Why is Ulduar fondly remembered?

[ItachiZaku]

I wasn't a fan at all. I felt the bosses were boring, had no continuity, and wasn't very pretty to look at. Felt a little flat and disjointed. BC was my "golden age", but also in Wrath I was flipping alts all over the place, so I did quite a bit of the expansion on different toons and got to experience things from those different views and Ulduar just... never impressed me.

[Rizendragon]

The first start-to-finish vehicle fight, maybe... Malygos had a vehicle phase in Tier 7.

You are correct. I forget about that phase of Maly quite often >.<

[rogoth]

in terms of the actual instance, the aesthetics were and still are amazing, and with it being such an enormous raid zone, you felt immersed in the place, and got the feeling it truly was a titan creation, and each zone reflected each of the bosses that were housed there, then in terms of gameplay, it was a very hard raid instance at release, which was a welcome relief after the sheer ease of naxxramas 2.0, it gave great rewards for effort, plus, you could make the encounters harder if you did them slightly differently, (obv not all bosses had a dedicated hard mode version), and as was mentioned in an earlier post, the progression path was one of the least linear of any raid blizz have ever made, the entire instance was broken into 4 large sub sections, and the order u killed bosses in, was largely up to the group, the only linear bosses were general vezax and yogg, every other boss could be killed in whatever order u wanted, and if u didn't need the loot, u could avoid kills altogether and speed through to the end bosses where the loot was much better overall and get badges from running t7 content after blizz changed the system so all instances dropped the same quality emblems, all in all, it gave end game raiders an instance to die for, it gave casuals a place to progress in that actually felt as though u were progressing, and it was just a hell of a lot of fun for all involved, however if u came to teh content late, it likely didn't have that feeling, as u were only there to buffer achievement points/farm shards and 226 gear for doing herald runs etc.

[Deleted]

it was just an amazing raid in an amazing time of WoW when WoW was fukkin awesome and fun and enjoyable and interesting and addictive...... WoW has become an absolute pile of shit since wotlk ended it just had that OMFG IM LOVING THIS SHIT AND I GOT THE BUZZ MAN I GOT THE BUZZ !!!!!!!
since then were like junkie addicts on a comedown but still trying for that high man !!! (which will never come again)

[schwank05]

It was the first raid we really struggled with as a guild, we pretty much blew up naxx 10/25, Malygos, and Sarth. So it was a breath of fresh air when we got to the Watchers and were like Lets go give this Mimiron guy a try he doesn't sound too tough... LOL were we in for a surprise now had the raid extension feature been released we would have gotten Yogg down, but we only made it through Vezax. I loved the lore, the bosses, and the activated hard-modes.

[FuzzyPanda]

Because hardmodes were in design far superior to heroics. Of course I'm a bit biased, but honestly getting one light in the darkness was my proudest moment as a raider. Even though my 10, and 25 man group went on to get a heroic lk kill.

[scarson]

Nostalgia, wrath babies...oh and, Cataclysm sucked ass by comparison.

We were fully aware of Ulduar's glory back in WotLK. We had Naxx2.0 rehash crap that pissed off people and then there was Ulduar, a new raid with so many bosses. A Titan raid had been expected for a long time, since we finished that quest in gates of Uldum in Tanaris. Then Ulduar came and it had great architecture, fun boss fight mechanics, it was the first true raid of WotLK. ToC came and was found to be much less than Uldum, few bosses, just 1 room, nothing glorious.

It is certainly not nostalgia or Wrath babies. Back in WotLK, Ulduar was cherished as soon as it came out and even more so after ToC, the crappiest of all raids, obsoleted it.

[Deleted]

It had a really good story to it also. Throughout Storm Peaks you wrapped yourself up in the story of Thorim and the titanic Watchers. You had the two dungeons, Halls of Lightning and Stone, which expanded upon this, and finally the story came to its head when you learned Yogg Saron was behind it all, having manipulated everybody the whole way.

Add this to what everyone has already added above regarding the actual raid, and it felt epic.

A bit like Throne of Thunder really with the build up to Lei Shen and what not with the Isle of Thunder.

[Condemner]

I had a break from raiding during that time mostly, but I think people think it's so good because of the variety, the non lineair progression and the size.

[Azutael]

Because Ulduar was fun, challenging, not 100% linear and had the first versions of "heroic" mode. That you could choose to activate if you wanted.
The story behind it was nice, the bosses where cool.

