Dungeons and Raids have no atmosphere and adventure in them.

[Kaleredar]

ToT is easily one of the worst raids I've had the misfortune of stepping into. It's HORRIBLE tuned for normals, it's far to long with far to much trash in between with the sole purpose of slowing your raid before the next boss, the bosses themselves (when their not buggy as fuck) are overloaded with mechanics that in some instances just obscure each other (durumu is an excellent example) and overall I would say it's a poorly done and rushed endeavor.

So you're saying it's exactly like ulduar?

Because Ulduar has all of those things. And it's widely held as the greatest raid in WoW history.

[Detheavn]

If you choose to bypass the lore (Quest Text, Lorewalker Cho exploration achievs), you won't get the lore idea behind the mechanics. For example, take this sentence:



You could alter it to:



Or...



Going a little back further...



Even further...

I don't care if you are a dude or a dudette ... here's one of my <3

[Wildmoon]

ToT is easily one of the worst raids I've had the misfortune of stepping into. It's HORRIBLE tuned for normals, it's far to long with far to much trash in between with the sole purpose of slowing your raid before the next boss, the bosses themselves (when their not buggy as fuck) are overloaded with mechanics that in some instances just obscure each other (durumu is an excellent example) and overall I would say it's a poorly done and rushed endeavor.

Not many people will agree with you. Even the best guilds speak fondly of ToT. I respect your opinion though. People like different things.

[Cernunnos]

Dungeons had Atmosphere and adventure.

The Temple of Atal'hakkar (Sunken Temple) you had to figure out the order of the snake statues to unlock new parts of the dungeon.
Blackrock Depths you had to get the key hidden inside the statue that was put there by the ghost of the guy who designed the entire city.
Blackrock Spire you could created a ring that summoned Vaelastrasz in human from to help you defeat Rend Blackhand (not that he was needed during the fight)

But the majority of the player base doesn't want epic dungeons with a huge atmosphere and this crazy huge story, they just want loot, and they want it quick.


Sunken Temple (before it was gutted in two), Scholomance, Stratholme, Blackrock Depths, and Blackrock Spire are some of the most well done instances in the game, they are these huge sprawling dungeons with amazing architecture and history.

[smokii]

on my first playthrough of every new quest, dungeon, raid, scenario and daily hub, i will read every quest, boss quote, NPC line etc... well most anyways, fluff quests where they want you to kill 10 boars dont really need reading, but the wrathion questline, the 5.1 daily questline and the throne of thunder stuff has had me reading all the fine details.

on alts, i dont really bother, but i do make an effort to read it all the first time to understand whats going on... there's been some epic lore in MoP, the first time i played through jade forest was quite a loregasm, the second time, i just wanted it over with so i could move on.

there's also the scrolls of lore - they are quite lore heavy, especially if you read through the scrolls as you find them, rather than put their co'ords into an addon and just fly around clicking on them to get exalted with the lorewalkers for the flying disc mount.

edit: all that quest text and scrolls of lore stuff actually builds up a lot of background regarding everything going on in pandaria, so if the dungeons and raids dont feel lore heavy, it's because it builds it up outside the instance before you get there and by skipping the text, you miss it.

[alucardtnuoc]

You don't pickup a book and decide to read the last few chapters and go "i wonder what the hell is going on"

[Lilija]

First off, I don't recall any dungeon being immersive storywise after doing them for the xth time.

As for the lore in Pandaria I myself find it the most immersive and I do know all the connections just from doing quests. I don't even consider myself some lore nerd. It's just I find the way quests are presented clear enough. I don't read much of the quest text but I do watch all the cut scenes and listen to dialogues. Doing just that I can tell you that all the lore in MoP makes the most sense any story in WoW every had

[khalltusk]

The one thing I am a bit dissapointed about was no new dungeons.

I am quite enjoying scenarios, they are short and sweet and I get some VP for doing them. Dungeons aside from the 1st dungeon of the day have no interest from me at the moment. I've done them to death (mop ones) They were interesting and some of them very well done (Gate being my fav for the atmosphere).

I hope they continue to improve on the way you get introduced to dungeons and raids. Certainly this expac they've largely hit the nail on the head. I would have liked it if we had a quest to visit the TOS prior to the sha attack. Like the temple of the jade serpent, you walk around it visit it etc. If we had that I think TOS as a raid would have been more compelling (boss mechanics aside)

[Lilija]

No they aren't

But I shouldn't be able to go through 5 man dungeons just by sneezing at bosses. Keep them relatively easy, but at the same time make them somewhat threatening.

Take only people with entry gear with little game experience and 5 mans can be pretty scarry ^^ The thing is many good geared and experienced people join those as well and entry dungeons can't be balanced around them since they have the harder content already aimed at them. 5 mans are aimed at people who are starting to play the game (yes those do exist) so they can smoothly enter the multiplayer experience.

[Lilija]

The adventure part of wow pretty much died when everybody started flying around.

Dropping on your foes from the skies is pretty adventurous - and soooooo cool.

---------- Post added 2013-04-30 at 09:14 AM ----------

It's not about Kung-Fu pandas. Raids just don't have that epic feel of accomplishment anymore, and I don't know why. I'll tell you one thing, it's not the lore it's just that raiding is missing a key element.

