So, I've read a few things lately, even on this forum, about how the raids are great but could be better. This got me to thinking about the original world of warcraft days and how the dungeons were put together. There was definitely some drawbacks to the approach they had -- use an instance for many reasons, and sink a ton of time into getting things done -- however there was never a dull moment.

I did some looking around and dug up some videos. A high level player goes back to the older areas and goes through the dungeons and talks about how they were at launch. There was a ton of content to go through and the interesting thing was the content wasn't isolated to a specific area. You had quests from all over that took you into the instances, and you'd get quests for optional and unique events within (and without) the instances. If you're interested in raid/game design it's worth a look. This is some of the best immersive instanced content I've seen in a MMO.

The dungeons are blackrock spire (upper area and lower area, generally called LBRS or UBRS) and blackrock depths (BRD).

LBRS: https://youtu.be/_xQ_yPXGixE (older, vanilla style walkthru here, watch first if you're hardcore: https://youtu.be/KPePjlg9KW0)
UBRS: https://youtu.be/_xQ_yPXGixE (alternate stream of consciousness style video: https://youtu.be/1tGdVHw9HME)
Leeroy: https://youtu.be/hooKVstzbz0
BRD: https://youtu.be/b9E0nWjslmE

So, I've read a few things lately, even on this forum, about how the raids are great but could be better. This got me to thinking about the original world of warcraft days and how the dungeons were put together. There was definitely some drawbacks to the approach they had -- use an instance for many reasons, and sink a ton of time into getting things done -- however there was never a dull moment.

I did some looking around and dug up some videos. A high level player goes back to the older areas and goes through the dungeons and talks about how they were at launch. There was a ton of content to go through and the interesting thing was the content wasn't isolated to a specific area. You had quests from all over that took you into the instances, and you'd get quests for optional and unique events within (and without) the instances. If you're interested in raid/game design it's worth a look. This is some of the best immersive instanced content I've seen in a MMO.

The dungeons are blackrock spire (upper area and lower area, generally called LBRS or UBRS) and blackrock depths (BRD).

LBRS: https://youtu.be/_xQ_yPXGixE (older, vanilla style walkthru here, watch first if you're hardcore: https://youtu.be/KPePjlg9KW0)
UBRS: https://youtu.be/_xQ_yPXGixE (alternate stream of consciousness style video: https://youtu.be/1tGdVHw9HME)
Leeroy: https://youtu.be/hooKVstzbz0
BRD: https://youtu.be/b9E0nWjslmE

Just pointing out: None of these are raids. They're the original "endgame" content before the first raids were released (Molten Core and Onyxia), but they were not raids themselves. I guess UBRS could be a 10 man group, iirc?

Anyway, I agree that the many interwoven quests and branching dungeons with multiple means of entry and egress were tremendously well designed. LBRS, especially, was intricate and teeming with activities.

They were raids in that, at launch, they were 15-20 person raid instance, then later on were tuned down to be 10-man raids. If you had full MC raid gear you could 5 man them. They weren't the 40 man raids, but certainly were not the 5 man dungeons like many of the others.

They were raids in that, at launch, they were 15-20 person raid instance, then later on were tuned down to be 10-man raids. If you had full MC raid gear you could 5 man them. They weren't the 40 man raids, but certainly were not the 5 man dungeons like many of the others.

Incorrect.

Upper Blackrock Spire was originally 10 people, max, as I stated.

Lower Blackrock Spire was always (and still is) for 5 players.

Blackrock Depths, also only and ever for 5 players.

If you wanted the original raids, you've got to go to Onyxia (couple of small trash pulls and then one boss. Pretty good fight with several unique phases, a need for environmental awareness, and important player positioning for tanks and DPS) or Molten Core (lots of trash, many bosses. The boss fights tended not to have more than 1 or 2 phases, but were each unique in their own way. Unfortunately, because it was a 40 man raid and did not have quite the nuance of Ony, for players who were not the main tanks it was essentially the same fight every time with small positioning or awareness requirements added in.

The best of the early raids was easily Blackwing Lair, which had very little trash between bosses, truly diverse bosses where every single player had a significant role, though there was still often room for others to step up if someone died, and one of the more interesting rooms in the game (suppression room), which at the time had never really been seen before in games.

One final edit: Even though they weren't raids, I do agree that LBRS and BRD were some of the best design in the history of WoW. The fact that you had to clear them multiple times and in multiple ways just to access some of the bosses was really great. Sadly, it's also a dungeon design style that largely disappeared after these instances in favor of shorter and linear dungeons instead. I quit playing after Cataclysm, so maybe non-linear dungeons have returned, but based on the overall direction of the game, I doubt it. These were brilliant dungeons and deserve a look.

