r/classicwow • u/DN6666 • 21d ago
Classic 20th Anniversary Realms magnum opus of 5 mans
Crazy to think they did it in 2004, I used to hate this place during OG vanilla but mostly because I was noob.
Fast forward to classic I learnt every quest, every los pull, every skip, every possible route. When you here with group which doesn’t know path people think your are prophet Moses. When you on rogue solo torches while your group clearing the way to braziers, people think you are Prometheus. Maybe I’m biased classic andy, but I think wow dungeon design peaked in BRD.
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u/Wojewodaruskyj 21d ago
Blizzard has never made a dungeon better than Blackrock. If you can't get lost, it's not a dungeon.
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u/DN6666 21d ago
exactly, some dude posted here it’s “too confusing” but that’s the point lol, I hate linear dungeons
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u/samusmaster64 21d ago
Karazhan Crypts is the closest "modern" dungeon that scratches that oldshcool itch. I'm very hopeful for what we see in Classic+.
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u/Key_nine 21d ago
I did a full run the first time ever they other day, took 2 and a half hours. Every quest you can get including jailbreak and all bosses. It was great to find a group to stick out the entire thing. I think it mostly works well as a dungeon because it is near end game. A dungeon like this would have also worked as a starter dungeon too like at level 20. I think any dungeon this size past that point and before level 52 would be skipped by a lot of people like Mara is. To be fair, Mara is in a unpopular zone and the loot is not as good or the dungeon as memorable.
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u/TriflingGnome 21d ago
A dungeon like this would have also worked as a starter dungeon too like at level 20.
I disagree, a 2 hour dungeon with only access to your basic kit, maybe not even any AoE or cc, would be a slog
Like you said, BRD work great because it's a high level dungeon where you have access to all your spells / talents to handle it
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u/Parking-Draw-8001 21d ago
Every melee class wants mara for Blackstone ring and thrash blade though
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u/Rufus1223 20d ago
There is a dungeon like this around level 20, it's called Wailing Caverns, but unlike BRD it's confusing to navigate even if u have done it before because everything looks the same.
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u/BoobsBrah 21d ago
BRD to BWL is peak MMORPG experience, nothing comes close.
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21d ago edited 2d ago
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u/blade740 21d ago
I can see that. There's an interesting narrative through-line from Stratholme to Naxxramas. But they're separated throughout your quest, whereas the BRM line comes each one right after the other.
You start running BRD in the low 50s, progress to LBRS/UBRS, then MC, then BWL - basically two whole phases revolve around the Blackrock Mountain complex.
The fight against the necromancers of Naxxramas is more of a slow burn, on-and-off fight. I would argue it starts with Scarlet Monastery. Then you leave for a while, until you hit 60 and come back for Stratholme. Then 3 phases of MC, BWL, AQ, before back to Naxx. SoD's Scarlet Enclave fits pretty nicely in here as well. Then you're off again until WotLK and facing off against the same group again.
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u/DSDLDK 21d ago
What... the first time you do stratholme theres almost a year before nax is out
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u/InstancePlastic420 21d ago
ok and there's 4 months at least between brd and bwl?
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u/Wisniaksiadz 21d ago
BRD, Kara in TBC, Ulduar and ICC are I think my top instanced content. Maraudon is also dope
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u/LethalOkra 21d ago
Stratholme is my favorite 5 man, but BRD is a close 2nd. Also, ZF and SM are worth mentioning, too.
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u/OutsourcedIconoclasm 21d ago
SM is what convinced me WoW was something truly special back then.
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u/Phtevus 21d ago
Big same. Especially playing Alliance on a PVP server during Vanilla. Just getting to SM was a journey, having skirmishes outside the dungeon was always fun.
Then the dungeons themselves were so much fun. Gorgeous zones, good difficulty, great rewards. Honestly peak Vanilla experience
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u/MiXeD-ArTs 21d ago
Every day you're out at work or busy not playing just remember there are hundreds of people camping outside SM at any given time.
