What was the appeal of Vanilla dungeons?

[Seditian]

If you did this, then your group was not meant to be in BRD.

I did a full BRD run back near the end of Vanilla. Took us 9 hours to do it. It was SO worth it.

I think you're confused. He cleared it in 4 hours. You cleared it in 9 hours. If anything, you weren't meant to be there.

[Ham on Rye]

The appeal was that it was like on old-school dungeon crawl adventure you could go on with your friends and have something to do for a couple of hours for a good time.

[hrugner]

More than just that. To advance at all in certain tradeskills, you needed to crawl. The enchanting trainer was INSIDE Uldum. The only way to make flasks was INSIDE Scholo. The best resist gear recipes were INSIDE BRD. Dungeons were kinda forced. Getting the necessary recipes to contribute to your guild's efforts took a long time.

Heh, I'd almost forgotten those 5 man groups that were just one raider who needed "some heals and anyone else who wants to come" to go make flasks. That was an interesting way to reward raiders for carrying newer players.

[Duridi]

Their length and diversity was the most appealing to me.

- TBC dungeons I enjoyed for their difficulty. Theme wasn't all that appealing to me.
- A selected few WotLK dungeons I liked for their looks.
- Cataclysm ones I mostly liked for their difficulty(played at the start of the expansion). Didn't like their looks much. Stonecore is possibly the ugliest instance I have seen so far, and while the Votex Pinnacle was pretty when you entered, it felt too much of the same all the way through the dungeon. It lacked soul in my opinion.
- Mop, I hate them for everything they are. Incredibly unappealing. The Temple of the Jade Serpent is good looking, but that's about it.

Vanilla dungeons had the core element of what makes a dungeon feel like a dungeon to me. The places felt like "realistic" places. They didn't have an obvious path, and they had detailed enviroment and a lot of NPC's(popular name: trash). There was also a lot of detail, and rooms which you could enter, but which wasn't necessarily a natural or possible pathway. I think the amount of NPC's/activity in dungeons give the places soul. I think new Deadmines has managed to preserve this soul though. In fact, I think new Deadmines has more soul than old Deadmines. But that's about it. I miss this part of old dungeon design, and wish they could manage to combine this into new designs, because obviously the new dungeons has been improved in other elements. They just managed to cut down a lot of good stuff aswell, when sorting out the bad stuff.

Scholomance is another one of these. I think Scholo lost a whole lot of soul from the rewamp. The new dungeon is fine, but I wish it was a completely different dungeon, as it really destroyed that creepy feeling I loved about old Scholo. It's not creepy anymore. I can't really descibe what I feel about it now. It's like it's gone from creepy haunted house, to a house full of power hungry, loud-mouthed freaks. Nothing to feel creeped out by.

[Deleted]

Vanilla in general was alot more adventurous, why did blizzard turn wow into theme park?

[Anger78]

Vanilla in general was alot more adventurous, why did blizzard turn wow into theme park?

Because too many people playing the game today expect instant gratification. They want to login, power thru an instance in 10 mins for their valor and be done. No one wants to work for anything anymore. Just look at all the endless posts complaining about this gear grind, or this mount grind, ect. That's what killed WoW for me. If people can't blow thru it quickly with no deaths they endlessly complain about it.

[Duridi]

More than just that. To advance at all in certain tradeskills, you needed to crawl. The enchanting trainer was INSIDE Uldum.

Sorry... I just had to. ULDAMAN!

[vinmmo]

In my experience, if you had 5 people who knew what they were doing...and on my server, that usually meant a mostly Guild Group and you had to be in a decent guild, because some guilds were filled up with the people who were the reason you didn't want to pug...They didn't take as long as it sounds like.

Then again, the people I played with back then were largely of the "let's take care of business" point of view. "Hey guys, suchandsuch a guy needs drops from these two bosses in this dungeon. We need 3 more people to come help us kill these bosses." Unless other people needed gear from other bosses, that's all we did. Maybe some of those places took over an hour, but I rarely spent more than an hour in a dungeon unless I was helping a friend from "one of those guilds."

