Blizzard Jazzes Up More Classic WoW Raids

[John Funk]

Blizzard Jazzes Up More Classic WoW Raids

Two of the most popular old-school World of Warcraft raid zones will be making a return as new top-level five-man dungeons.

If there's one thing that player characters in WoW are good at, it's killing trolls. No other race on Azeroth has more zones and dungeons dedicated to their systematic annihilation than the trolls do, and that isn't even counting the ones where they just show up anyway! Now, Blizzard is taking two of these old-school troll-slaughtering raids, and updating them for level 85 players who are already starting to run out of content.

According to a Blizzard representative for WoW Taiwan [http://forum.wowtaiwan.com.tw/twow_forums_page3.asp?topic_id=122041&forum_id=2&GoPage=1&lis], in Patch 4.1 players will be returning to Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. In its original form, Zul'Gurub was a 20-man raid dungeon from pre-Burning Crusade "Vanilla" WoW, set in the dark, sweltering jungles of Stranglethorn Vale. Similarly, Zul'Aman was the second 10-man raid added to Burning Crusade, located up north in the more temperate climate of the elven land of Quel'Thalas.

Now, both instances will be tuned for a standard dungeon group of five players. They'll drop better gear than existing Heroic dungeons - level 353 Epic-quality equipment as opposed to the level 346 Rare-quality gear in current Heroics - but will also require that all players have an average item level of 346 in order to enter. Don't worry if that didn't make any sense to you; it's just WoW-speak.

Both ZG and ZA are fan-favorite dungeons from back in the day, so it makes sense that Blizzard would be adding them as five-man content alongside the brand-new raid content in the Firelands. Maybe we'll be able to put that useless Zandalar Tribe reputation to some use now, hmm? Well, I won't get my hopes up.

Before people cry "rehash!" and wail and gnash their teeth, it seems like these updated dungeons will be much more in line with the Heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines - with entirely new storylines and boss encounters - rather than the "keep almost everything the same, just adjust the numbers" re-release of Naxxramas and Onyxia's Lair in Wrath of the Lich King. Frankly, the new Deadmines - specifically, the Vanessa Van Cleef encounter - may be the most creative five-man Blizzard has ever put together, so I don't mind this at all.

This is supported by information unearthed by the dataminers at MMO-Champion [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2189-Patch-4.1-on-PTR-Zul-aman-and-Zul-gurub-are-back!] - one of the new ZG achievements asks players to collect the heads of "Gub, Mortaxx, Kaolema, Mor'Lek, the Florawing Hive Queen, a Lost Offspring of Ghaz'Ranka, and the Gurubashi Master Chef," none of which are names I recognize from old-school Zul'Gurub. On the other hand, other achievements mention Halazzi and High Priest Venoxis by name, which means that we'll probably be seeing some familiar faces, too.

The Taiwanese representative also said that the rare raptor, tiger, and war-bear mounts would be making a return, but that they won't ever drop for you. I may have made that last part up.

Now if only we could see a re-release of the infamous Corrupted Blood incident [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident].

(WoW Taiwan [http://forum.wowtaiwan.com.tw/twow_forums_page3.asp?topic_id=122041&forum_id=2&GoPage=1&lis])

Permalink

 

[Bretty]

I have heard of people wanting to leave WoW because of this?

SOOOOOO wierd. I would of thought more high end content was a good thing!

 

[Exterminas]

As a player who has raided both instances in their original state I am not looking forward to that. Recycling the old areas was a huge succes, because they basically designed them new from scrap.

A huge part of what makes instances interresting for me, is the exploring. Can't do that if it is old stuff. Was the same with naxxramas for me. I just have been there too many fucking times already.

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't think I ever did Zul'Gurub, but Zul'Aman was pretty fun!

 

[John Funk]

As a player who has raided both instances in their original state I am not looking forward to that. Recycling the old areas was a huge succes, because they basically designed them new from scrap.