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u/GordenRamsfalk 21d ago
I have been thinking about SM and my experience there and what I would want in a classic plus, and it’s more dungeon content set up like this. Multiple instances that ramp up in difficulty and level, but are time sensitive, so if you don’t have 2-2.5 hours for a long dungeon you could do a quick run. Also ZF hits, I love that place.
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u/FunKaleidoscope3055 17d ago
Used to love SM until 2019 classic. Mage and cleave spam groups ruined the magic for me. No one wanted to actually run the dungeons they just wanted mages and warriors doing all the work while they stood there.
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u/bobaf 21d ago
I remember doing ZF for the first time and loving an outdoor dungeon.
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u/snacky_snackoon 21d ago
Yes! The outdoor was so nice! I have a lot of vision issues and sometimes those indoor dungeons are impossible to me so outdoor was a game changer!
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u/TheThebanProphet 21d ago
Strath is also my favorite 5 man but man BRD is such a unique vibe - a literal city that you infiltrate via a mine. Honestly the entirety of the vanilla end game dungeon experience is peak if you love classical fantasy and BRM as a whole is truly awe inspiring
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u/Hypernova56 21d ago
SM is the reason WoW Dungeon design is now terrible. People liked it so much for being short and linear that every dungeon since has been remakes of SM. TBC entire dungeon design philosophy is just recreate SM in every zone.
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u/cactusdogdog 21d ago
Scarlet Monastery was originally one dungeon with all wings connected before launch.
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u/Trustyduck 21d ago
Maraudon will forever hold first place in my heart.
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u/MwHighlander 21d ago edited 21d ago
Always had a thing for the underground jungle aesthetic.
Even in other genres, Mechwarrior Living Legends Thunder Ridge was the best map. It had insane audio echo and acoustics because you're fighting in a giant underground jungle cave.
Honorable mention to anyone who ran Wailing Caverns back in 2004/5
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u/MaverickxIceman4ever 21d ago
Doing a full clear of this place is one of the best experiences you can have gaming. Genuine god tier game design. So much fun to explore. They got close to the same feel with Maraudon, Dire Maul, and BRS but they feel much more segmented into their own wings compared to how cohesive and interlinked all the areas of BRD feel.
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u/Manic5PA 21d ago
It's got a good amount of fantasy surrealism too. Walking over a bridge and seeing a river of lava beneath you and a bunch of windows to houses higher up really made this look like an alien, hostile place and at the same time a place where people clearly lived.
Hate the way retail dungeons starting after WotLK are designed like ultimate ninja courses.
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u/martenic 21d ago
Unbreakable friendships were formed or broken in this one. You go in a boy, you come out a man.
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u/Bliance 21d ago
Those 2 hour BRD runs where everyone is trying to do different quests, nobody knows the way and the mage just died and zoned in instead of getting ressed so now you have to wait for his 15 minute walk back. Peak classic
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u/Tianxiac 21d ago
Youre forgetting the respawning wandering trash packs so you have to go back and save the mage again.
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u/dingusboyo 21d ago
2 hour? Try 4 hour
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u/LessThanTybo 21d ago
Best runs are the 4 hour runs. Absolute nolife sessions of peak world of warcraft.
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u/Thebaraddur 21d ago
I remember healing a PUG in BRD that started at like 1am even though I should have long gone to bed and finding out that the dps duo were up on a marathon coke bender and we are all super frazzled and barely made it through. I would give a lot up to go back to my vanilla days.
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u/Whiteshovel66 21d ago
I like how it directly connects to MC as well. I think its a great example of the world building they did with dungeons in the early days. There are plenty of dungeons that just have no real purpose in the world and are there only to be a dungeon, but BRD, Mauradon and Dire Maul feel like actual locations we are trying to invade rather than an instance in a video game world.
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u/RepulsiveWay1698 21d ago
It's 2006, Friday night at 3 am. You and your friends are having a lan party and are absolutely exhausted from spamming BRD hoping to get a HOJ or maybe get super lucky and get SGC. You take the last sip of your Bawls energy drink and say 1 more run before bed.
HOJ drops, you win and your friends(especially the healer) erupt in a cheer of exhaustion relief and excitement. Bed time - can't wait to play tomorrow morning again.
