Do dungeons really take lot of resource to make?

[PrairieChicken]

Often I hear about how dungeons are more "expensive" than other contents such as scenarios or dailies to make.

I don't really understand why - other contents take a lot to make.

For example, the thunder isle is a completely new zone, with gozilions of different quest mobs, and chains of quests, plus gradual unlocking of the isle and etc. Heroic scenarios too require new zones and tuning too.

Is there any reason why dungeons are especially costly?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Models. They need new enemy models, new scenery models, a new location, new gear....

[Deleted]

im my oppinion it shuldent be exspensive to make, since they use a program (with tools) to make it (not 110% sure, but it wuld make sence if they did..)

[schwank05]

I would be fine with Scenarios if they dropped gear. If they are going to be taking 5-mans out of the picture, than the Scenario's need to drop gear to replace them. I hate running a Heroic Scenario and not getting shit at the end.

[Lucetia]

Often I hear about how dungeons are more "expensive" than other contents such as scenarios or dailies to make.

I don't really understand why - other contents take a lot to make.

For example, the thunder isle is a completely new zone, with gozilions of different quest mobs, and chains of quests, plus gradual unlocking of the isle and etc. Heroic scenarios too require new zones and tuning too.

Is there any reason why dungeons are especially costly?

Heroic Scenarios do not require new zones as far as I can remember every scenario uses the same zone backdrop as either another instance or some place in the world.

As for the Isle of Thunder most of the mobs were just reused stuff from various other things, including the raid itself.

Dungeons usually require an entire new backdrop to get the feel they fit in the area then usually new models/skins. Overall I'd say a for every dungeon boss they work on that 's one raid boss we get. So ultimately it would come down to would you want a shorter raid in order to get a dungeon? It'll be nice once they get the resources allocated to where they can work on both at the same time.

You also have to remember, that they are always trying to work on two patches ahead of live. So teams are split thus reducing some resources each patch, but at the same time has worked out a bit better this expansion than in past.

[Deleted]

dungeons in general take quite some resources too make needing it all to be made from scratch.

however MoP this is not as much the case, since loads of the dungeons like scenario's take place in real zones
or are used as part of a quest chain.

good example is temple of the jade serpent, which teleports you into a special dungeon to do a few quests.
or stromstout brewery as part of the quest chain fighting some elites.

other dungeons partially excist within the game, like siege of nizhau temple. where you go too the outdoor part.
same goes for shado-pan monastery. these dungeons needed an indoor part made specially for the dungeon that isnt used outside of it.

Gate of the Setting sun, completely takes part in the outdoor setting, making it very similiar to a scenario.

while mogu'shan palace hasnt any outdoor part and takes lots of time too make for just a dungeon, pretty much the same as most old dungeons.

depending which way they go, they could actually make more dungeons like gate of the setting sun, though doing this for shorter quicker scenario's is better suited.
which is a big reason why they choose to do so.
leaving the more expensive and demanding way to go sidetracked. [erspnally im a bit turn between liking and disliking going scenario's over dungeons.

[anothdae]

Dungeons take resources, but most of the modern dungeons just re-use ingame locations. The problem is that few people did them in MoP, mostly because heroics had such a limited use... they were/are replaced by lfr.

This is a problem, but IMO current scenarios aren't really the answer, at least yet. People like to tank and heal, and if you bring anything less that 3 dps to a scenario you are going to have a very hard time getting the bonus, or even completing the scenario in a reasonable amount of time. Tanking, or especially healing, is just gimping yourself and your group. This lead to problems for lfr, (and indirectly raiding) because there are so few tanks and healers that are even marginally good. At least with dungeons you actually had to tank and could learn how to do it. Without that, the only real place to learn how to tank is in lfr itself, which leads to tanks without a basic understanding of their class wasting 24 other people's time.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I would be fine with Scenarios if they dropped gear. If they are going to be taking 5-mans out of the picture, than the Scenario's need to drop gear to replace them. I hate running a Heroic Scenario and not getting shit at the end.

I'm not. Scenarios are a very random in the lore, and don't capture the same epic feel as dungeons.

[Aquamonkey]

I don't want players to think that they're getting heroic scenarios instead of dungeons, though. They're kind of different teams working on them, scenarios are much easier for us to make, so it was more of extra content we could give players rather than trying to do a bait and switch of "Yeah, I know you like dungeons, but we're gonna give you this scenario instead."
...
Dungeons come with the expectation of new architecture, and some new art, and mechanics like that. I don't think players would be satisfied if we just took, say, the Tomb of Forgotten Kings and said "Hey, this is our dungeon now," even though it has the basics of a dungeon, you know, it has a tomb you're going down into and monsters and things like that. But I still don't think it feels like a dungeon the way Gate of the Setting Sun feels like a dungeon. (Source)

A patch used to include dungeons and raids, not a patch is just balance and dailies.
Dragon Soul came with few new boss models and virtually no new architecture because of the 3 dungeons included in that patch. (Source)

This makes me believe that dungeons take a lot more effort than many peeps realize. oO Loved the Eternity one.
The architecture (the physical dungeon) takes a very long time. The encounters take time too, but usually less. You can mitigate that by doing outdoor dungeons, but it's easy to overdo those. (Source)