A huge part of what makes instances interresting for me, is the exploring. Can't do that if it is old stuff. Was the same with naxxramas for me. I just have been there too many fucking times already.

This seems far more akin to Deadmines and SFK, though - both of which have received almost unanimous praise from WoW players, particularly Deadmines. Why is that good but this bad?

 

[MrTub]

I'm quite sure you mean ilvl346 since ilvl 246 was something between ulduar-icc?

 

[Aurgelmir]

Hmm Zul'Gurub I have seen enough of, but Zul'Aman was a nifty instance, together with Karazhan its my favorit instance.

 

[MrTub]

As a player who has raided both instances in their original state I am not looking forward to that. Recycling the old areas was a huge succes, because they basically designed them new from scrap.

A huge part of what makes instances interresting for me, is the exploring. Can't do that if it is old stuff. Was the same with naxxramas for me. I just have been there too many fucking times already.

This seems far more akin to Deadmines and SFK, though - both of which have received almost unanimous praise from WoW players, particularly Deadmines. Why is that good but this bad?

Cause I do not know a lot of people that spent 5-6h 5 days a week in dm/sfk... and therefor people are bored of them.

 

[Exterminas]

As a player who has raided both instances in their original state I am not looking forward to that. Recycling the old areas was a huge succes, because they basically designed them new from scrap.

A huge part of what makes instances interresting for me, is the exploring. Can't do that if it is old stuff. Was the same with naxxramas for me. I just have been there too many fucking times already.

This seems far more akin to Deadmines and SFK, though - both of which have received almost unanimous praise from WoW players, particularly Deadmines. Why is that good but this bad?

Oh, I didn't say I liked deathmines or shadowfang. But these two are just heroics. You don't run them for months. And I haven't played their vanilla versions nearly as much as I did Zul'Aman, for example.

What keeps me entertained in an instance after the bosses are all known (after the third kill or so) and what has to last for a couple of months, is the visual stuff. I was always amazed by that hallway leading down to general Vezax, no matter how often I saw it.

This effect will be greatly deminished in Zul'Gurub where I know every scrub by first name.

On a side note: These days almost every new boss in Wow can be deconstructed into references to older bosses. Nothing is really THAT new in theory. Only the execution in this new combination is new. Which is... kinda boring, aside from the mecanical challenge.

Edit:

Also about 50% of today's player probably never saw these instances when they were current. Recycling stuff might offend some older players, who don't take joy in constant recycling, even if executed in a humorous way (see Deadmines). For example. I know a lot of older player, who are up in arms because of their amani war bears. Silly but still... These people make up what made wow succesful: Long time customers. You don't want to mess with these people. Because their past achievements and the community are all that keeps them bound to wow.

 

[deth2munkies]

Yeeeeeeah! I loved both of these dungeons (I just hated the way ZG did loot) back when they were out.

You are slightly incorrect in the article though: there are far more dungeons for the slaughter of the Undead.

Also, everyone who has leveled an alt since Cataclysm should have seen this coming because:

Spoiler

There is an involved questchain in Stranglethorn Vale where Zanzil resurrects the priests of Zul'Gurub at the request of Jin'do the Hexxer

Razorfen Downs
Shadowfang Keep
Stratholme
Scholomance
ICC and all 3 of its heroics
Naxxramas
Auchenai Crypts
Both Azjol-Nerubs

versus for trolls:

Draktharon Keep
Gundrak
Zul'Farrak
Zul'Aman
Zul'Gurub

 

[RanD00M]

I don't give a shit. There is a low fucking chance that I will start enjoying raids again until they make them at a more epic scale. You know, like how Vanilla WoW was. 40 man raids were hard, a lot of toll on you to organize, but it just felt so much better. That shit that they pulled in WotLK in making it possible to fucking PUG instaces was so much bull.

