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  1. #1
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    Why Ulduar was and still remains to be the best raid ever?

    Visually Stunning:
    Even tho one might argue that the beginning of the instance with boring gray scenery and iron dwarves isnt visually impressive at all, once you get indoors you are just blown away. The amount of detail they put into most random stuff like the holograms on the walls when its just a minor corridor with nothing special to it apart from killing trash to move on is just mindblowing. The scenery just screams titan origins and they havent put so much effort making raid feel epic after ulduar.

    Hardmodes:
    The way you unlocked hardmodes was just brilliant. Something as simple as nuking XT's heart in one go or leaving the Ancient's alive on Freya to make the boss harder and the fight completely different was amazing. Really disappointed that blizzard has moved away from this kind of mechanic to introduce the hardmode to the current "hi lets click it to heroic" which is rather insulting towards the player base. You used to feel that you achieved something when you finally had enough dps and raid capable of nuking Xt's heart in one go rather than just toggling heroic on.

    Alternative Progression Paths:
    The freedom you felt in ulduar was amazing also, didnt feel like killing Razorscale first after Flame Leviathan? No problem you could do Ignis instead. Same with council and Kologarn not to forget keepers also. Rather than making raid this linear pipe you actually made it feel like you had choices to advance onwards in this massive titan made prison.

    No clue why i wrote this random stuff, stopped serious raiding weeks after i got my legendary daggers in cataclysm. After that only done Lfr to see the current content once and quite frankly nothing comes close to what ulduar was.

  2. #2
    In summary:

    Ulduars beautiful titan theme, lore, architecture and visually pleasing colour palette > Troll theme, troll lore and swamp murky green/blue colour palette.

    Throne of Thunder still looks good, but yes Ulduar just felt better. I attribute part of this to the Titan theme simply being a superior inspiration and tool for the artists and designers to work with.
    Last edited by TyrianFC; 2013-03-20 at 03:42 PM.

  3. #3
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    i did like the way hardmodes were done, it didn't just make it the same fight with higher stats and you could chose which bosses to do on hard mode, also titan theme and old god!

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by TyrianFC View Post
    In summary

    Beautiful titan theme, lore and architecture > Troll theme and murky green/blue colour palette.
    I would disagree, with the caveat that the murky palette doesn't help Throne, even though what I've seen of it if beautiful..

  5. #5
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    Ulduar wasn't even the best raid in wrath.

  6. #6
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  7. #7
    I think most raids have a pretty massive amount of great visuals put in them that people mostly don't appreciate, so while I agree Ulduar looked great, a lot of other raids do as well. But I did really really like the other two things. Doing a fight differently or whatever to unlock heroic was really just awesome and I hate the "turn on heroic in the menu" thing as well. And the non-linearity was great, especially in the wake of the linear ToT. While ToT is a great raid, I suspect I'm going to be pretty irritated by this when we start heroic progression.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by tenangrychickens View Post
    I would disagree, with the caveat that the murky palette doesn't help Throne, even though what I've seen of it if beautiful..
    I think ToT is beautiful for a troll themed instance. The point is that a Titan theme simply works better, and is a better inspiration and tool to work with.

    If ToT had been a Titan dungeon with more of a Titan theme and less troll, it wouldve been better imo.

    Give me Argus for the next Burning Crusade expansion and us visiting some Titan war stronghold on the Burning Legion homeworld!!!!! (Maybe like the WoW version of Pandemonium fotress, except its a Titan dungeon on Argus surrounded by the Burning Legions forces).

  9. #9
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    Why compare the two?
    Both Throne of Thunder and Ulduar are both fantastic raids, and without doubt will be remembered as the highlights of the expansions.

  10. #10
    I didn't really think the theme of Ulduar was any better than any other raid.

    Also, Ulduar was not the first (or only) raid to have that style of invoking hard modes. I do agree that it was awesome. But it is not isolated to Ulduar.

    I think Ulduar really had 2 things that helped prop it up on a pedestal above others:

    1) Previous raid tier was mostly rehash (i.e. Naxx). Only 2 new raid bosses before Ulduar.
    2) Raid right after was arguable the worst raid ever.

    So, it's basically perception.

    I do wonder why Blizz stopped creating fun ways to invoke hard modes though....

  11. #11
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    I agree, I Ulduar we had choices, cool hard mode mechanics, still a linear boss but some were optional and you had a choice of which one you wanted to kill first. Blizzard is killing the players ability to choose things, it is one of the reasons I stopped raiding.
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  12. #12
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    ---------- Post added 2013-03-20 at 04:51 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by TyrianFC View Post
    I think ToT is beautiful for a troll themed instance. The point is that a Titan theme simply works better, and is a better inspiration and tool to work with.

    If ToT had been a Titan dungeon with more of a Titan theme and less troll, it wouldve been better imo.

