Why is Ulduar fondly remembered?

[Karasuko]

Why ulduar is one of my most fondly remembered raid.
1. Variable difficulty. Everything had a variable difficulty setting bar 3 bosses.
2. Graphically one of the most superior raids ever released. That extends to gear,bosses and the zone itself.
3. Pick your own progression path. Choosing kill orders and being able to skip bosses allowed more time to focus on specific goals every week. IMO far superior to extended lockouts.
4. Intresting hardmode triggers, not some boring toggle to "insert mode here"
5. Plenty of content (relates to point one)aside from the clearing and meta achieve there was a whole bunch of quirky achieves to keep a raid team going for awhile.

Just to sum up, I didn't actually get to do alot of ulduar while it was current content due to PC issues and I still rate the place on par with Kara,SSC and TK.

[Tygor]

Oh man, the thrill of getting Firefighter the week before the release of ToC...never again will it be matched for me. Everyone has that one fight that took literally hundreds of attempts and finally getting a kill means a lot. For many, this raid had that moment (whether yogg, ff, freya, etc) since it was tuned so tightly. We got our Firefighter kill because i was able to cloak the enrage and won about 4 seconds after explosion. We had to run back to loot the chest.

[beanman12345]

drake was removed. Immortal was not. title has little value.

they should have removed the titles... sarth 3D 10m was no joke at the time.

[furydeath]

For me it's the hardmode's and old god lore.

Immortal came down to can you kill KT and Grobbulus with out someone lagging out and getting killed.

[anaxie]

For me it's the hardmode's and old god lore.

Immortal came down to can you kill KT and Grobbulus with out someone lagging out and getting killed.

KT Mcs random paladin. KT casts Hand of Sacrifice /trollface

[mahananaka]

1) Gave a lot of choice of what to kill next.
2) Had a lot of different looking sections. Mechanical area, forest area, frost area, etc.
3) Had a cool story in that an old god was imprisoned there with several wardens. He'd driven the wardens insane, forcing the players to enter and clear the place, and secure it once more.
4) Had some of the most epic fights around ever. Ask anyone who cleared it at gear level how challenging Firefighter and No light in the Darkness was. Mechanics on several fights were just as epic. Yogg starts with you being assisted by the 4 wardens, but getting more complex as you tell each warden I got this, just relax and watch the show.
5) Yogg himself, there was so much good lore around this guy long before you entered the place. So there was just this massive thrill of finally seeing him. This is a very hard thing to do right as well. Look how much Deathwing flopped, mostly cause DS was just so badly done, but looking back I can't figure out what he was doing the whole of Cata. Like he breaks out of Deepholm, resurrects his kids and Ragnaros. Then appears to disappear while Horde/Alliance deal with his kids, Cho'gall, and Ragnaros. He just never felt like a threat because you had no idea really what he was doing.

[anaxie]

For us it was not just one, but probably 9/10 weeks of someone disconnecting while changing sides on Thaddius. DAMN NEAR EVERY TIME!

If only I had become a mount whore before I got Invincible. Maybe then I would own a Zulian Tiger before it was too late /biggest regret

[furydeath]

For us it was not just one, but probably 9/10 weeks of someone disconnecting while changing sides on Thaddius. DAMN NEAR EVERY TIME!

lol ya we never got immortal sadly only undying so we just had people not so good with + and - stay out tho we had ONE Person die on KT right at 5% too from the ice block D:

No mount still cause no one ever wanted to do 10 man 3D -.-

[Gonnaderpya]

It was a big ass raid, its corridors made sense, it felt like you were actually fighting your way through a place rather than randomly placed mobs, the fights were unique and pretty groundbreaking when they came out, the ability to do "hardmode" without having to go into a menu to accomplish it, an amazing story, and just many snazzy things that went along with it.

[furydeath]

I hate to say it but I liked WOTLK raiding well maybe not the first tier I mean we had a blue dargon that could have been SO MUCH better a NERF 40 man naxx and sartharion least that one had the drakes. I even liked TOTGC ...well kinda lol the bosses, minus that PVP one :|, where fun like twins.

[Deleted]

For me it's mostly because it was the first and last raid to feature organic feeling "hard modes", not just a toggle switch.

SOO is a great raid, but there are an awful lot of fights in it that are basicly "normal mode but with increased numbers", which isn't what heroic modes should be imo.