 

[Carnagath]

That's pretty bad. You don't seem to like the word "rehashing", but that's exactly what they are doing. Ok, maybe Onyxia was cute because it used to be such an iconic fight, but this is too much. And no, I wasn't thrilled by Deadmines or SFK either. It's not that they are badly designed, it's just that, instead of that, I'd rather see completely new instances. A pretty reasonable expectation in my opinion. And no, the war bear and tiger mounts should not return. Even though I do not have the tiger (do have the bear), some things in this stupid game should be e-peen worthy, tokens for the players who have been actively playing it for such a long time. Not everything should be owned by everyone so Blizzard can make more money.

 

[KeyMaster45]

I have heard of people wanting to leave WoW because of this?

SOOOOOO wierd. I would of thought more high end content was a good thing!

People threaten to leave WoW with every patch over the most minor of things, just ignore them.

OT: I knew they had to be planning to bring back an updated ZG after doing that awesome STV quest line in the beta that really set it up for continuing the story. ZA is a surprise though, will be interesting to see how the remake it.

 

[GothmogII]

I'm glad Zul'Gurub is coming back, I want my Zulian Tiger by darn it!

Zul'Aman is an odd one though, maybe they felt they didn't do enough with it, but it came out toward the end of TBC, just before Wrath of the Lich King, but it was a pretty solid instance. Well designed, even if the mechanics behind the encounters themselves weren't all that interesting. Still, out of all the Troll related instances ZA was my favorite, awesome looking bosses, great armor sets (if you like the tribal n' bone n' spike look) so it'd be interesting to see what they do with it. I just hope it really isn't simply going to be as some people have noted a rehash with new loot and little else, doesn't seem so going by the OP, so that's a relief. :3

Know an instance they -really- need to go back to? Black Wing Lair. Seriously, Razorgore the Untamed is bugged out the ass right now, I've been in several groups consisting of 70-85's on my new Dorf Shammy and we've failed every single damn time because Razorgore goes completely insane the second the MC wears off and insta kills the raid. :/ He's not even that hard otherwise.

 

[Dendio]

I for one am looking forwards to the new content. I have good memories from ZA and ZG. I like how the item lvl isnt higher than the raiding gear. This allows the time put into raiding the previous tier feel a little more worth while. Back in wrath the 5 man gear was identical stat wise to the previous raid..which was a bit too much.

Good news everyone!

 

[WanderingFool]

Now, both instances will be tuned for a standard dungeon group of five players. They'll drop better gear than existing Heroic dungeons - level 353 Epic-quality equipment as opposed to the level 346 Rare-quality gear in current Heroics - but will also require that all players have an average item level of 346 in order to enter. Don't worry if that didn't make any sense to you; it's just WoW-speak.

Yup, thats one of the reasons I dont play Wow, which is actually a different list than the reasons I stopped playing Wow. Though honestly, Zul' Aman did have a small place in my heart, being the only raid I could do without ppl telling me I suck for no apparent reason.

 

[Staskala]

As a player who has raided both instances in their original state I am not looking forward to that. Recycling the old areas was a huge succes, because they basically designed them new from scrap.

A huge part of what makes instances interresting for me, is the exploring. Can't do that if it is old stuff. Was the same with naxxramas for me. I just have been there too many fucking times already.

This seems far more akin to Deadmines and SFK, though - both of which have received almost unanimous praise from WoW players, particularly Deadmines. Why is that good but this bad?

I stopped playing WoW a few weeks after WotLk came out, but as far as I remember Van Cleef and the Deadmines always had a fan following,
with Cleef's "tragic" story and whatnot.
So expanding that particular storyline was naturally well recieved.
The troll instances were mostly popular because of their astethics, not the lore behind them, so leaving the look unchanged and only expanding a "minor" story isn't on the same level.

Also, people went to low-level dungeons maybe 2 times per character, raid dungeons were done until everyone got sick of seeing them.
Personally, I'd still enjoy some pre-60 dungeons, but I wouldn't want to go back to MC for the life of me.
So a long forgotten dungeon like DM is cool, a dungeon that still gives people nightmares is not.

That's at least my guess.