    Give me Argus for the next Burning Crusade expansion and us visiting some Titan war stronghold on the Burning Legion homeworld!!!!! (Maybe like the WoW version of Pandemonium fotress, except its a Titan dungeon on Argus surrounded by the Burning Legions forces).
    That's kinda ironic really, since the palace is basically a Titan palace, since it's constructed by the Mogu who are Titanic constructs. It's not really a troll themed place except for the first 3 bosses who are more-or-less acting like a living bulwark for the Thunder King.

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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuhnai123 View Post
    Why compare the two?
    Both Throne of Thunder and Ulduar are both fantastic raids, and without doubt will be remembered as the highlights of the expansions.
    Still, the lack of "turn on heroic button" would really make it on par if not even greater than Ulduar.

  14. #14
    The biggest success of Ulduar I think was Algalon, and how his story/lore/progression was seamlessly weaved into the instance.

    He gave guilds something tangible to aim for and work towards. Killing a new heroic meant we were one step closer to Algalon - which we couldnt even see until we earnt the right to even get into his room. With every other boss - you've already seen it on normal many times before you get to heroic (even if heroic has some new bells and whistles, its mostly the same encounter in theme and spirit).

    And to top it off, Algalon had a compelling and meaningful place in the instance, in addition to being a visually stunning fight.
    Last edited by TyrianFC; 2013-03-20 at 03:58 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by yjmark View Post

    I think Ulduar really had 2 things that helped prop it up on a pedestal above others:

    1) Previous raid tier was mostly rehash (i.e. Naxx). Only 2 new raid bosses before Ulduar.
    2) Raid right after was arguable the worst raid ever.

    So, it's basically perception.

    I do wonder why Blizz stopped creating fun ways to invoke hard modes though....
    Now i do agree that ulduar was a great raid, but i believe those two reasons really helped "up" the love for it.

  16. #16
    There are only reasons why people think Ulduar was the best raid tier, the obvious reasons where:

    - It came out after rehashed Naxxramas
    - It came out before Trial of Crusader
    - It was only current content for *4 months*, so nobody could ever get bored of it.


    You have all the elements you are saying in Icecrown Citadel, but the major reason why people will never put ICC as the best raid is because it was current content for over a year.

    I do agree that the way hard modes were done, and how the heroic loot was done in Ulduar was the best way to do it, not every boss had a hard mode, and you had 4 difficulties in Yogg-Saron. It felt less like progressing the same bosses again and again.

    For me, best raid is and will remain Karazhan. It's probably overlooked simply because it was 10 man.
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  17. #17
    People saying that ToT is all based on troll environments clearly haven't been very far, the environments change drastically in each wing, this is simply one of the most beautiful raids to have come out, and blows ulduar out of the water to me...Megaea's cavern was freaking stunning to see
    Last edited by resonance7982; 2013-03-20 at 03:57 PM.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by resonance7982 View Post
    People saying that ToT is all based on troll environments clearly haven't been very far, the environments change drastically in each wing, this simple one of the most beautiful raids to have come out, and blows ulduar out of the water to me...Megaea's cavern was freaking stunning to see
    Not to mention that it's a Mogu Palace.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-20 at 04:56 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Spotnick View Post
    There are only reasons why people think Ulduar was the best raid tier, the obvious reasons where:

    - It came out after rehashed Naxxramas
    - It came out before Trial of Crusader
    - It was only current content for *4 months*, so nobody could ever get bored of it.


    You have all the elements you are saying in Icecrown Citadel, but the major reason why people will never put ICC as the best raid is because it was current content for over a year.

    I do agree that the way hard modes were done, and how the heroic loot was done in Ulduar was the best way to do it, not every boss had a hard mode, and you had 4 difficulties in Yogg-Saron. It felt less like progressing the same bosses again and again.

    For me, best raid is and will remain Karazhan. It's probably overlooked simply because it was 10 man.
    Karazhan is hardly overlooked, it usually tops polls like this along side with Ulduar. An overlooked raid would be ehm... AQ20 or something like that.

    Amazing sig, done by mighty Lokann

  19. #19
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    .. And if Blizz put out a new raid alike Ulduar with the same sort of themes. You'll all whine about rehashing and it probably won't be as good as Ulduar.

    For the record, I personally don't believe Ulduar was the best raid in Wotlk. The combined struggle during TotC and ICC was utterly fantastic. ICC Heroic progression was one of my favourite periods in WoW. Lets not forget Naxx was also pretty darn good.

    But heyho, some people seem to think WotLK was easy and the reason content is being nerfed this patch.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by peggleftw View Post
    i did like the way hardmodes were done, it didn't just make it the same fight with higher stats and you could chose which bosses to do on hard mode,
    aka like it is now?

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