It was cool having fights that could be beat in all sorts of different ways, not even just heroic / normal - things like Freya where you had various tiers of difficulty based on what elder was killed and what was alive, the speed clear etc, Vezax and his frustrating "no mana gain" mechanic, but interesting heroic mode activation.

[Novandora]

It was an innovative raid, to be honest. The music was awesome, bosses weren't too easy, and overall was an experience not to be forgotten. Too bad they don't make raids like this anymore .

[HeedmySpeed]

Nostalgia = popular phrase that forum goers use to dismiss opinions differ from their own, but they have no actual basis for doing so.

Subjectively break down for us why Ulduar sucked. We'll wait.

Do they like something you don't? [√]Yes []No
Did it occur in the past? [√]Yes []No
Nostalgia

It's science.

[furydeath]

ya

Heroic = more number

Hard mode = fight changed all round....well kinda a few where just like kill this boss faster, or in this order.

[anaxie]

It's easy to spot non heroic raiders. Just look for the tagline

hardmodes are normal mode with bigger numbers

What it really means is Hardmode: Where every mechanic actually matters and comes into play.

Normal mode is trival and most things can be entirely ignored. Fact That little fuck up you did on normal mode that almost killed you? Yeah you just killed your entire raid on heroic. Enjoy!

[Memory]

It's easy to spot non heroic raiders. Just look for the tagline

What it really means is Hardmode: Where every mechanic actually matters and comes into play.

Normal mode is trival and most things can be entirely ignored. Fact That little fuck up you did on normal mode that almost killed you? Yeah you just killed your entire raid on heroic. Enjoy!

Well, since you quoted me too on this one, but your edit was late and I noticed it only later, I'd like to answer.
My comparison was mostly aimed at the WotLK, so ToGC and ICC hard modes. I am aware of the changes that affected a few bosses (for example the Twin Valkyrs, if memory serves me well; also a few ICC hard modes had some tweaks), but it doesn't change the fact that, from T7/T8 to T9/10, the philosophy of hard modes changed entirely: in T7 (just talking of Sartharion, really) and T8, hard modes were something that you would occasionally trigger by interacting with the environment, and they changed the fight entirely (Sartharion, Mimiron, Yogg, even Flame Leviatan), while in T9/T10 it was about switching an interface option which _mostly_ pumped up the numbers. As much as I am aware that some bosses had tweaks and that those 'pumped up numbers', indeed, make the difference between an unnoticed mistake and a wipe, ICC and ToGC hard modes hardly felt like a completely new experience.
So the design went from 'occasionally you get an entirely new and entertaining boss' (S3D, Mimiron, Yogg) to this... arcade design for you do it normal first, then difficult.
No idea about anything that came after first Cataclysm tier. Stopped raiding (and playing) altgoether then.

[Deleted]

But before going to harder bosses, you would kill the easier ones for loot, unless you are stupid.

Yeah but ilvl 226 loot from Ignis got disenchanted pretty quickly. Once we got seriously into hardmode progression, Ignis and Razorscale generally got skipped.

- - - Updated - - -

but it doesn't change the fact that, from T7/T8 to T9/10, the philosophy of hard modes changed entirely: in T7 (just talking of Sartharion, really) and T8, hard modes were something that you would occasionally trigger by interacting with the environment, and they changed the fight entirely (Sartharion, Mimiron, Yogg, even Flame Leviatan), while in T9/T10 it was about switching an interface option which _mostly_ pumped up the numbers.

Gotta disagree with you there mate. While you did pick out the few Ulduar hardmodes that changed drastically, there's plenty of others that only changed slightly(Thorim, XT, Vezax) or didn't change at all due to not having a hardmode.

On Twin Valk's the colour swaps actually mattered. Anub'Arak with only 6(?) ice patches for the entire fight drastically changed how you approached it.
Deathwhisper with adds still coming in phase 2. Putricide with the double ooze phase. Lich King had a completely different phase 3 on heroic.

[Okacz]

As the title says, I am interested to hear your reasons for liking Ulduar. It consistently shows up in almost everyone's list of favorite raids.

I am probably biased because I was in a shitty raid guild when it launched and didn't transfer until after ToC was released, so by the time I got to do any serious raiding in there it was already outdated. I like a lot of things about the instance... it's huge, lot of bosses, interesting mechanics, organic hard modes. For whatever reason it just doesn't get me going, though.