[Odina]

Everythign in it was just amazing... Not sure what there is in ulduar that there was not to like! I think that is why so many loved it... there was outdoor encounters, the raid itself felt HUGE like you were really storming the fortress not just running down 1 hall, the bosses all had a reason for being there / purpose in the instance etc.

It was a hard time in WOW for myself as 2 guilds broke up during my ulduar time and I was contemplating just tossing in teh towel. Then I found my current guild and stuck it out and got deaths demise title with them! THAT was the most frustrating fun I have ever had in this game :P As such I remember it as one of the best raids due to everythign that went on IRL as well as all the mechanics and hard modes that were introduced... I mean who can forget mim's glitch week 1 of spinning up and randomly going 360 killing everyone over and over lol!

[v1perz53]

For me, one of the biggest reasons that I loved ulduar was the build in hard mode triggers, and how each of the hard modes felt like a completely different fight. I cannot speak for the last two tiers, but after ulduar through terrace I killed every boss on heroic, and the general trend was "boss hits harder, this mechanic that already existed is now super important and deadly", and sometimes you would get a new mechanic or phase.

Ulduar heroics, on the other hand, felt like completely different fights, so it felt really fresh going from normal to heroic. Take XT, normal mode has heart phases, different adds that spawn from corners, and an AoE mechanic. Heroic eliminates the heart phase and corner adds, and completely changes how you handle light and gravity bombs, it is totally different. Same with Mimiron, the addition of fire totally changes the fight from very stationary and planned to completely mobile, where people have to watch out for things they totally ignored during normal. Vexan, while having a dumb hard mode that you had to stop DPS and wait for if you outgeared it, was still really interesting in that it totally took the mana regen pools out of the picture. Sure some are a bit simpler like Hodir or Thorim, but those were fun too.

And I don't know, but heroic triggers within the encounter always made me feel more engaged and gave the instance more cohesion. Why is Flame Leviathan harder? Cause you didn't kill the towers powering him up. Why is XT harder? You killed his heart that was keeping him in check. Thorim? You were fast enough that Sif helped him out. Gave the instance a great sense of story to me.

[Salted Beef]

Because it wasn't Naxx.

ToC could have been the second tier or Wrath and people would have sung praises about it.

[soulkeeperx]

Not sure if its nostalgia or just because it's just plain good, but I remember being excited for Ulduar even after ICC came out, it was just a great instance to go through, even today I'm still tempted to go back when someone is doing a mount run, but then I remember the bosses die in like 30 seconds so I wouldn't be able to enjoy it much, I'm tempted to go back and attempt to solo as much as I can on 10 man.

The hardmodes were pretty creative, it was just flipping a switch. People speak highly of them now, but back in WotLK, people were saying, "Oh, the hardmodes are just DPS checks; Freya is a Sarth 3D rehash, Thorim and Hodir are just dps races, and Vezax is just waiting for the add to form and kill it before healers go completely oom"

[FobManX]

Epic in scale, beautiful scenery, great lore, interesting boss mechanics, non-linear, balanced difficulty, cool soundtrack...

[Shiny212]

Raid of adequate size, well balanced between trash and bosses excellent encounter design, cool art-style, great lore, take your pick.

[Deleted]

Ulduar and similar raids or dungeons, like Karazhan or Scholomance, are often fondly remembered because they were complex.

They weren't there to serve a purpose of letting us grind for superior gear at the start of an expansion. They were there because they were real locations on Azeroth which needed to be included in World of Warcraft. While I think Pandaria was a step towards the right path, we did have a few years (end of WotLK and all of Cata, mainly) where dungeons were literally a single corridor with a boss in it. Hardly any attention to atmosphere and lore; beautiful visuals, yes, but no immersive devices.

But like I said, MoP was a step back onto the right path, for instance with the library in the Temple of the Jade Serpent.

[Shurkuris]

Since WoW runs on a gear treadmill, making all prior gear useless when the next Raid tier comes out...

Wasn't Ulduar only out for a relatively short time before ToC Raid came in? I remember something about GC really pushing and praising ToC to come out. Ultimately no one would run Ulduar anymore because why would you, you would have a blast doing it but the gear would get you kicked out of future raids.

[Berri]

Because people enjoyed it.

[sizzlinsauce]

probably because you had all the choice on which bosses you could go for after you got the giant statue down.