to end".
After my first run through there I was invited to my first guild. It was a big day for me.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
BRD is like a rite of passing
If you haven't spent five hours in BRD, then you're not really a man.
They ask you to go kill x of this mob, x of this other mob, etc...
You do that, turn it in.
"Now, go back in and kill X of ANOTHER group"
*run it again, goddamit
"Great! Now go back in again!"
No questline should make you repeat an instance.
Except that's the point. The zone is designed to be done multiple times, going to different areas each time. It was designed for a MUCH slower leveling game where repeating an instance was par for the course. BRD was ENDGAME stuff too, remember?
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
BRD would make a great zone. But it makes a shitty instance. It's just simply too big to work as an instance. While it has some cool elements, it also leads to 4 or 5 hour groupings. Which for a five man instance is just retarded.
Thank god, at least one person is backing me up here.
We're the only ones who didn't block out the sheer frustration of the BRD pug from hell that everyone ran into at some point. For those in denial it goes something like this:
Do Ony escort quest.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Go do the bar.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Go get the key.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Find out that all three replacements are need the escort quest.
Reset instance.
Do the Ony escort quest.
Replace two douchebags this time.
Finally get down to the area for the FR enchant shit.
Finish your quest.
Ditch the group, knowing you've damned the one person you didn't replace to go do the bar again.
Realize that 5+ hours in an instance is insane and really defeats the purpose of creating instances to be manageable in a single sitting.
Commit acts of violence against your RL friend who asks if you can run him through the Ony attunement.
The first time I went to brd I was in awe then hours later I thought why am I still here
Every time I went back people knew of certain short cuts you could take but limited where you could go
I think a lot of it has to do with my extremely negative experiences in BRD. Running in there with a group of people who have no idea where to go or what to do, is compounded exponentially in the spider-web like layout of a place like BRD.
Learning the layout was no small feat either. I can imagine the instance being somewhat enjoyable if you ran with a group of guildies who knew what they were doing and where they were going, but even then I didn't find anything special about it.
But hey, ymmv, like it all you want, I hate that fucking place.
And yes, had they seperated the sections with portals like SM I would have liked that place a lot more. It would sure as hell be easier getting a group of people on the same page.
"I want the barman shanker"
"I need my Ony Attunement escort!"
"I need the fire dude for my anvil quest!"
"I need my key!"
/facepalmheaddesk
I stick by this. Horrible. Design.
Oh, don't forget the dude that would go buy all the beer from the bar and have no clue how to open the door, basically stopping your group cold since you couldn't get through the door.
God the more I think about it the more I hate that place.
I don't know how things went on your server, but on mine when people were looking for BRD groups it was always specified "Jailbreak" or "Emp run" or "Attunement" etc
I think a lot of it has to do with my extremely negative experiences in BRD. Running in there with a group of people who have no idea where to go or what to do, is compounded exponentially in the spider-web like layout of a place like BRD.
Learning the layout was no small feat either. I can imagine the instance being somewhat enjoyable if you ran with a group of guildies who knew what they were doing and where they were going, but even then I didn't find anything special about it.
But hey, ymmv, like it all you want, I hate that fucking place.
And yes, had they seperated the sections with portals like SM I would have liked that place a lot more. It would sure as hell be easier getting a group of people on the same page.
"I want the barman shanker"
"I need my Ony Attunement escort!"
"I need the fire dude for my anvil quest!"
"I need my key!"
/facepalmheaddesk
I stick by this. Horrible. Design.
Oh, don't forget the dude that would go buy all the beer from the bar and have no clue how to open the door, basically stopping your group cold since you couldn't get through the door.
God the more I think about it the more I hate that place.
I don't know how things went on your server, but on mine when people were looking for BRD groups it was always specified "Jailbreak" or "Emp run" or "Attunement" etc
That is how it was for people who knew what they were doing. But when a PuG of first timers goes in there, the place is hell.