Why can't the scenario team work on dungeons instead? Can't stand scenarios as healer; even in guild as disc.
Good dungeons require a lot of art. (Source)

Why does it take so much more time to design a dungeon than a scenario?
Art is the big one, but the boss mechanics are also more complex and we have to make sure the loot and lock outs work correctly. (Source)

Prioritization is just a part of this or any business. It's not a questions of being cheap. It's a question of bang for the buck. (Source)

Your a multimillion dollar company, Hire a new artist. Do not say we are picky about who we hire. (Multimillion)
I don't think hiring anyone who walked through the door would give you the quality of art your are looking for. (Source)

...that we need to choose what content for the limited artists to focus on? There is not enough resources? Wow!
Your math doesn't exactly work there, but regardless, the issue is not being able to find enough good artists quickly enough. (Source)

[Deathgoose]

I would be fine with Scenarios if they dropped gear. If they are going to be taking 5-mans out of the picture, than the Scenario's need to drop gear to replace them. I hate running a Heroic Scenario and not getting shit at the end.

Yeah, I have to say, I kind of feel this way as well.

It seems at the end of every Scenario, when you get your little bag, there should ALWAYS be an item in there that is a scaled version "of the X" style random green that drops while leveling.

RNG still plays a factor, as that item could be a 450, a 463, or a 476 (For normal Scenarios. Heroic Scenarios just increase the iLvL's a bit, but keep the wide range of possible drops), not to mention the item could be a downgrade, sidegrade, or for the completely wrong spec, so it isn't like you run a dozen Scenarios and get completely geared up.

[Mawnix]

It's like making half or a third of a raid. Yeah, it's a lot of resources.

[schwank05]

I'm not. Scenarios are a very random in the lore, and don't capture the same epic feel as dungeons.

I could care less, I play to progress my character. In other words as long as I have steady gear upgrades coming in I'm a happy camper. Reason I hate new LFR soo damn much, I expect to at least see the gear that drops, and know that I at least had a chance at it. Now I just plan on never getting drops, because I don't.

[Shink]

A month atleast for just 1 medium sized dungeon, that is for a very small team like 3 to 4 ppl (For normal companies/indie companies) , i see the "resources" blizzard is talking about is paying a large amount of people ~.o

Art,Lore,Program/CG,Q&A,Managing (ones that come to mind atm :x)

Blizzard isn't known to be efficient~

[Bant]

I honestly wouldn't mind that in the beginning of each expansions they include a large amount of dungeons so they wouldn't need to do what they did in WOTLK or CATA by including more heroics later on.

I do believe in the Dungeons ->Heroics -> LFR -> Flex -> Normal -> Heroic, but it seems we are getting less and less dungeons. And Dungeons were one of my favorite parts in World of Warcraft.

[SL1200]

I don't think they take as much resources as blizzard claims. I suspect the real reason no new 5 mans were made was that they wanted to try a progression system that didn't include instant catch up mechanisms like 5 man dungeons have been in the past.

They don't have the resources, but they do have the resources for things like.

Proving grounds,
challenge modes,
4 raid difficultys
item shop
1,000,000 daily quests.
Scenarios.

It wasn't that they didn't have the resources. It was because they didn't want to make them.

[Deleted]

Personally i dont need "new" areas for dungeons, i'm perfectly ok for re-using existing areas. Same thing with boss models. I've never thought dungeons to be more than fast runs with decently "fun" bosses and shiny purplez. Scripted events do not really belong into dungeons imo.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I don't think they take as much resources as blizzard claims. I suspect the real reason no new 5 mans were made was that they wanted to try a progression system that didn't include instant catch up mechanisms like 5 man dungeons have been in the past.

They don't have the resources, but they do have the resources for things like.

Proving grounds,
challenge modes,
4 raid difficultys
item shop
1,000,000 daily quests.
Scenarios.

It wasn't that they didn't have the resources. It was because they didn't want to make them.

Of that list, at least 5 of those are throwaway projects that never were game changing.

And then there was scenarios.

[Wildmoon]

I think "good" dungeon is resource intensive. You could make a lot of cheap dungeon. Dragon Soul's dungeons were high quality art wise especially WoE.

[DeadmanWalking]

Ultimately it doesn' t come down to how much resources a dungeon takes, it ultimately comes down to 'How much are people going to use this content?" Dungeons are designed to be just before and just after the questing experience is completed and once you have the gear you want from the dungeon the majority of players are never going to go back into those dungeons. The resources are better spent on the end game which people will repeat non-stop for the life of the expansion for terms of gearing up and getting valor. LFR of course is the most re-used content at end game for gearing up for the majority of players and the ilevel tier ladder ensures that people will continue to use it to get up to current content.

You can't dump a lot of resources into dungeons when people only use it until they can qualify for LFR, once they are done with that content they are done with that content.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Personally i dont need "new" areas for dungeons, i'm perfectly ok for re-using existing areas. Same thing with boss models. I've never thought dungeons to be more than fast runs with decently "fun" bosses and shiny purplez. Scripted events do not really belong into dungeons imo.

I think the reason is that Scenarios re-used areas, and they came off as feeling non-canon because they had no real presence in that area while we were leveling.