I miss dungeon Hubs

[mistuhbull]

Yes because Blackrock mountain didn't have LBRS, UBRS, BRD, MC, BWL all in the same hub... clueless.

or RFD and RFK

or AQ40 and AQ20

Or Scarlet Monastery

or Dire Maul

Or the hell that is Mara. Though I guess Mara was technically one instance

[Thatwsntmilk]

Basically it's a consequence of the changes that Blizzard made towards the new type of player preferring instant gratification over decent game design (e.g. LFD/LFG).

Why design an open world that makes sense and feels awesome if people just queue for dungeons/raids and never leave town anyway?

[bohapjut]

Or the hell that is Mara. Though I guess Mara was technically one instance

I got so lost in Mara

[Lord Pebbleton]

I miss those too. Felt like you were actually progressing through a specific matter, and not wandering around the world solving others' problems.

Someone already mentioned that in TBC we had Hellfire, Auchindoun, and Steam Underwater Thing in Zangarmarsh.
In Cataclysm we had very few, and not more than two dungeons together, like Skywall and Blackrock Mountain.
I know LFD/LFR make it pointless to give magnificent locations, but it adds to the story.

And last time i couldn't find MGV because i tought it was in the Vale, near the 5-men dungeon.

[Sam the Wiser]

This thread makes me miss the old lead up to deadmines.

[Reyzzz]

Not alot explaining why we are going to Mogu'Shan Palace, Gate of the Setting Sun, or Siege of Niuzao Temple.

If you do any of the quests for Golden Lotus you will know what is happening in GSS, and Niuzao is pretty obvious, we are killing a mantid ground strike force before they finish the bridge.

[ablib]

I don't understand the comments about how there is no need for dungeon complexes anymore.

What about epicness?

Fly up to the Ulduar area. It looks epic. Halls of Stone over here, Lightning over there, and Ulduar in the middle. It looks epic. Same goes for flying up to Tempest Keep. And swimming down the hole to Serpentshrine Cavern. Blackrock Mountain, etc.

Now we just fly up to a dungeon and we see...Stormstout Brewery. It's kind of underwhelming. The design of it.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Jade Temple and Stormstout Brewery were done wonderfully I thought. You gave them a sense of place in the world, and the quests in the zone set up/reference the situations there. It felt like those dungeons were the culmination of the zone's storyline.

Problem being dungeons like in Cata (ESPECIALLY 4.3) and later MoP. Mogu'shan Palace especially annoyed me. I level though Kun'lai and watch Lei Shen be revived as Emperor of the Mogu, I hear about Mogu storming into the Vale.... then I walk into the Palace and suddenly the Mogu have been there forever, and Xin the Weaponmaster is emperor instead of Lei Shen.

---------- Post added 2013-02-17 at 04:16 PM ----------

I don't understand the comments about how there is no need for dungeon complexes anymore.

What about epicness?

Fly up to the Ulduar area. It looks epic. Halls of Stone over here, Lightning over there, and Ulduar in the middle. It looks epic. Same goes for flying up to Tempest Keep. And swimming down the hole to Serpentshrine Cavern.

Now we just fly up to a dungeon and we see...Stormstout Brewery. It's kind of underwhelming. The design of it.

You kidding me? I was in awe when I road past Stormstout Brewery, it was bigger than I expected just running it in LFG.

[jimbojonez]

What they should have done was this -->

During the zone-wide questline, there is a mid point where you unlock the corresponding dungeon FOR LFG. What this means is that you cannot queue for a dungeon until you have completed some of the story that introduces it.

Which sounds great until you are on your 4th alt and going through the questline a 4th time makes you want to stab your eyeballs with a rusty fork.

[Prokne]

I think the best aspect of dungeon hubs is that it allows the dungeons to be part of a much larger event. Instead of a few small disconnected dungeons you had a few similar ones that were smaller parts of a whole. You had to clear all of them the get the whole story. Its kind of like a raid with different wings. Taking more time in the area also lends itself to a more in depth story.

The reason they dont do them much anymore is probably because everyone ports to dungeons now so they dont need to be together for logistical purposes and even if they were you wouldnt know that since you didnt enter from outside the instance.

[ablib]

You kidding me? I was in awe when I road past Stormstout Brewery, it was bigger than I expected just running it in LFG.

It just looks like another Asian building in Pandaria. The size of it is cool, but other than that, there isn't much to it.

[Deleted]

I don't think I heard a single person complain about how dungeons were clustered in BC.