I think the difference for those of us who like BRD are thinking back to when it was endgame content. Of course you went back multiple times! It was huge, epic, and multi-tiered. If you started AFTER that first few month period were the game was brand new and BRS was the end all be all, its just a huge ass instance with a level spread that makes no sense and items that take too long to get to.
Its the difference between BRD etc being a place you stop at on the way to other areas, and BRS being the last place to go. All the downsides mentioned by those that hate it (takes too long, confusing layout, too much variety in mob level) are/were upsides to the people for whom the Blackrock instances were the endgame. We WANTED it long and complex, as we didn't have much else to go do.
TLDR: If you're looking at instances like BRD as loot stops on your path down the road, then yeah it blows. If you're looking at it as the big ass place at the END of the road and not as a rest stop to elsewhere it suddenly becomes a lore-centric, atmospheric, amazing as all hell place.
PS: When you look at it as a whole, from the start in BRD up through LBRS into UBRS and finally to MC and then BWL the Blackrock 'set' of instances is one of the only examples of continuous progression through an overarching plot that extends to multiple instances, all of which tie together in theme and plot. I don't know if you could look at that area and disparage it if you had gone through it all at the start. To this day some of my craziest/most fun times in WoW came from the Blackrock area.
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kaleeditySometimes science is more art than scienceRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
I had a good time in brd whenever people didn't argue about which route to take.
In other words I only liked brd when I solo'd or duo'd parts of it at 60 for cash.
Can I solo BRD with an 80 Frost Mage? I never dont Vanilla content hell even BC. I never was into the raid part of WoW but with LK making me same field as the raiders I want to learn the old content.
Horus on
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
edited November 2008
Looking back, I think Uldaman was the first instance I did where it felt like it was taking far longer than it should have. That last boss really glitched out on my group one time too. We wiped on him three times, and when we entered the instance after that, one of the people in the group said "Uh, guys...he's following me."
And indeed, he was...as if that huge boss were a non-combat pet. It was kind of awesome, actually. Too bad it wouldn't let us actually fight him again, but really, if you can't do it in three tries, it's probably not going to happen.
I think the difference for those of us who like BRD are thinking back to when it was endgame content. Of course you went back multiple times! It was huge, epic, and multi-tiered. If you started AFTER that first few month period were the game was brand new and BRS was the end all be all, its just a huge ass instance with a level spread that makes no sense and items that take too long to get to.
Its the difference between BRD etc being a place you stop at on the way to other areas, and BRS being the last place to go. All the downsides mentioned by those that hate it (takes too long, confusing layout, too much variety in mob level) are/were upsides to the people for whom the Blackrock instances were the endgame. We WANTED it long and complex, as we didn't have much else to go do.
TLDR: If you're looking at instances like BRD as loot stops on your path down the road, then yeah it blows. If you're looking at it as the big ass place at the END of the road and not as a rest stop to elsewhere it suddenly becomes a lore-centric, atmospheric, amazing as all hell place.
PS: When you look at it as a whole, from the start in BRD up through LBRS into UBRS and finally to MC and then BWL the Blackrock 'set' of instances is one of the only examples of continuous progression through an overarching plot that extends to multiple instances, all of which tie together in theme and plot. I don't know if you could look at that area and disparage it if you had gone through it all at the start. To this day some of my craziest/most fun times in WoW came from the Blackrock area.
Hell, up to BWL, the original WoW actually had really good story progression. ESPECIALLY if you were Alliance, since the Defias you meet at lvl 2 are the start of a chain that leads all the way to Nefarion.
The quest chain with Akama in outland was also pretty awesome. I see what you mean about BRD, and I realize that expecting them to go back and change it was/is unrealistic. It just sucks, because that instance has so many neat things in it.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I remember back at level 70, I went through a whole lot of normal instances before I started in on heroics. But this time, it's like "It's level 80, time for heroics." Are endgame 5-mans run more often on normal mode or heroic mode nowadays?
