What the Green portal in the last room in Stratholm?

[Lark]

(just like the original portal to hyjal in winterspring)

Given we've never actually been to present day hyjal, it's not the original portal, it is the only portal.

Then again, not sure why they ever wanted to do anything with modern hyjal anyway. And I guess they ending up agreeing.

[Deleted]

i remember reading back in the day that one of the stormwind portals was going to be an instance like the stockades where they housed rogue wizards and other threats too powerful for regular prisons, i guess they took that and made it violet hold

It's the Stormwind Vault, the prison similar to the Stockades, but on the opposite side of the channel.

Apparently its portal actually works, but it's completely empty.

[klheart]

Other trivia: In the very original game before epics / MC runs, and before nerfs by removing 50+% of the mobs in Stratholme/Scholomance/UBRS, the only way to complete them was with 20+ people raids

I feel like that would be the worst experience... ever.

[lostdruid]

it was regular to raid those dungeons with 10-15man but it wasn't the worst experience, it was fun specially before actual raids.
farming for nat/shad pots now its another story..

[Raptorg]

As other people have mentioned, it was originally going to be the entrance to Naxx, similar to how MC and BWL have entrance portals in BRD and UBRS. Blizzard later realized that a) having to run your raid through a 5/10 man dungeon every single time wasn't really fun or interesting and b) that it was allowing players to raid those dungeons. So they ditched that idea, added a population cap to the dungeons, and gave players a new way to enter the raids.

Good ol' times.
Raided Zul'farrak once with a guild for the lulz.
At that time the guild didn't have enough people on for a real raid, so they just decided to make a raid and take the lowbies with them for some fun. Everyone from level 20 to 60 went with us, was quite fun tbh.

[Plankeh]

Would be a nice surprise if they made it in to an exit .. so we wouldn't need to run back through the whole damn instance while farming.

[Followthehollow]

It is the original portal to naxx40 as someone already said.

if you played in vanilla you remember this lol

(just like the original portal to hyjal in winterspring)

It was the original PLANNED portal for Naxx, it never actually went there. (ETA: maybe it did in alpha or beta but not on live that I remember)

I don't know about you, but I ported up to Naxx via the platform in the plaguelands

[Jawstrock]

Other trivia: In the very original game before epics / MC runs, and before nerfs by removing 50+% of the mobs in Stratholme/Scholomance/UBRS, the only way to complete them was with 20+ people raids

That is so untrue, We use to do these with 5 so we could get more loot. It was difficult and you needed good CC(mage or priest in every group!) but the main reaason people did it with 10+ was:
1- Because they took too freaking long with 5
2- So we could faceroll and have no problem killing everything without trying
3- Because we just could

After the nerf they became doable under an hour with 5.


AS for other unused portals, there is one in eversong woods behind the gates of Tor'Watha.

Guess that was suppose to be another troll raid that they never put in...

[Simbert]

In the VERY ORIGINAL game, all dungeon instances could be turned into 40 man raids (before 5 caps were implemented). As such, in the very original MC, the ONLY way in was through BRD. If you wiped in Molten Core, you had to have your 40 man raid run back through BRD to get back into MC.

The portal in Stratholme was designed to be the original raid for Naxxramas, or similiar 40 man raid zone. Blizzard realized how much a pain in the ass this was, and created easier portal-ins to these raids, much like MC's portal, BWL's orb portal, and later Naxx's portal (As mentioned above in WoWWiki).

They were totally catering to the casuals by doing so.

To add something useful to the discussion, wasn´t there also some time when there was a 10-man cap for strat and scholo, and 15 for ubrs, which got lowered later, or was that just the standard amount of people you took with you, to be a bit more people than actually needed? I just remember that at some point, you were, at most times, 10 people in strat/scholo and 15 in ubrs.

[Bender]

Iirc there has never been any official word on why that portal is there. Considering Molten core was accessed through BRD and Blackwing lair was accessed through UBRS it's very likely they intended naxxramas 40man to be entered from that portal, but it has never been used for anything.

[Nezoia]

The entrance was never available, but yes, it's a entrance to Naxxramas.

Why people even bother discussing the validity of this fact, is beyond me.

[Lind]

I just remember that at some point, you were, at most times, 10 people in strat/scholo and 15 in ubrs.

That's right until they nerfed the instances and only 5 players were allowed in strat/scholo and 10 in ubrs.

[Zagga]

I'm quite sure you are still able to raid dungeons before BRD with 10 ppl.