Dragonsoul: Raid building on a shoestring budget at corp. bliz?

[Migol]

So I've seen all the fights now in either the PTR or live...and this is bugging me:

All the environments except the actual "flying on deathwing" are just recycles of other environments, IE Northrend outdoors area, "old god stomach" area, Maelstrolm area, etc. All of the bosses (and trash) are just recycles of other bosses or mobs, IE the minions of the old gods, the stonecore boss, etc.

We've seen some of this before (ToC...) but this is the first time it's been done to that degree since. I'll note too that the final dungeon+boss count for Cataclysm is much lower than Wrath, which was much lower than TBC. Is this something we should expect more of in MoP? Or am I just overreacting to one-time "clever re-use of pertinent environments and resources"?

[Lilreggie]

Ive done them all on live now, and I've got to say that this is the most epic feeling raid since Ulduar. For me, it was necessary to show the maelstrom and dragonblight, as that fits the lore perfectly. The fights are fairly clever too. Plus you dont need 14 bosses anymore, especially now that there are hardmodes. If you want deeper progression than 8 bosses, do hardmodes. If you are the kind of person that kills 8 hardmodes quickly, you should be used to that by now. If not, you can have fun in hardmodes for a while.

[Exiledknight]

The raid itself is pretty amazing and they stated at the start of cata that deathwing would be an encounter to take place over multiple continents....we all knew we would be back at wyrmrest because of the instance portals and this is what brought us back. This is nothing compared to toc and its just foom and gloom....this is hands down the raid with the most fun factor since ICC and I am like a little kid at christmas right now waiting for heroics next tuesday.

[Bigbad]

I was like GTFO hagara is in eye of eternity. Didn't really mind the old god stomach zone.

[Kazeyonoma]

Same here, i enjoyed bouncing around everywhere because it for once, made you feel more epic in stopping the events at hand to save the world. It's more believable that you're going to have to stop his minions all over the place rather than just his HQ where they all happen to be sitting in different rooms while their friends/underlings are dying and no 'alarms' are being sounded.

[swelt]

> Is this something we should expect more of in MoP? Or am I just overreacting to one-time "clever re-use of pertinent environments and resources"?

I don't think we'll see it to the same extent. I think a lot of the character of this expansion has resulted in the re-modelling of Azeroth. For people that focus entirely on the end game, it's easy to overlook just how much work went into re-doing the old zones. The time those artists spent doing that is time they didn't spend making raid instances. MoP will be different. That's not to say they might not get creative with re-use of assets (didn't they announce heroic scholomance?). Provided they do it in a good way, I'm fine with it.

A cynical way of putting it would be 'how can we give the most content at the lowest cost', but I don't think that's really fair. I think it's more like 'how can we produce a great experience for the players most efficiently'.

[Theotherone]

I love the new raid and the new heroics; not only is there an epic feel, but the world itself becomes relevant. Old zones you never go to anymore are important again and I like that - the world should be used in current content.

[severyn71]

Whilst I did enjoy the new heroics and what I did of DS, i felt them to be very short! 2-3 bosses just didn't seem like much! They are well done and I don't mind the reuse of some concepts! Just left me a little disappointed, but that is me and I enjoy a challenge because the sense of accomplishment is much better once overcoming a difficult encounter!

[leethaxor]

Whilst I did enjoy the new heroics and what I did of DS, i felt them to be very short! 2-3 bosses just didn't seem like much! They are well done and I don't mind the reuse of some concepts! Just left me a little disappointed, but that is me and I enjoy a challenge because the sense of accomplishment is much better once overcoming a difficult encounter!

Then finish dragon soul. If you enjoy being challenged by difficult encounters and are stating you are disappointing by what you have done so far how can you be disappointed with the patch if you have not done all of its content?