When a tank hits 80 they need to run normal instances or take a lot of CC...heroic mobs DESTROY tanks who are freshly 80.
However, luckily, all it takes is some good 80 blues and you're good to go in heroics. I'm basically once more at the point with my tank as I was with my paladin...Blitz through heroics, taking little to no damage from1-2 mobs, more from aoe packs but still very much healable, and I'm only in 10man Naxx gear, and not that much of it (cleared Naxx this week)
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Its one of the only 3 instances that are well designed, in my opinion. BRD, Wailing Caverns, and Lower Blackrock.
Everything else is a boring linear loot grind.
WotK instances are extremely guilty of this, but at least they only take like 45 minutes.
I still don't understand your problem with it. You seem to think your suppose to do the whole place every time, and its not meant to be run that way. The place is split up so you can kill a couple of bosses easily and do small sections of it if you want or just head straight towards the end boss in which case it should take you about an hour or so.
edit: So becuase its not explicitly winged it's a bad instance?
BRD may not have seperate portals but it's pretty explicitly winged. And the layout is incredible, I love the encounter design in modern instances, but the linear hallways can get kind of boring.
In BRD there were all sorts of little shortcuts and you could take differing routes to get to the same place.
admittedly LBRS was like that too, but that place just was not fun.
The Lyceum was where shit got annoying, fast.
It IS winged though. It's just done WELL, instead of dumbly like in TBC where dungeons were just linear corridors with loot pinatas in the way.
There's many paths in BRD. And many short-cuts. Your supposed to go in and hit specific areas and then leave, not clear everything.
And the best part of BRD is that, more then any other instance, it actually looks like a real place. Or closer then anywhere else.
Although I've noticed alot of the WOTLK ones are good like this too. Even if they are linear, they use rubble and such to make them look non-linear.
Now, there is still a TON of trash in that place, but all vanilla instances are guilty of that.
Yeah they've done a good job of that I think, eventhough Old Kingdom is pretty damn linear, it didnt really feel that way the first time through.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
edit: also I liked Sunken Temple but I wish it had been just the troll and dragon boss fights, which is kind of odd considering it allowed me to showcase how awesome I am at pulls!
BRS only has 1 entrance.
Dire Maul was made later and, just like all the TBC instances, follows the SM model so many people liked.
And with the key, you can skip large sections of the instance.
Fuck I think the plan is to do that one after thanksgiving, don't shoot me down
literally the only good thing about mara is landslide
edit: and when our tank and me as offtank got fucking destroyed by the sludges the first time, caught us completely off-guard
Learning the layout was no small feat either. I can imagine the instance being somewhat enjoyable if you ran with a group of guildies who knew what they were doing and where they were going, but even then I didn't find anything special about it.
But hey, ymmv, like it all you want, I hate that fucking place.
And yes, had they seperated the sections with portals like SM I would have liked that place a lot more. It would sure as hell be easier getting a group of people on the same page.
"I want the barman shanker"
"I need my Ony Attunement escort!"
"I need the fire dude for my anvil quest!"
"I need my key!"
/facepalmheaddesk
I stick by this. Horrible. Design.
Oh, don't forget the dude that would go buy all the beer from the bar and have no clue how to open the door, basically stopping your group cold since you couldn't get through the door.
God the more I think about it the more I hate that place.
They ask you to go kill x of this mob, x of this other mob, etc...
You do that, turn it in.
"Now, go back in and kill X of ANOTHER group"
*run it again, goddamit
"Great! Now go back in again!"
No questline should make you repeat an instance.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Which is why I would no longer recommend it to anyone levelling, in the 50s, but it's probably my absolute top recommendation for instance to visit in all of vanilla wow, if not TBC as well.
A group of my real life friends and I "cleared" BRD at the appropriate level(s). It took multiple visits, and yes, it was frustrating at times.
