Add Karazhan to the WoW Classic lineup

Rather than not being used at all, I think Karazhan should get a (deadwind) pass and be tuned to an entry level raid, either as a 10 man dungeon like UBRS, a 20 man like Zul Gurub, or somewhere right in the middle. Its location, its rich story and great design are why I feel that Karazhan, (and to a lesser extent the caverns of time) deserve(s) consideration to be included in WoW Classic. Now I muse out a lot off different radically ideas, I may not live through dawn. so roll up the fellweed and hang on tight.

Zion! Hear me!

Now there are many ways to Look at wow classic, mostly because the Blizz team has been a little open ended about the end game of this endeavor. You could look at wow classic as the rolling out of WoW over again exactly how it once was, but what does that mean; Will it be like another release of Vanilla content only, or as 3-5 seasons of Vanilla followed by, 3-5 seasons of tbc, then wotlk again, and more x pac content, like a 2nd revision. Maybe its both and they plan to pick and choose and make it a vanilla 2.0 experience as well. So out of that, there are 3 outcomes for kara. Its not included at all (just standing there in deadwind pass), its on the way with tbc, or they may adapt it to fit this classic NWO of things.

everyone has an opinion for what expansions have worthy content. While I have a narrow view on what is Classic, it is not a knock on any of the later content that has been added to WoW. IMHO, my take on wow classic is based off of the RTS games. For instance, WoW TBC following much of Tides of Darkness lore, and WOTLK following up with that of Frozen Throne, and mostly World of Warcraft obviously drawing from Warcraft 1 2 and 3, combine to make my Classical Ages of WoW. And I think many may agree with me in this regard. I think this is why instance like the CoT are so fun because they sort of play with that 4th wall. The culling of Strathome is a great level in Warcraft 3 as well. I think this is also why the sundering was the end of an age, literally changing the map, because it was the end of the classical period of WoW. like from Stone Age to bronze, the end of an era. I’ll try not to exitensially ramble much more that that. Where are we. Ah yes. Karazhan and CoT. I digress…

So ill preface everything I say with that, basically, If Kara, and TBC and the rest of all that content is in the pipeline, then this whole thing I am pitching here is pretty mute. Leave this place waiting for when its time is due, if you plan to roll out all of the WoW through TBC and WotLK, as some have suggested in other media and posts. That has never been confirmed from you directly, but from a lot of peoples interpretations on what what parts of wow are classical.

But if this is not really an active strategy here to include Kara, and this is just WoW Vanilla only, then I think Kara could be reconsidered as an opportunities to include some instances from other expansions.

Karazhan is one of the best 10 man dungeons in the game, has a great number of bosses, all types of mechanics, has reputation with a simple vendor than can be stand alone, has some quests, has a great story that’s crucial to a lot of Bigger events. It is probably my in my top 5 dungeons of all time.

Deadwind Pass was in Vanilla in route to other major quests hubs for endgame content. You ran through it to get to sunken temple for instance. Kara is there taunting you like the biggest baddest castle in the game. and IN many ways, in Vanilla, as a hidden level 70 raid waiting there the entire time, it actually was. Relatively speaking of course with the 60 level cap.

You also have the Legendary staff from Naxx that ports you to the entrance of Kara. So if you don’t think its worth of WoW classic, I hope you change your mind. Because it can easily be included by itself with out much wiggling.

There are other dungeons and zones that are present in vanilla, but weren’t as finished as CoT and Kara. such as Mt Hyjal and Grim Batol. Grim Batol is another dungeon I do truly love, and while maybe adding a dungeon file to the game is easier than changing the map, there are those sort of limitations in place for other areas of the map. CoT as a whole can almost be easily wiggled in, and maybe thats why Mt Hyjal is locked off, it is stuck in these loops of the past for ever rendering behind collision… I mean existence. CoT also has farmable reputation that can be adjusted to be stand alone and great story. It is another one of my favorite raids, because how deep it is in the lore of wow. Archimonde is an amazing boss to fight against.

Now, on the other hand, if you are planing to include other expansions in this wow classic line up, then I offer here at the end an even crazier idea. If all of the classical expansions are on the table and are going to be rolled out, WoW Classic could include content all the way up to WoTLK, but With a level cap being flattened to 100 across the world of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend. All 3 expansions of Raid content could be split into 3 equal tiers: Vanilla being Level 100 teir A (1-3), TBC level 100 Teir B (4-6) , and WotLK Level 100 Teir C (7-9). So AQ 40 would be equal to BT/SWP and ICC25 in turns of what lv gear drops and what type of gear you need to defeat it. Each of the expansion zones (Outland, Northrend) would be level 90-100 zones, with Sithulus, Icecrown and SMV being elite zones quested post cap for no xp, but for reaping the reward of rep or gear or gold. Zul Gurub Aman above Kara, but under Zul Gurub. Grulls lair on par with the Dragons of Nightmare, and Wintergrasp Vaults. Access to all the content in a way that it is all competitive and tuned for an intended difficulty, at the same time. Content would always be relevant and not only supported for the active season. Wow Classic can be this massive open ended adventure containing all the greatest hits of the early years of WoW. Then you have such a large number of places to gear up, with a steep climb, you are really considering the value of that +1 stat upgrade over say anyone else in your group that may benefit it more that that. Keeping the Vanilla Talents but raising the Level to 100, you would then have up to 91 points to use, being able to max out your whole tree and split 39 points deep into your secondary trees. Truly becoming a master of you class.

