Ok seriously why does this dungeon still exist as leveling content in 2021? I have never seen a single group make it past the first trash pull without falling apart.
First off, you always have some people instantly bail and just take the 30 minute deserter debuff rather than put up with this nonsense. Then while waiting around (with no tank and/or healer) you always aggro the patrol that comes within range of the mole machine (but isn’t attackable by melee since they’re on another platform). Group wipes, complains, disbands. So stupid that this dungeon is in the Chromie time random dungeon finder rotation
BRD? I like that one. They’ve nerfed the pain points into oblivion. I’ve even had groups that asked for a full clear. Can be done in like 30-45 minutes with an okay group.
It’s a remnant if classic game design, when the devs thought instances should be like big DnD adventures, rather than 20-40 minute excursions. Early dev thought was that players would only ever do dungeons once, and they wanted to provide a full story and immersion.
It’s pretty much the only dungeon of it’s kind, even in classic. Blizzard never replicated the size or quest / lore involvement like that ever again, for better or worse.
So to answer “why does this exist” the answer is “it was an early experiment, with some success and some failure that the devs pivoted away from”
BRD (and others) literally had questlines that were about going back and forth in multiple runs of the dungeon, so IDK where you’re pulling the “their thought was players would only ever do dungeons once” from.
Blackrock Depths, Sunken Temple, Stratholme, you can arguably count Blackrock Spire (LBRS and UBRS) in there.
Did you ever watch the wow documentary looking for group? Early, early concept was that players would only do dungeons once. And yeah, it was a silly idea back then.
Not an exact source, but the closest thing I can find right now
An actual change that happened long past Classic was that their dungeon philosophy changed to having dungeons become small experiences that could be consumed in “reasonable” play chunks, e.g. 15-40 minutes. Even the mega-dungeons now are basically on-rails experiences that are slightly longer than usual.
IDK why you’re linking me a random youtube video of some random guy, but at least have the courtesy to link to the relevant timestamp. I’m not spending 11+ minutes to figure out whether you’re just linking me to some rando’s opinion (whose source is “Trust me”).
Off the top of my head, things I can think of that clearly contradict that idea:
Scholomance for making Flasks, The Black Forge, things like that around professions literally mandating repeat gameplay.
Grim Guzzler had the Thorium Brotherhood vendor.
Zul’farrak containing the clues to go to other zones before you come back for additional content (e.g. the Mallet).
Also in ZF, combining Jang’thraze and Sang’thraze to form Sul’thraze, the sort of thing most people definitely never saw in one run given each weapon was like a <5% drop rate.
Onyxia questline, and others similar to it.
(later in classic) class mount and dungeon set questlines.
Dire Maul
Reputations that were attached to certain dungeons, or best/only levelled up in dungeons. Shen’dralar comes to mind almost immediately, but it’s not the only one. Argent Dawn and Scourgestones are another example.
Hell, there’s even repeat content in levelling dungeons like Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep, not to mention Deadmines and Gnomeregan. Classic dungeons also have Rare mobs/encounters which obviously makes zero damn sense if you’d never encounter them because you just did the dungeon once.
Ah, sorry for no timestamp. It was 3 am and I was tired. He says it right st the beginning around 1 min in. Still gonna look for a more solid source later, but it was mostly just to say I’m not completely pulling this out if my butt, lol. This was an early alpha idea of the devs. (Also remember that dire maul and maraudon didnt exist upon release) yes, I’m that old lmao
The video actually sounds interesting so I’m watching it. I have hit the point where the content creator made that statement, but there’s no reference to the source. I have no idea if it’s an officially stated Blizzard developer view, this guy’s interpretation of that, or just his opinion.
What I can say is this… I much prefer Vanilla dungeon design to the current form. Dungeons in Vanilla felt like they had meaning and represented a group-based adventure where you had to work as a team to succeed. I much prefer this and am happy to run them over and over again. I did this in OG Vanilla, again in Classic, and if I can find the time to level my damn SoM character, I plan to do it again still. I’ve also greatly enjoyed the original versions of the mega dungeons… Return to Karazhan, Operation Mechagon, and to a lesser extent (because it kinda just sucks), Tazavesh.