You may be correct that those were the intended party sizes and levels. Have a look at patch notes from here, at the bottom, 1.3.0: "Capped at 15 players." and then 1.10.0 "Capped at 10 players". LBRS was the same instance back then and could be run with that size of group as well if desired. In the early days I often went in with "raid" groups in search of blues to get geared for the 40 man raids.

Regardless, I was speaking of smaller team "raid" instances as that's what's more applicable to destiny raid design. You're right that the 40 man raids had some awesome things in them and are also worth a look.

Getting the seal of ascension to even open the door to the UBRS portion of the instance was a pretty epic quest in and of itself. The sheer scope of what was attempted with these places was amazing and showed what was and is possible in MMOs. Unfortunately everything has been skewed down to be basically loot runs, with fetch quests thrown in. Certainly in destiny, and I suspect in current WoW as well. Those early 40 man raids were similar to what we've seen in destiny, in style if not in scope... I think it's a shame, and was pointing out an alternate direction of what could be done instead.

You may be correct that those were the intended party sizes and levels. Have a look at patch notes from here, at the bottom, 1.3.0: "Capped at 15 players." and then 1.10.0 "Capped at 10 players". LBRS was the same instance back then and could be run with that size of group as well if desired. In the early days I often went in with "raid" groups in search of blues to get geared for the 40 man raids.

iirc there was another instance gate inside of the UBRS/LBRS entrance that prevented parties larger than 5 from entering LBRS proper. It's been a long time though, so I could easily be remembering incorrectly.

Regardless, I was speaking of smaller team "raid" instances as that's what's more applicable to destiny raid design. You're right that the 40 man raids had some awesome things in them and are also worth a look.

Getting the seal of ascension to even open the door to the UBRS portion of the instance was a pretty epic quest in and of itself. The sheer scope of what was attempted with these places was amazing and showed what was and is possible in MMOs. Unfortunately everything has been skewed down to be basically loot runs, with fetch quests thrown in. Certainly in destiny, and I suspect in current WoW as well. Those early 40 man raids were similar to what we've seen in destiny, in style if not in scope... I think it's a shame, and was pointing out an alternate direction of what could be done instead.

And I fully agree with the spirit of your message. Those dungeons were amazing. Honestly I miss having the gatekeeper quests to raiding be "getting keyed" for the raid. It's not a grind like having rep level 5 with faction X in order to enter. It's not a timesink like needing 40 cloaks that can only be crafted with a material which requires 20 kills minimum of a different raid boss. It's a legitimate skill and gear check to make sure you're ready for the task ahead.

Things I hate in current raid design across almost all formats:
- No barrier to entry whatsoever. Poor design. Raids should require some degree of skill or gear checking in order to ensure players are ready for the challenge ahead.
- Final boss requires gear that only drops from other bosses in the raid, basically determining your ability to finish the raid via RNG.
- Enemies you normally see in the game show up in the raid with 50x health and deal 10x damage (thankfully destiny doesn't do this).
- Sudden and dramatic spike in teamwork and strategy needed which was never trained in any previous encounter or dungeon.
- Raid is designed for 1 key player and then everyone else just kind of does X (one tank, all healers heal and all DPS dpses, or in Destiny one person with the relic and everyone else is DPS).
- Raid is designed such that a single mistake by a single player wipes the raid. In hard modes, I accept this, but in story-relevant raids you want your players to be able to complete it, and you also want your best players to be able to step up and pull off a clutch save if another player makes a mistake.
- Raids being the exact same every time.

That last one is another key point I think you're making here. LBRS and BRD especially had very non-linear progression through the dungeons. There were several bosses, but it was nearly impossible to kill all of them on a single run, and there were distinct reasons to kill each one, either for farming purposes or quest purposes; none of them were strictly to hinder your progress. Also, even though the "last boss" of emperor thourissan was clearly the hardest fight and gave the "best" loot, it wasn't so incredibly good that you wanted to kill him every time you were in there.

And of course the Grim Guzzler is one of the greatest things from vanilla wow. A bar in the middle of an enemy dungeon that had a faction vendor selling raid-related crafting patterns, a unique bar vendor, and a couple of bosses you could choose to engage (or not), or could bypass entirely if you had a key from an earlier run where you did kill the bosses and finish the key quest.

And that area led you to a branching path: Clockwise to boss A. Counterclockwise to boss B. Down to boss C. Waaaay down to a pit of lava which - if you survived, served as a shortcut to the entrance to molten core.