For me, it's because it was one of the rare occurances when a raid was actually something more than a hallway with mobs and bosses.

No raid after Ulduar tried this approach. You could argue that BWD (one of my favourite raids of all time as well) attempted that, but in a way smaller scale, but thats all. And with LFR we won't ever have anything even remotely similiar to Ulduar.

The place, at least for normal raiders (not the ones who fought for World Firsts, vomiting with the same bosses over and over), was just an adventure. Only a few bosses were actually blocking you, allowing to choose what you were doing, when you were doing it, and giving a lot of time to allow players to just discover the place. It actually felt for once like attacking a strange, obscure place and learning its secrets.

I also love how they made Heroic modes back then. There was no menu choice, no "one click and the boss gains 30% hp" - you actually had to turn it on yourself. The moment when we once decided "okay, screw that, let's do this fight like men. Kill the damn heart" - that was awesome. I have no clue why this idea was scrapped later, maybe because Ulduar was too good.

And yes, the idea of "accessible raids" was different back then. Many players whine that only hardcores liked Ulduar, but that's not entirely correct. Ulduar was a "raid for the whole family" - you had both the easier parts, the moderate parts and the "holy fuck where is all this fire coming from" parts. I started playing Ulduar totally guildless, so I pugged - and those pugs were probably the best pugs ever. No, we didn't clear the whole thing even once. No pug I've been in has cleared the thing even once. But with the non-linear style of the raid, the groups were able to adjust the difficulty of the track they chose to their preferences, and thus, spend more time having fun than banging their heads against a brickwall boss. Again, this idea was discontinued, replaced by a menu choice of LFR - because when a linear, boring-ass raid gets too hard for someone, giving them alternative paths is clearly the wrong way. No, what we need is make the hallway boss easier.

In a nutshell - Ulduar is everything best the WoW has ever offered, the peak of the raiding experiance. Let's praise it, let's not forget about it, because we won't ever be given such a raid again.

[Sarevokcz]

It's probably remembered so fondly because it was a lot of people's first raid experience ever.

If you ask people, at least 80% will either tell you Karazhan or Ulduar. People who started late vanilla/any time TBC had to start in Karazhan. Most people who started super late TBC/super early Wrath will either say Ulduar because it was their first real raiding, or something else entirely if they had the opportunity to do the first wrath tier(ICC is the favorite for some of these, T11 for others). Mid-Wrath definitely started Ulduar and they almost universally loved it.

I, myself, started TBC and was semi-hardcore (got through most of T5) and say Karazhan is my favorite. I skipped Wrath because Northrend was a bore. Going back into Ulduar since then, I think it's a cool place, but the bosses seem dull to me, for the most part. It was either "Nuke boss" or "Do super mega awesome hardmode"... until Yogg. How a fight can still wipe nearly full raids of 90s, idk.

stereotyping at its best...

I play since 1.6 or so and still say Kara and Ulduar were creatively the best raids in the last 7 years, while Ulduar takes the top for immersive backstories you can get all around the northrend, beautiful sceneries and HM activating, that doesnt totally ruin the pace of the raid.

[Deleted]

I also love how they made Heroic modes back then. There was no menu choice, no "one click and the boss gains 30% hp" - you actually had to turn it on yourself. The moment when we once decided "okay, screw that, let's do this fight like men. Kill the damn heart" - that was awesome. I have no clue why this idea was scrapped later, maybe because Ulduar was too good.

Three reasons, all pretty straightforward
-it limits encounter design when you have to fit in a hardmode activation somewhere
-some of them were too easy to mess up accidentally. Killing Hodir in 3 minutes and 1 second. Getting to Thorim too fast and having to wait for Sif to leave. Accidentally killing an add on Vezax. Accidentally killing XT's heart. Talking to the wrong NPC on FL.
-it felt silly to be deliberately making things harder on yourself by action or inaction. Though they did give a lore reason for the Keeper hardmodes, because you needed to do so for the Algalon key. By why for example would you take on Yogg without the aid of the Keepers?

In particular with Vezax and Thorim the problem was since the hardmode only gets activated halfway through the fight, the early bit is extremely boring.
The best hardmodes were those which, surprise surprise, have you choose the hardmode at the start. Mimiron, Freya, Yogg. So they just kept that design going forward.