Complaints about dungeons? complaints about getting to dungeons? Sure. But not that they were clustered

Do you know how long has it taken some people to remember which entrance is which? CFR, TK, HFC and Auch instances have really nondescript entrances (CoTs you can tell at least by the entrance decoration but you still have to run around to look at it and I still mistake Hyjal and Durnholde entrances, especially since they move them around with every expansion)... I'm exalted with all the TBC dungeon factions, but I still have problems figuring out which CoT/TK entrance is which (I remember HFC and Auch, but that's only because I've run them on multitudes of alts, with HFR, MT and Sethekk being my most frequented dungeons while leveling)

Or the hell that is Mara. Though I guess Mara was technically one instance

I really hope you're not trying to help this case by mentioning Maraudon entrances :-D :-D

------------------------
Anyway, on actual topic - dungeon hubs feel like lazy design. I like that in MoP, dungeons have their own unique designs (even though I don't like most of the designs themselves, but it's the thought that counts). On the other hand if lazy design should mean more dungeons (15 dungeons with heroics in TBC, 6 original dungeons in MoP, 2 of which heroic only, plus 3 heroic remakes of vanilla dungeons), then lazy away...

[mklovin]

I actually preferred flying to ulduar. The view was great, and never got old. As already said...felt epic.

[Tychu]

I don't mind the idea of certain dungeon hubs but as people have said, have it be where it makes sense. Don't just make a bunch of dungeons in one place just for the sake of having a bunch of dungeons in one place. I do really enjoy what they did with some of the dungeons now (Jade temple and Stormstout) in that you can see the dungeons prior to causes you to go back. I also like that they made the dungeons to scale, you can actually fly into Jade Temple and see some of the areas that you will pass through while completing the dungeon.

[Deleted]

i dnt mind the lack of dungeon hubs. unlike the older dungeons almost all of the pandaria dungeons make use of actual accessible ingame area's.
making them far more interresting then the older style, here is a portal with something behind it that makes no sense in size and you can never see it as non dungeon.

the only MoP dungeon that has an old design too it is mogu'shan palace (the revamped vanilla dungeons also are an exception, but they always were so i dnt count those). the rest are all used as out door zones also which you can acess or atleast partially acess.
Jade temple: you can enter that entire place while questing.
Shado-pan monastry: you can access the entire out door area, but not inside.
Gate of the Setting Sun: completely acessable and used for dailies.
Siege of Niuzao Temple: every part except the kapari tree can be accessed.
Stormstout Brewery: the out door parts can be explored and you only see parts of the inside during 1 quest. so this is the least used one of the lot.

each of these dungeons got their own story, which is easily understood when questing in the rest of pandaria. though i admit that Siege of Niuzao Temple is a bit weird. since it has a klaxxi at the entrance with quests but you basically end up preventing an attack on a pandaren temple. like the klaxxi care about that.

[Deleted]

WTF? How did they hate it? Seriously whats wrong with you people...

you're asking why? people hated it because it was basicly same dungeon cut in 3 parts, layout was practicly the same, with same mobs in most cases. Boring as hell.

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

Yeah, I'd prefer more dungeons and have alot of them share the same basic art style (ie: dungeon hubs) than fewer dungeons that are more unique artistically.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

lol, people hated that in TBC, and now suddenly it cause some nostalgia,

I've heard many complaints from Vanilla until now, and I have heard many complaints(most during Cata and MoP), and this is not one I have ever heard.

[Prokne]

Yeah, I'd prefer more dungeons and have alot of them share the same basic art style (ie: dungeon hubs) than fewer dungeons that are more unique artistically.

You would probably end up with about the same amount of uniqueness.

BC: 5 dungeon hubs(HFC, CFR, Auch, TK, CoT), 15 dungeons
MoP: 6 dungeons

So you have 1 more style template in MoP but a lot less dungeons.

[Kaleredar]

You would probably end up with about the same amount of uniqueness.

BC: 5 dungeon hubs(HFC, CFR, Auch, TK, CoT), 15 dungeons
MoP: 6 dungeons

So you have 1 more style template in MoP but a lot less dungeons.

I'd cite that as a deprecation of the value of dungeons, rather than abject "laziness" on Blizzard's part. No reason to make 15 dungeons when the goal is to make sure people spend as little time in them as possible.


Anyway... Dungeon hubs are somewhat fickle. Some dungeons like Utgarde Pinnacle and Utgarde keep make sense and are "different" enough to be seperately interesting, but others (like those in Auchindoun or hellfire citadel) can just look bland and repetitive.

I'd say ensuring that dungeons have an interesting layout/structure, rather than just hallways, hallways, boss, hallways, is more relevant to them being good dungeons than whether or not they're in a hub.


Oh, and if you're going to make a dungeon hub, make it BIG... like it can FIT all of the dungeons it supposedly had inside it. Utgarde keep pulls this off... decently... but Hellfire Citadel is a horrible bit of facadery in that regard. And the mechanaar/botanica/arcatraz/tempest keep instances... they have rooms inside them bigger than the supposed "space ships" they're in.