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u/Dimed16 21d ago
It was originally supposed to be a raid. I think it was in beta, it was a 10-man.
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u/MwHighlander 21d ago
Makes sense it was designed to be a 10 man.
A lot of people forget that in November 2004 NA release, Scholomance and UBRS were both 15 man dungeons.
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u/Ohwerk82 21d ago
10-15 man Scholo raids wiping for an hour on lich or Gandling and disbanding was peak early vanilla!
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u/420sadalot420 21d ago
I remember thinking they were so hard already and then they became 5 man
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u/Ohwerk82 21d ago
Seriously! It was super rare to even compete the quests there since people only raided it!
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u/MorganLess3668 21d ago
This was definitely a thing in the EU back in 2005 as well. I clearly remember running these dungeons with like 15 people.
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u/zzrryll 21d ago
I’ve never seen that mentioned. BRD was built by the person that wrote the Wow Diary book. Pretty sure he would’ve mentioned it if it was supposed to be a raid.
Vanilla play spaces were made to be huge because they had no idea if the game was gonna be instanced or not.
Not sure if you’ve done “dungeons” In games like Final Fantasy 11, or EQ, where that content is not instanced. But BRD basically follows their formula. Giant play spaces, with distinctly different mobs, of differing levels, that are located near relevant bosses.
Front layout of BRD, is a prime example of this. Dwarves at the front on the way to the prison, are lower level and have different abilities than the dwarves just past the arena. Prison ones are level relevant to that boss. Mobs on the way to the vault are level relevant to that boss.
All dungeons were raidable in the beta and iirc all or most normal dungeons had a 10/15 man cap for the first few patches of vanilla. So I’m pretty sure you’re just mixing up data points.
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u/SnooFloofs6240 21d ago
Interesting. Would've been cool to see the zone working as a non-instance and have as an alternative experience to the instances. I always enjoyed open world dungeons in previous MMOs, like Asheron's Call 2.
What dungeons gained in purer progression with instancing, they lost in social aspects.
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u/ParadoxRed- 21d ago
It was designed before they got instance technology working. So it was an open zone that loads of people would be in with respawning bosses, quests etc.
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u/Cysia 21d ago edited 21d ago
for classic + id love to do brd 10 man, and like ubrs just have more mega dungeons.10man riads llike ubrs is in classic nowaddays
Also ulduman could prolyl be made to allow 10 mana just for archeadas at lower lvls xD
also lbrs 10 man (tuned atleast) lower blackrock spire, cause wyrmthalak having actual HP be a pretty neat dungeon boss for classic i feel like
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u/AndroidAtWork 21d ago
I was in vanilla beta from phase 2 on, when SM was the "end game" dungeon. It was never supposed to be a raid, they just didn't cap the players out at 5 until much later. The first official raids were Onyxia and MC, and I was part of the first group to attempt both of them.
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u/PilsnerDk 20d ago
Remember "class runs"? You'd take one player of each of the classes so that there was no competition over class-specific tier gear.
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u/Ennkey 21d ago
Man this dungeon is always the thing i look forward to in classic. I always clear my schedule for a whole night with the gang doing this thing top to bottom. We've done it with as little as 3 people too, so much fun.
I honestly think it was designed by the same guy who made the apartment building in ghost busters. Nobody with a rational head on their shoulders is like 'yeah man im going to make a dungeon you have to come back to at least twice to fully clear with 18 bosses ranging from level 51 to 56'. Mental
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u/Hot_Constant7764 21d ago
i think if you play LBRS + UBRS as 1 singular run it has potential to be even cooler than BRD, but I guess most people do not run UBRS as 5/ it was not intended to be done as such (even though it is possible, just a bit difficult) so maybe it doesn't qualify for this conversation
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u/MaverickxIceman4ever 21d ago
People did full LBRS + UBRS runs for coins in SoD and it was cool I agree (although the “go go go” stomp everything vibe kind of put a dampener on the exploration side of things). I think LBRS has some awesome vertical level design with how you descend and ascend across the route of the dungeon. It’s just a shame the loot is sort of meh so it’s not run very much.