[PimpJuice4]

Plus you dont need 14 bosses anymore

id rather have 14 bosses then some bs excuse of having like 3 of the same last boss and calling it more then just that,dragon soul is another firelands to me

at least its the last patch of the expansion though,cant wait to get this garbage expansion over with.i guess one of the postive things about 4.3 is from what ive heard raid finder is better then i thought it would be so i dont know,im kinda tempted to use it but i dont know.i raid like twice a week and dont really feel like getting burned out

[Leucifer]

The dungeons are an improvement over the usual Cavern of Time dungeons. Hated CoS as it was run here.... wait... run there..... wait... listen to Arthas blather. The flow with the new ones is much improved. Even the Thrall escort one is much better paced. I was expecting CoS-type-omg-please-shut-up-Arthas play, but was actually nicely surprised at how smooth it goes.

Admittedly, I feel they're easier than ZA/ZG were, but the pacing, so far, I'm enjoying them. I would agree that, the dev time for these.... considering how long 4.2 ran and how much time they had to develop it, they kinda seem understated. Then again, I haven't touched Dragonsoul raid yet. From what I understand, the Deathwing encounter was a major challenge as the game engine wasn't really designed for that type of encounter. I have a feeling they spent a LOT of time devoted to that.

I think it's a little early to really render judgment at any rate.

[Kahmal]

I've only done up to Ultraxion, i dont mind that they recycled the areas. Like it was stated it makes perfect sense in lore. Deathwing isn't hiding in some layer waiting to be killed like most bosses, he's taking the fight to us and what better place then Wyrmcrest where the only people that can oppose him dwell.

I just feel that because of this they could have made some of the boss encounters more interesting.

[Theotherone]

at least its the last patch of the expansion though,cant wait to get this garbage expansion over with.

A year from now in the throws of MoP, this statement in general (in no way is it directed at the author, just this general feeling of Cata is so bad that floats around) will morph into, "things were great back in the good old days of Cata, cc really mattered back then, oh the community was so much better, and you could fly at all over, there were quest hubs that made it less grindy ...."

I can't wait.

[Juvia~]

MoP is introducing a new environment, so I believe that in MoP, raids will change along with dungeons

[Libellus]

A year from now in the throws of MoP, this statement in general (in no way is it directed at the author, just this general feeling of Cata is so bad that floats around) will morph into, "things were great back in the good old days of Cata, cc really mattered back then, oh the community was so much better, and you could fly at all over, there were quest hubs that made it less grindy ...."

I can't wait.

I know, if Blizz had any sense they would have an archive all the comments slagging off Cata, Wrath, TBC etc and whenever anyone posted an "things were so much better in......" comment on the official forums, a blue would appear with a shit load of links to posts showing that a portion of the community felt the opposite.

As for the raids and the heroics, visually they are my favs of this expansion and I really like the reuse of existing areas. I sincerely hope that Blizz do this more in the future as it really gives the events a sense of occasion. Ok so the content is a little easy, but it isn't idiot proof and there are a large number of idiots out there.

Overall, for me, Cata has been a big improvement over WotlK, even with the gradual nerfing of difficulty. The heroic dungeon content at launch was fun and rewarding, but didn't cripple raid gearing, which was speedily done. I liked the approach taken for the quest hubs and the way the story gradually progressed as you moved through the zone.

The only real down point of the expansion for me was the Molten Front, which was an overly tedious timesink.

[Migol]

Semi-Necro, with new and related information...while I'm excited about killing Garrosh Hellscream (VERY excited), apparently he's not getting his own raid (like if he had run and hidden among the Grimtotems or something). Rather, they're having us "lay siege" to orgrimmar. This sounds to me like it's going to be identical to Dragonsoul: A few cosmetic changes, but mostly re-using the old "world environment" of Durotar and Orgrimmar. I honestly do not like this shift. I'm sure it saves them resources, but (as we saw with the 8 bosscount in DS), it's not translating into more content for the player. Moreover some of their best raid zones like Ulduar and Karazhan were great at least in part to their incredible atmosphere and art direction, which was very different from anything we had seen before.

[Ryune]

This sounds to me like it's going to be identical to Dragonsoul: A few cosmetic changes, but mostly re-using the old "world environment" of Durotar and Orgrimmar. I honestly do not like this shift.

Ofc. Garrosh should retreat to his secret volcano lair.

Storming Orgrimmar could be very epic.