With 3 expansions of content squeezed into one game, there would be so many places to gear up from raiding each week along the already steep climb needed to upgrade your gear. Each run wouldn’t be as much pressure to produce results for your gear score. Your guild community would be able to share the wealth easier each week among the clan because upgrades would be so small you would truly be working on that 1% extra. Playing as a Tank and Healer in TBC and WotLK it killed me when a good group of guilds would fall apart over loot. I remember one Kara run in particular where a hunter got the crossbow at the start and the bow in the same run further up the dungeon, because the bow was an "upgrade"over the crossbow even though our second hunter would of had a huge upgrade with either and the raid leader was a friend of his so in the end, it went like that. And that wasn’t the only time, and not just with that leader. It would happen more often that not because times were desperate. 1 Raid lock out a week on 1 relevant raid. But it was during a time when there was only so much available for your level. Now we have all these dungeons like different paints to draw from and repaint the world of warcraft in anyway. With each exaction offering 3 tiers of equal turning on the same field there is this open endless to claiming Azeroth as yours!

It was bitter sweet to watch all this content die and become obsolete over the years even with great new content to dive into, so if you are bringing it back to just end up having to do all that again, here is an option to avoid that. There is so much content lost between the changing expansions that so many never saw it how it was Intended, just in a rushed state. I think some of settled for legacy LFR that would scale you down to a enjoyable difficulty, but you are giving us so much more than that. You are giving us a time machine, and its amazing

So yeah all that level 100 stuff, Or Just tune Kara and CoT for level 60 because they are really great dungeons that are right there on the map and um. And if I had to Choose one Id Choose Karazhan. hell, 60 is the new 100 anyways. or is that the other way.

“Hmm, unannounced visitors”

I ran out of wizardweed before I finished, lost my train of thought.

I assume you have a, “No.” on the way.

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here hit mine, I prolly had too much

I can def see you’re passionate on this but if it wasn’t in 1.12 I don’t believe they would bring it into classic. 1.12 was far from perfect in which only the most extreme vanilla fans would argue with, but this is the model that they have going forward in terms of classic so I would say expect incomplete zones, odd class balance, etc. They “may” make additions to the game but it would need to grossly outperform retail for them to consider adding on to the game (by expansions or changes etc.) I would believe.

This being said, coming from an rp perspective Deadwind pass offers a unique zone to rp in so at least there is that :wink:

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I get what you’re saying. I tried to really put all my nerds on the table and predict the future. tasty to think about. but a bit of a mess. I guess best case minimum they could just drag and drop it in. use expansion data… to fill in the wow vanilla cracks and… voila, Dino DnA!

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Actually the most extreme fans argue that 1.12 is nerfed into oblivion and would like us to be taken back to 1.1. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I would agree that I loved PVP in vanilla days and free open talents. I want that data and numbers, health and dmg and class mechanics, but just more raids to run everyweek lol… I want the world (of warcraft) I want the whole world! (of warcraft)

Started to read. Got Bored.

TL;DR - Leave Deadwind Pass as it was.

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No one read that.

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My eyes began bleeding the first 30 minutes into the OP. Or it felt like 30 minutes.

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no, no changes. as soon as the game starts to change again thats when they “patch it to oblivion”
it happened with the darkfall re-releases it was a bad thing.

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lol sometimes you just gotta type it out to let it go ya know. now ill be taking that lapdance.

it was something IN Vanilla, it was were all the bots were:O)

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I understand your concern about domino effects to no end.

After naxx has been out for a long time perhaps… would love to see tbc dungeons/raids adapted for 60 as well.

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I am sooo looking forward to Naxx and 40s. The events when Naxx moved locations towards the end of TBC and getting into it early Wotlk really made me take that raid on another of my most beloved ones, even hough I had never got a chance to play it as a 60 in a 40 man. So I am really excited about everything in Classic WoW. Im also really ocd and so I was always curious about deadwind gorge and died all the time down there ‘splorin’.

It’s an entry level raid in BC. If Blizzard does TBC legacy servers then you’ll have your wish.

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for sure, I guess thats a possibility to, a server set to TBC rather than razing classic to TBC. but I think that would really cut the player base even further if they split classic into “who wants classic” and “who wants just tbc”, over vanilla. I don’t think anyone wants that. I don’t think anyone really wants anything over aq40 and nax in terms of ultimate end game either. So I don’t see them really rolling out the expansions like that, but maybe they want it all over again the same.

All im saying is who doesn’t love more midrange cotent. … right guys?

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I think Classic will still have its fan base even with a BC legacy server. I mean BC introduces arenas and e-sports into WoW and I really didn’t like the way they they basically changed the fundamentals of PvP to make it work, or not work really in my opinion. I’ll always like Classic PvP over PvP in any other WoW expansion.

On the other hand though I did very little of the raid content in BC and actually would like an opportunity to do it.

So even if they kept the servers separate and had a Classic-only server and TBC-only server I’d probably be splitting time between both.

Plus, not everyone is all about endgame content. Some people, believe it or not, really do just like logging on and doing mid-range content and are perfectly happy and content with never reaching 60 or stepping foot inside a raid instance. Classic will be the game those people prefer, not BC.

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Alternatively though they could just fix retail and make it fun again and all this speculation about legacy servers would go away.

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