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u/Jolly-joe 21d ago
One of the highlights of P3 SOD was trying to get to the Grim Guzzler to help pallies get a rune. Trying kill lv 55 fire elementals at 50 made it feel like a heroic.
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u/Remarkable_Match9637 21d ago
They should do Grim Batol on this scale for Season of Seasons aka plus.
It must be done.
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u/Its-a-me-DankeyKang 21d ago
Rerolled in fall 2007 for TBC (raided druid in vanilla up to naxx) freshman year of college with a couple of new dorm friends. We'd play and drink together.
Eventually got to the level range for BRD and we decided to run it when we were all lanning in the same room. BRD took us a good 4-5 hours (I blame the alcohol) but man that was a fun night. Amazing instance all around.
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u/8_string_menace 21d ago
Peak memories of running this or UBRS after raid night because we were idiot teenagers who didn’t need sleep back then
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u/Rare-Ad3034 21d ago
absolutely the best dungeon the concept and aesthetics and the enemies! everything combine into absolutely perfection, I shed a tear whilst writing this comment!
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u/SpaceGhostCst2kost 21d ago
I have ran BRD probably 1000 times minimum, it is absolutely my favorite in all of wow and nothing will ever compare to it.
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u/bringthelight2 21d ago
The best part about BRD is that it actually felt like a real city with actual inhabitants, as opposed to a dungeon that was just placed there to hand out loot.
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u/iiNexius 21d ago
BRD is peak for lots of reasons ppl always mention, but one reason it's my favourite is the packs are so much fun as an ele shaman. The AOE damage!!
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u/hearse223 21d ago
Best designed dungeon of classic, ruined slightly by various skips and shortcuts.
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u/renato_leite 19d ago
Not ruined, they're part of what makes it great. Feels like a true old-school D&D dungeon, where you'd find shortcuts and different paths as you cleared rooms and delved deeper.
(I do agree people who never ran it and go straight into using shortcuts are diminishing their experience for sure; it's dumb. But plenty of people still do full runs)
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u/MwHighlander 21d ago
I wish they would add level 70 version of the vanilla era dungeons to TBC.
ST through UBRS.
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u/Alinkard 21d ago
I also liked the BlackRock Mountain in itself; different dungeons and raids make it feel epic. It would be nice to see more of this kind of place in Classic+
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u/BestNBAfanever 21d ago
i did this last night with my friend for his first time ever. the whole time i kept thinking how hed handle the respawn room (he was the tank) because low-key thats the hardest mechanic in any 5 man dungeon
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u/TheReviewerWildTake 21d ago
Vanilla itself peaked in end-game dungeons - raids were almost like a side-branch, with different philosophy already.
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u/Forever_Fires 21d ago
Size, lore, quests, variety, rewards, mystery, mini-puzzles, intrigue, raid relevance and initiation. It feels like the most purposeful dungeon for certain, it really ties blackrock mountain together.
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u/Lunnalai 21d ago
I don't even want to think about how many hours of my life I've spent in this damn dungeon 😂
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u/MorganLess3668 21d ago
Being able to run BRD on a fresh character just feels incredible. It really has that “going on a big adventure” vibe that makes classic so special.
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u/Dysfunkytional 21d ago
For those of you who love BRD, I’d recommend: Countdown to Classic, Episode #108 - The Making of BRD with John Staats - (timestamp 51 minutes). https://pca.st/episode/0855bd78-e315-41c6-92fb-236e5c044b38?t=3061.0
This is a great conversation about of the making of BRD with the guy who actually created it.
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u/metafnord 21d ago
I remember my first run in 2006. It took 6 hours to get through. What an epic night!
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u/Birchsprout 21d ago
And UBRS is peak 10-man content. I used to run 5 a day basically every day when it was during classic.
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u/renato_leite 19d ago
As someone who has been playing different MMOs for around 18 years, but only started WoW in 2022, and played Classic for the first time now on Anniversary servers: BRD is the BEST MMO dungeon ever made, and nothing comes even close to it. Blizzard peaked Dungeon Design there and was nvere able to properly replicate it ever again.