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Well todays dungeons have more bosses then trash.

[Deleted]

Because too many people playing the game today expect instant gratification. They want to login, power thru an instance in 10 mins for their valor and be done. No one wants to work for anything anymore. Just look at all the endless posts complaining about this gear grind, or this mount grind, ect. That's what killed WoW for me. If people can't blow thru it quickly with no deaths they endlessly complain about it.

Why are people interested in getting some "valor points"? isnt game supposed to be about experiencing epic adventures?

Wow has became sport where people are just interested in getting some arbitrary points and they are not interested in adventuring and immersion.

[yermommy]

I liked feeling connected to my group of friends.

[vinmmo]

The appeal of vanilla dungeons was that they were ACTUALLY dungeons. You weren't just waltzing into some place because it was there. Every dungeon had a massive story behind it, and an actual evil to defeat that was hidden deep within. And when you walked in to do so, you felt like you were being overpowered by their forces, with the only things keeping you alive being your righteous defender and noble healer. And I mean you ALWAYS felt like it. Trash would literally be too powerful if you weren't careful.

Take BRD for example. I was far from a seasoned veteran when I first went there. And I'll admit it. I got lost. So too did the rest of my group. And we DIDN'T CARE. Why? Because the WHOLE POINT of the dungeon was that you were invading an enemy fortress. Hell no you're not supposed to know where you're going, and that's perfectly fine. It took me over a dozen runs to realize how to get to the other half of the instance, and I COULD NOT WAIT to lead more people through it. That place was epic. And the first time we got to the room with the torchkeepers? Don't even get me started. I was happier than a pig in the filthiest shit it could find.

Theme is everything in a game. When you lose sight of the theme, you're left with... Well, what WoW has become. I mean, look at Stormstout Brewery... I know there's a story behind it and all... But what in fucks name are we supposed to be accomplishing there? What in hells name do a bunch of partying monkeys have to do with Chen's family's brewery? And do we even accomplish anything? It looked to me like it ends with Uncle Gao basically being like "Who the fuck cares if I screwed everything up, I succeeded!" All in fifteen minutes or less! I don't understand how people can say dungeons these days are even comparable to old dungeons. Today's dungeons can't even wave a god damned stick at old dungeons.

I'll be honest, I don't really recall the story of many of the Vanilla dungeons. Maybe it's a time-sensitive thing, though because since WotLK, I remember exactly why most of the dungeons exist because there were lengthy quest chains leading up to the events of the dungeon.

Back in Vanilla, I definitely remember a story leading into WC and VC. I didn't quest much to get to it, but there was lore about ST. I found out about that lore because I was researching why the heck there were elite dragonkin all around that place. But most of the places may have had their own story, but they didn't fit in to the overall world and story the way Dungeons have since Wrath. A few examples:

Wrath - the epic adventure through Howling Fjord, only to have Lich King snatch away the final boss and send him to Utgarde Pinnacle. Then at 80 you came back to UP and finally closed out that story line. Or going through the Coldara quests and seeing Keristraza sacrifice herself for you, leading you to go into the dungeon and "free" her.
Cata - All of Vash'jir culinates in a 5man (TotT) that was supposed to also include a raid that got scrapped. Uldum is practically a feature length movie (and spoof on Indiana Jones) leading up to Halls of Origination.
Mists - Temple of the Jade serpent is the culmination of Jade Forrest zone. Kun'Lai summit has a lengthy quest chain, whose story ends at the door of an instance. I do think the Mogu weren't introduced as well as they should have been, so Mogu'shan Palace felt like some weird, somewhat random adventure....

As for Stormstout Brewry, that's a huge step in Chen Stormstout's journey. The point is his family's legacy is being trampled and their brewry has been run into the ground to the point there ARE crazy hozen partying around and Virmen have taken over a part of the place as well.

To counter your point, you spent several hours not even running all of BRD. How can you say you even accomplished anything in those multiple hours when you couldn't even get to the other part of the dungeon?