The retail version of BRD is kind of bastardized, in that it’s cut up and pared down to fit into the current dungeon design. I haven’t done it since I leveled a bunch of characters through dungeons during BfA, but I can’t imagine its changed. It’s not very hard and pretty straightforward if you know where to go. If groups are struggling with this, perhaps the answer isn’t to delete what is still a great dungeon, but instead to consider what groups are struggling with and provide more clarity/direction.
The issue with BRD in group finder is that you start at the entrance every time, but depending on what group you were sent into, there are different boss objectives. And nobody really knows the way and tries to do ridiculous skips that end up wiping the group. People just bail because it’s not worth the worry.
The difference with BRD vs a bunch of other reworked or segmented dungeons is that it’s not immediately obvious which way to go unless you already know where, and there’s nothing really stopping you from going down a wrong path. Even for those that already knew where, for a while it wasn’t even necessarily obvious which end-boss was counted as your “objective” at the point you zoned in, but they’ve cleaned that UI up a bit now.
When you consider things like when you zone into LFR, or zone into certain wings of other dungeons, they’re careful to lock off doors, or things like that to make it obvious. There’s no reason they couldn’t, say, spawn you into different areas in BRD with a more clearly defined “route”.
Yeah this is what they need to do, but I am not sure it’s even possible with legacy dungeons, I assume modern raids are designed with LFR already in mind.
They spawn you into the Grim Guzzler for Brewfest, and that’s even the exact same dungeon. They had no trouble with Maraudon when they implemented the “3 wings” there. Dire Maul, Stratholme …
Technically speaking, there shouldn’t be any limitation on where they can spawn you into for any instanced zone. They might have to do some extra work to make a doorway locked, or add an invisible wall or two, but that sort of thing’s more a question of whether they have the will/priority to make changes.
Could’ve sworn you spawned past the Grim Guzzler if you got upper city. My main problem with BRD is that the whole middle section (West Garrison, the robot making area and the Grim Guzzler) are completely skipped over because there are only 2 wings in LFD. One of which you can simply take the mole machine to where you would spawn for Upper city and jump down. Kill the two bosses near there and you are done. Meanwhile the quests for Upper city cannot be obtained unless you have done the quests for the West Garrison & the Grim Guzzler. Honestly I feel like those mole machines should go away if you get BRD via LFD. And lock the doors that previously required the shadowforge key to open. While it is convenient to skip 99% of the wing, it doesn’t feel right to me. I can tell I am in the minority for that.
Design like this is what really makes those dungeons engaging and fun to play again. Your initial experience is confused as you explore a new area that you’ve never been in anymore, but you work through it to try to find your way. This transitions into further exploration where you learn the area, where things are, and how to get to where you need to be somewhat effectively. Finally, this moves on towards mastery, as you have a firm grasp of the dungeon and what the best routes are.
There is vast amounts of replayability and discovery here, and I think that’s what made the design of BRD so great. Modern dungeons significantly down play (or outright eliminate) the aspect of exploration. The only thing left is the optimization of a linear route you find in M+ scene, but anything outside of that doesn’t last. Most dungeons are run only a small handful of times by any one person, on any one character.
This is a lot of wasted effort, even inside the current expansion, but more so for content that can be used for leveling. WoW has an absurdly high amount of content left to rot… it blows my mind!
Anyway, I understand how we got here. Today, most people aren’t really looking for engagement in their dungeon experience. It’s often seen as a means to an end… get the XP and get to level cap, then go on about what you want to do. Linear routes enable this, making runs smooth, repeatable experiences that have a higher probability of success.
I see this as a huge shame though… I really wish engaging dungeon design didn’t have to be compromised in this way. I enjoy some of the new dungeons Blizzard has put out of the years, but none as much as I’ve enjoyed the original dungeons, especially BRD. I love that I can experience it in Classic, but I’m sad that it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see such designs again in WoW and I’m not sure if there are any games that offer that kind of experience.