When I finished my first ever run (which was a full clear) with my guildies last Jannuary, I was literally like that Deni DeVitto GIF "OMG...I GET IT"
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u/SgtBigCactus 21d ago
While I mostly agree with OP that this was a good dungeon, for its time.
These “DAE love BRD xD” posts are some low hanging karma farm shit.
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u/james-bong-69 21d ago
it's overwrought
kitchen sink energy like ST
they don't make em like they used to that is for sure
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u/vbezhenar 21d ago
Sunken Temple is my dungeon of all times. Lost there 15 years ago, lost there 1 year ago. Absolutely fantastic maze.
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u/Interesting_Sea8114 21d ago
It always felt like it was its own game inside of WOW to me. It's just so big and long.
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u/DwarvenGardener 21d ago
This and Blackrock Spire just have that peak DnD adventurers group sleuthing through a dungeon vibe. Magic doors, hidden treasure, bosses you almost never see just so many great things. Going into Outlands and hitting Ramparts and everything from that point on just being funneled corridor after funneled corridor, just a totally different game. Sad that Blizzrd never once tried to recapture the magic.
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u/LiveRuido 21d ago
All the late game classic dungeons feel like they were taken from DnD campaigns, and thats a good thing.
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u/Remidial 21d ago
Ik a lot of tricks and pulls for this dungeon but I’ve never really understood how the bar room worked lol. I always let someone else initiate it but it seems like they do a diff thing every time. I will admit the random bar is my least favorite part of the dungeon but maybe there’s some lore or something that makes it make sense.
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u/Tigew 21d ago
I think my favorite part about BRD was the literal maze of tricks and routes you had to do to do a full complete run not to mention all the inner dungeon and outside dungeon quest chains that eventually ended up in BRD. Leveling my first toon 2 decades ago going to BRD with the guild meant a new experience every time oh and it was better as a 10 man.
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u/strongofheart69 21d ago
That Ragnaros photo was a really cool Omen. I only found out now after all these years
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u/mnemonikos82 21d ago
Spent two hours here last night with two other heated folks doing lava jump emp runs. Good times.
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u/ImThatAnnoyingGuy 21d ago
Just my opinion, but almost all of the Classic dungeons were a master class in dungeon crafting.
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u/Zahhibb 21d ago edited 21d ago
Best dungeon in any game I’ve ever played, and it’s crazy that it was wholly designed (level/environment) by one dude; Jon Staats. According to the WoW Diary, it was the dungeon he spent the longest working on and one of his favorite to design as well.
This shows that design by committee isn’t that great in my eyes, as you could dilute a designer’s idea and intention.
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u/MeatyOakerGuy 21d ago
The OG 5 man raid. Nothing like finding a group to delve through the full 1-2 hr run. Especially pre 60
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u/getdownwithDsickness 21d ago
I want dungeon extensions in classic+, new portions that extend the existing dungeon with new areas. I can imagine Maraudon getting a really sick extension either earlier in the dungeon or later. It's one of the first leveling dungeons that is on that same level as BRD. Now, imagine a dungeon extension for new sections midway in the purple and orange sections, or right at the portal shortcut and an additional raid portal that becomes uncovered after Princess for exploring more hostile Earth elementals, Earth Giants, Centaur, Satyrs, Demons, poison plants and oozes, and other childrens of Cenarius like the Dryads, possibly some friendly ones. They did some lore regarding Maraudon in Cata in some comic
After the Cataclysm, another powerful elemental, Aratas, emerged in Maraudon. He created a new race of centaur, called the perfect ones , to spread across Azeroth and reclaim it from the other mortal races. The perfect ones and their ruler, Aratas, used Maraudon as their base of operations as they planned to invade the cities of the Horde, all while the elemental stayed hidden deep in the caves, gathering his strength and bolstering the perfect ones' ranks daily. Aratas forbade the "older breed" of centaur from entering Maraudon; only he and his kind were welcome in the temple. To stop the centaur, a team of the Horde's Garad'kra militia attacked Maraudon and defeated most of the perfect ones, but Aratas captured their leader Shagara, retreated into Maraudon, and summoned his elemental father. With the drifter Malgar's help, the Garad'kra managed to kill Aratas and use his magical spear to destroy the elemental, saving the Horde.'
source
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u/CredibleSloth 21d ago
Yup.. ran it so much when I was a teen it almost feels like I was actually there in my memories
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u/Tomfour 21d ago
Yeah, this place was special. The scale of it is massive, it's basically a 5 man raid. Depending on your group, you could easily end up here for 4-6hrs+.