Maybe you've done too many of them? I still remember how epic it felt to kill Onyxia for the very first time. I never felt that ever again and hated the boss on all following kills. Every feeling has its first and it will NEVER again be the same. It's not the raid - it's our brains.

---------- Post added 2013-04-30 at 09:15 AM ----------

Challenge mode does not have reward enough to be worth doing them. Rewards are only cosmetics.

Quite cool cosmetic rewards. Looks is quite important for many in a multiplayer game.

[Mayden]

So I have dinged 90 few weeks ago, did some dungeons and raids, but I can't bring myself to do more. I like mechanics and how complicated they are, but I feel like Blizzard used all of their energy on complexity of boss fights and totally forgot about everything else. Where is the epic feel of dungeons, great story ideas, environment and atmosphere? One minute I'm figting aliens from Distrit 9, other minute I'm killing kung-fu pandas and to finish it off I have to kill some fucking rabbits, but wait, BAM and I'm back in Scarlet monastery. Seriously, wtf? It just doesn't make any sense. Some people even told me that main boss of this expansion is supposed to be horde warchief. I'm sure there is some super clever explanation to this, but let's be honest here. How many people actually read quest texts? How many of us are true lore nerds? Most of us are just absorbing what is on the surface - dungeon and world atmosphere, adventure, music, custscenes and some badass NPCs, that's it. This time surface isn't as good as it used to be.

Agree with OP. I think the best examples of a good 5-man instance are the 3 instances added in the pre-lich king raid. Those instances really took the adventurers on a story and introduced the mainvillain very well.

But this point is postive criticism. I find MOP probably the best expansion of all. If they add a little more effort in selling the story to us in 5-mans then they would be even better.

[Icaras]

It seems to me that this thread kinda boils down to (some) guys saying "The dungeons don't seem as atmospheric NOW, when I'm (an experienced player that knows the games ins and outs) versus when I 1st started playing a few xpacks ago (and I was new and the entire game was new to me)...so it sucks now!"

That's pretty much it guys. Watch a film with a twist once and that film will never seem the same. Try new food for the 1st time and you just won't QUITE get that same new taste sensation when you eat it again.

Wow is the same. You're now playing a game that isn't new for you. Of course it doesn't have that "new car smell" vibe about it or the dungeons!

[MasterHamster]

And in the next expansion someone will make a thread focusing on how connected and rich MoP dungeons/raids were.
This thread/topic is so redundant.

But as more than I had dared hope has pointed out, you can't ignore anything that isn't superficial and then say it doesn't make sense, then pretend everything before it did. It didn't.
Since this topic by itself always is unfair to the current, I'd like to hear any substantiated argument that can't be said for newer content. Come on, which dungeons were these magic ones that had adventure in its design and music?
No matter what, in the next expansion someone will tell you that MoP dungeons/raids were better than what is then the newest.

PS: The (personal) magic is gone after 6-8 years?! Woah..

[Lukazor]

ToT is easily one of the worst raids I've had the misfortune of stepping into. It's HORRIBLE tuned for normals, it's far to long with far to much trash in between with the sole purpose of slowing your raid before the next boss, the bosses themselves (when their not buggy as fuck) are overloaded with mechanics that in some instances just obscure each other (durumu is an excellent example) and overall I would say it's a poorly done and rushed endeavor.

Gotta say I kinda agree with this. Maybe it's because my guild has got progressively worse since the days of WotLK when we were clearing Ulduar hard modes etc and many ppl have just stopped playing but I wouldn't regard ToT in the same league as Ulduar. For example Horridon, it's such a horrible boss we just struggled so much on it compared to other raids and bosses etc. I just do not have any motivation to go and attempt to clear the place. Where's the steady progression with bosses? Why is the first boss a nice introduction but second boss just screws you over and bosses further down the line are easier :/ . Meh, I really like MoP but ToT is one part of the expansion I really don't like.

[Count Zero]

Lore was lost soon after Cata, not because they started making new lore but because everything following had no "threat". Deathwing was a never ending bukkake line thanks to LFR, he was likely the most killed end boss of any raid ever and while being supposedly Azeroth's biggest "threat". Who can seem powerful or memorable if they are guaranteed to be defeated - by anyone who tries.

You're conflating gameplay with lore ...

[Maillroomclerk]

You're conflating gameplay with lore ...

The community began focusing on "lore" as it's defense. The truth was revealed when LFR became supposedly implemented for "seeing content" into a shit storm of the same players complaining about receiving loot. Yes, gameplay is in a bad spot. It used to be the reason we played. The worst part is, it's now neener-neener LFR is here to stay and I'm completely fine with receiving the same benefits of others who play better. I don't even raid heroic, lol. But if you want to stick me for that I'll say I prefer single difficulty raids. It's probably evident as the solution by now. Whether it's too hard for me or not, everything going on right now is BS. This is not an MMO. We have traveled so far from the genre. It's a single player game with DLC adding difficulties of Easy, Medium, Hard. The man focus of those types of games is story driven. Take Silent Hill for example, typically not revered for it's gameplay but enjoyed from it's story. I hate this position because now I'm feared as a target for simply being right.