I'll concede dungeons today are not as "epic" in length, but that's largely because they're being used as a piece of a larger story, like in Chen Stormstout's case. That's just one part of Chen's overall story line. BRD was, well, kind of integrated into the story. Parts of it were, anyways. Mostly it was just a place that existed and had some people in it and you went in and killed stuff for hours on end.

[LazarusLong]

The appeal of dungeons was that 99% of players have nothing else to do at lvl60.


End of story.

[DechCJC]

I just like how open they are, I don't like it when they're linear. Maraudon, old WC, Deadmines, Dire maul. I literally played hide and seek in some of those dungeons in the past for fun and it was some of the best WoW time I've ever had xD. The dungeons nowadays are just way too linear, and I don't consider a layout like ICC to be 'non linear' - One big hall that breaks off into 3 paths isn't what I mean; I want labyrinths.

[Goretex]

I always liked dungeons new and old, the only one I can remember hating was H HoR because of stupid people, and Occulus because of stupid people. Other than that loved the dungeons new and old, I just wish I could get my guildies to grind them out with me.

[Golforth]

Mostly nostalgia...they were horribly designed, really long and annoying. You had to farm rare materials for enchants or other stuff. Runes from Diremaul and Scholo, righteous orb and other crap or items that were BiS till mid/end MC. I'm glad this is over. If it were stille like that I would've quit WoW by now.

[Deleted]

Todays wow caters to people with business attitude who want instant gratification and get their "points". Wow has become sport.

WoW was perfect game in vanilla, it was actual world of warcraft. Dungeons were actual dungeons.

[LazarusLong]

The thing is, you argue that a dungeon has to fit into the events going on around it. And I would counter that point with "No, it really doesn't."

Part of what made them feel like real dungeons were that you only knew about them BECAUSE you did those huge quest chains leading up to them. (If you wanted the quests in the dungeons, anyway.) These weren't cartoon villains who came out and said "IF YOU WANT TO STOP ME, FIND ME AT THIS ADDRESS AND COME HUNT ME DOWN! YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO STOP ME THOUGH, SO IF YOU WERE TO SHOW UP AT XYZ GIGANTIC FUCKING MOUNTAIN DRIVE AND TRY, YOU WOULD ONLY BE WASTING YOUR TIME!!!"

These villains were made to feel like actual villains. Who actually were trying to end the world. And if they went and told the world they were trying to end it, it wouldn't be the brightest thing in the world, now would it? You found out the stories behind these dungeons by playing the game. Shocking, I know, but just trust me... You'll get a better experience in game by PLAYING IT than by avoiding it.

It wasn't even the length that made them epic. How can I say I accomplished anything? Easy; I went into a dungeon and had fun. I accomplished what I wanted to do in the dungeon. Despite what people seem to believe, dungeons aren't all about getting to the end. BRD is the perfect example of this because so many people wanted to do it, but so FEW people knew how to get to the end by mid BC. Yet while leveling, I found dozens upon dozens of groups to do it. (As a DPS even!)

I don't have to kill the final boss of a dungeon in order to accomplish something. I still killed bosses, and I still had fun. 'Having fun' seems to be lost on most WoW players these days. It's all about loot to them.

Name one end boss of lvl60 vanilla dungeon that you knew at least something about before stepping into instance.

[Akka]

Basically, Vanilla dungeons were actual REAL 5-men content, which could last some time and required effort.
You could see some of them as 5-men raids in fact. They offered group gameplay that could be started anytime (unlike raids which would require a lot of organization), and which was significant to the game.
One single dungeon (save for the few that were very short, like Deadmines - which is still quite longer than most of today's instances - or running just one wing of Scarlet Monastery) would last quite a bit of time, which allowed for a good deal of fun instead of being finished right after being began, and lead to less burn-out (as you wouldn't rerun them as often).

Unlike WotLK and later dung, which were just short pretext scenarios you would rush in ten minutes just to get your rewards.

[Deleted]

Edwin Van Cleef.
Eranikus.
Emperor Dagran Thaurissan. (And his at-the-time mind controlled wife Moira Bronzebeard.)

That's three. Need more?

Van Cleef wasn't level 60 dungeon boss. Deadmines was for like, level 17+ back then.