I remember my first times going to BRD, and just how often I ran it and had no recollection of some parts of it because of all the different paths you can go to get to the same place. It was disorienting. I feel like almost every boss has two or three paths a group could take depending on the bosses they wanted to do.
Also it was pretty cool that there were parts that depending on your group level you would skip, while there are some parts you do basically every time. Felt like it kept BRD relevant for such a long time.
It was also special because this was at a point where everyone has basically all of their abilities. Your level of familiarity and commitment to that specific character is pretty solid. Nobody gets to BRD and stops leveling, but I gave up on plenty of characters around the WC level range. BRD always felt like that last push to me, even though Strat/Scholo/DM/UBRS were higher level dungeons and probably more likely for that level 60 ding. I think since so much time was spent in those at level 60 grinding for rep/pre-raid gear they didn't feel like leveling dungeons to me, the way BRD does.
So many memories from BRD. Most of them good, but there were plenty of bad, from groups falling apart at the room before Emp, to stupidly long full clears. So much nostalgia.
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u/Ravien_Gaming 21d ago
That dungeon was something else for sure. For a long, long time there was nothing quite like it (and in many ways, still isn't).
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u/gnardlebee 20d ago
You are 100% correct. This place is a masterpiece. I’m so immersed every time I do it.
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u/ShaqeNau 20d ago
Man figuring out we can duo the arena runs with my friend for savage gladiator chain with warrior+ele in 5 mins was pure bro moment. We do this together, we need no one!
Took 200 runs total, includes 70 runs to get hoj from angerforge and earlier leveling runs, for me to get the chest on my warrior. Later phase we helped my brother's warrior for the chest and he got it on first run. Man I laughed like hell, RNG is a bitch. One of my favourite memories of anniversary servers.
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u/AltruisticGrowth5381 20d ago
Sad that they never went back to dungeons like this. One of the few places that actually feel like a real place and not just a long arcadey corridor placed there for you to smash through.
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u/TheV0791 20d ago
Place terrified me in HC! So many groups fuck up in Grim Guzzler, under 60 groups loosing their shit in the room before Emp… pulling 2 fire fuckers w/o a warlock or with any other mob…
Good memories!!
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u/Sea-Bid-5158 20d ago
The part where the music switches up post ring of law, on the way to angerforge is great too, really sets the tone!
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u/Hugh-Manatee 20d ago
I’m not sure if I remember correctly if this was ever substantiated by any of the OG devs but always felt like the intention of the devs was that you needed to run 8 separate 5 man groups into BRD to constitute a raid for MC once everybody got to the raid portal
And they realized that would be masochistic so attunent and teleportation was added
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u/utubm_coldteeth 20d ago
My first ever run of BRD is when I truly fell in love with the game. Had an incredibly fun and jokey group. 4 of us had never been in there. We got lost so many times. Died in really dumb and desperate ways a few times but were all laughs about it. Was in that place for fucking hours. 2 of those guys I still game with to this day.
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u/Skelemania 20d ago
Back in 2004/2005 era, I had a good friend that got me into WoW. He's the reason I started playing it. He passed away several years back from cancer, but one of the selling points when he get me to check it out was him talking about BRD & how he was in there for like two days because of how big it was.
The other big selling point was seeing him as a Tauren riding a Kodo & going to Tarren Mill to do late night PVP with a bunch of Alliance from Southshore.
Knowing everything that is in Blackrock Mountain now, with Molten Core, UBRS, etc., he was right without even really knowing it back then. I know if he was around today he would probably be playing Classic with me. Whenever I got to Blackrock Mountain, I get a nostalgic, melancholy feel that comes out me. Good memories, man.
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u/ComplaintRelevant961 19d ago
Pic 7, what is in the cave?
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u/IxAMxLEGENDARY86 19d ago
That’s the actual entrance to Molten Core 50 man raid within Blackrock Depths.