But each one of us, looking back at it now consider it one of the best experiences we've had in wow, ever. We learned so much about the classes we were playing at the time, how to work as a group, tanking, healing, focus fire, etc. One friend refers to it as our "wow birth", as corny as that sounds, it's pretty much true. Up to that point the instances we ran we were able to just kind of dps through them. Hell we ran a bunch of shit with a group made up of 4 warriors and 1 rogue. We were idiots.
So while I agree that BRD is long, difficult to understand, and can be a gigantic pain in the ass (Lyceum ftl), in my experience, it was a great time spent with friends, and a great wow learning experience.
Thank god, at least one person is backing me up here.
For me, it's Deadmines. That was when WoW went from some "neat game that i'm trying out" to "Oh my god i'm so addicted to this shit I never want this to end".
After my first run through there I was invited to my first guild. It was a big day for me.
If you haven't spent five hours in BRD, then you're not really a man.
Except that's the point. The zone is designed to be done multiple times, going to different areas each time. It was designed for a MUCH slower leveling game where repeating an instance was par for the course. BRD was ENDGAME stuff too, remember?
We're the only ones who didn't block out the sheer frustration of the BRD pug from hell that everyone ran into at some point. For those in denial it goes something like this:
Do Ony escort quest.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Go do the bar.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Go get the key.
Replace douchebag who dropped.
Find out that all three replacements are need the escort quest.
Reset instance.
Do the Ony escort quest.
Replace two douchebags this time.
Finally get down to the area for the FR enchant shit.
Finish your quest.
Ditch the group, knowing you've damned the one person you didn't replace to go do the bar again.
Realize that 5+ hours in an instance is insane and really defeats the purpose of creating instances to be manageable in a single sitting.
Commit acts of violence against your RL friend who asks if you can run him through the Ony attunement.
Every time I went back people knew of certain short cuts you could take but limited where you could go
I don't know how things went on your server, but on mine when people were looking for BRD groups it was always specified "Jailbreak" or "Emp run" or "Attunement" etc
That is how it was for people who knew what they were doing. But when a PuG of first timers goes in there, the place is hell.
I have no idea why because I normally hate long instances, but that place really worked for me.
I swore I would never go back there.
Its the difference between BRD etc being a place you stop at on the way to other areas, and BRS being the last place to go. All the downsides mentioned by those that hate it (takes too long, confusing layout, too much variety in mob level) are/were upsides to the people for whom the Blackrock instances were the endgame. We WANTED it long and complex, as we didn't have much else to go do.
TLDR: If you're looking at instances like BRD as loot stops on your path down the road, then yeah it blows. If you're looking at it as the big ass place at the END of the road and not as a rest stop to elsewhere it suddenly becomes a lore-centric, atmospheric, amazing as all hell place.
PS: When you look at it as a whole, from the start in BRD up through LBRS into UBRS and finally to MC and then BWL the Blackrock 'set' of instances is one of the only examples of continuous progression through an overarching plot that extends to multiple instances, all of which tie together in theme and plot. I don't know if you could look at that area and disparage it if you had gone through it all at the start. To this day some of my craziest/most fun times in WoW came from the Blackrock area.
In other words I only liked brd when I solo'd or duo'd parts of it at 60 for cash.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
And indeed, he was...as if that huge boss were a non-combat pet. It was kind of awesome, actually. Too bad it wouldn't let us actually fight him again, but really, if you can't do it in three tries, it's probably not going to happen.
My Backloggery
Hell, up to BWL, the original WoW actually had really good story progression. ESPECIALLY if you were Alliance, since the Defias you meet at lvl 2 are the start of a chain that leads all the way to Nefarion.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
When a tank hits 80 they need to run normal instances or take a lot of CC...heroic mobs DESTROY tanks who are freshly 80.
However, luckily, all it takes is some good 80 blues and you're good to go in heroics. I'm basically once more at the point with my tank as I was with my paladin...Blitz through heroics, taking little to no damage from1-2 mobs, more from aoe packs but still very much healable, and I'm only in 10man Naxx gear, and not that much of it (cleared Naxx this week)