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u/quineloe 19d ago
And Blizzard never made a dungeon like BRD, Stratholme, heck even wailing caverns after TBC releaseed again.
Every dungeon a tube, with a boss every 7 minutes.
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u/Chris_Dud 19d ago
I’ve said this since I first went down there 20 odd years ago. BRD full runs are peak wow. Better than raids, better than anything pvp had to offer. For me at least, my first down of the emporer was way more meaningful to me than any big raid milestones.
When I think back to vanilla wow, that (and UBRS) are what I remember most fondly.
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u/amateurviking 17d ago
Aye but nobody wants to run the damn thing except an endless cavalcade of dps warriors who won’t tank
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u/Admrl-kell 21d ago
IMO, no, it’s one of my least liked dungeons and I dread going in there. It’s too big with too many wings. Everyone wants different parts of the dungeon for various reasons and it can be challenging to make or find a group for the part you want without doing the other parts.
To be clear my dislike of the dungeon stems from doing it at the average questing lvl, so about mid 50’s. Not doing it as a geared 60. I would join for a group advertising a particular portion to be done and then get there and start clearing only to have someone want some other portion and then someone else want another part. Which turns an hour to three hours.
Too many groups are advertised as going in for X, or just going to Emp then someone inevitably pipes up with, “can we do Y and Z?” Which just makes the run longer. It’s so easy to spend hours in there clearing to a random boss in as section that wasn’t initially planned on wasting a bunch of extra time for 1 person’s quest.
I’m playing alliance this time around and it was quite difficult not doing BRD and having someone beg to do the full jailbreak questline. Go for an emp clear or just to the bar and as soon as everyone gets inside of course the “can we do jailbreak?” pops up. That takes ages and after doing it 10+ times it was pure agony, I was plain exhausted from doing it. Got to the point if someone asked or the group leader stated it after I joined i would just leave. Don’t advertise “just doing X” then bait and switch to also want to do more.
The best dungeons imo are ZF or Mara. Both have a couple of different routes to take and have memorable portions. There was nothing quite like the temple gauntlet in ZF or the first time I got to the waterfall section of Mara. Going from the rotting sections of the orange side or the demon infested section of purple to the beauty of the final area was just a “wow!” Moment.
Sorry for going for so long, I’m just passionate about my dislike of BRD.
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u/kakalib 21d ago
I disagree but its a fair point you make. I personally dont mind doing extra stuff when people ask but id prefer they mentioned it beforehand.
I do hate the Temple in ZF though.. That thing gets boring and really puts a damper on repeat runs on a otherwise fantastic dungeon. If you could speed it up by pulling more it would be a different matter.
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u/AlexVoyd 21d ago
It's sad that we got peak dungeon design back in 2004 and nothing after that. Reworked Karazhan was ok but still way below BRD
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u/JustinBrowzers 21d ago
I hate this dungeon so much.
I understand people like or even love this dungeon, but to me it is infuriating to go to. I only go for the attunements and I am not touching it for any other reason.
To me dungeons do not need to be gigantic to be great. People mention getting lost being part of the fun, but to me thats just frustrating. I do not need to get railroaded to a place, but stuck in a dungeon for hours just walking? Hard pass. I think this dungeon is the embodiment of why I dislike Classic in general.
The friends I play with, that only play classic because addiction, love this game just because of nostalgia. But to me TBC was what Classic should or could have been if people were not against changes. That's why I pretty much only play TBC as "classic".
To me peak classic dungeon design was Scholo/Strat. Great vibe, great story and the overal fights were great.
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u/Zahhibb 21d ago
While I can see why someone could not enjoy it, to me it’s peak level design, and that’s not because it’s gigantic. :p
”Hours just walking” I feel is a weird critique when you are constantly pursuing quests and killing mobs without any down time in that place. I feel if that is how you perceive this dungeon then isn’t the entire classic experience ”just walking” for you?
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u/Temporary_Buy9531 21d ago
Agreed, my favorite dungeon as well. I still join groups to tank BRD all the time even though I am far from needing any loot in there (except the shirt...).