"Solid hallways guiding you straight forward"

Clearly you've never had a bad pug in BRD, where one member only wanted to go to the Ring of Law, one had three quests to knock out in the front half, one had two at the back, one wanted only to do MC attunement, etc. Anything that makes bosses or significant quest/profession/etc. content optional within a dungeon will make it harder for any given individual to accomplish their own goals, because a group will take the path of least resistance, and skip whatever they're not familiar with, or are sick of.

At the raid level, where there has to be more organization and coherent preparation, that's one thing. For five-mans, I shudder that they're going back to the broken old model.

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I think its a very good shift. Yes BRD could be daunting, but it also felt epic, like you were lost in a big sprawling underground city. That's something I'd very much like to recapture. TBC instances are good in the sense that are straight-forward and fun to run, but they're the same everytime and there's only one option about where to go and how to do it. Going through Hellfire Citadel doesn't feel like you're in a Citadel at all, more like a big long corridor.

@ 1: I think you're being too pessimistic. Most groups, even PuGs, are willing to help fellow party members do the parts they want to do in exchange for helping them with theirs. Also, Blizzard are saying they want to keep the average dungeon run at around an hour, so even though the dungeons are non-linear, they probably won't be as problematic as BRD was.

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YEAH!
These are more than good news,its something I really wanted and missed in WoW.
The old dungeons adventure style was way better ,more fun and better feeling than these on rails 1 path style from TBC that just felt like mindles grindan.

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If we're going to have non-linear dungeons, could we at least have mini-map functionality within them? Doing an instance can be fun; getting lost in one is not.

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I'm probably in the minority but the problem with epic non linear dungeons is that they are PURE HELL to PUG with. You have to go many times, and no one ever seems to have the same quests as you do. Or folks tend to bail once they get their own quest done but don't want to stick around to help you with something further down.

I hated BRD because I had to pug it every day for over a week to get all the quests done and I still never saw the emperor, escort Reggie Windsor or got attuned for MC.

BRD has scarred me for life.

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I loved the COT instances but I HATED being shackled to a NPC. I fear Ill be following Arthas around, while he Rambos stratholme.

Heres an Idea : have a big open map like Hillsbrad and many different objectives like metal gear solid. Make it a ten man, you have a certain amount of time to complete the tasks. Completing the tasks gets you different loot depending on the time and how to complete. You could split your team and complete different task in tandem or zerg as a full group.

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departing from the linearity might be nice, but it needs to be logical - BRD had its moments, but it also had endless stretches of pulls without a lot of point or interest. keeping the attention of your group for that long can become challenging.

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Another one here that loved the non-linearity of Blackrock Depths, and in specific the absolutely epic, Mines of Moria style entrance into the instance itself. It was massive, and lovely, and that apart from CoT no other dungeon set in Burning Crusade has such a sprawling introduction toits levels is just one of the reasons why I prefer vanilla WoW's dungeons.

Yes, they were far too long at the later levels, and yes, the lack of gaining reputation easily was a trouble too, but they felt like adventures. They felt like you were in a book, or a movie, or seamlessly playing an action game. TBC felt far too much like a tactical RPG, with the pulls. Where were the heart-pounding temple defenses of Zul'Farrak? Where were the Grim Guzzlers? Where were the surprising changes of environment as seen in the Deadmines? Where were the feelings of being in a warzone of Stratholme?

My favourite three instances in Burning Crusade were Old Hillsbrad (partly because of the lore and "oh my god I'm a human" influence, but partly because it felt new, fresh, an adventure to cherish - I laughed at the innkeeper calmly sighing at the fighting from upstairs - and because once Thrall was released, there were no more pulls. Just constant fighting. And all that in just over an hour), Steam Vaults (I don't know why. Naga are good foes, I suppose, and there was a sense of environmental progression in the final doors only opening up once the gnome boss had been defeated - it was quite an open instance), and Ramparts (it was a lovely introduction to Outland, with three nice bosses, and the idea of an outside instance).

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@shinken

I love that idea... and not all the objectives could need the entire group. It would be great to have some objectives that benefit from stealth, some that benefit from single-target DPS and some that benefit from AoE DPS. That way it could be possible for an undermanned group to go in and squeeze off maybe one objective, or for a full 10man group to split up and try to complete all the objectives within a given time limit for some extra loot... or for an underpowered 5man to deal with each objective one at a time.

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Oh yes, I LOVE non-linear dungeons.

They're a staple of many other famous games, notably Zelda, Castlevania and especially Metroid. As seen with BRD though, it can easily go in a completely opposite direction in terms of quality if not done to perfection.

Linear hallways are incredibly boring IMO. It's just one trash pull after another, kill a relatively simplistic boss once in awhile, and repeat. They're pretty much the tank & spank version of instances. In some cases this is it quite literally.

I welcome the change to non-linear dungeons, hopefully a bit longer too. More opportunities to flex the mental muscles too would be a welcome addition.


As noted, they are very rough on most PuGs. But over simplifying to make things more efficient or easier to farm really takes away from the experience.

By making them harder, would that lead to an increase in the quality of most players? People would have to learn somehow, and play smarter. But if they don't need to, they won't.

And to be honest, I think adding more challenge to the casual aspect of the game will be great. Because unless you have large amounts of time to dedicate to end-game raids... there is little to no challenge in PvE.

If you don't like PvP, and lack the time for high end raiding, what can you do if you're looking for a meaty challenge?

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God, I hated BRD with a vengeance until we got a 70 for-fun group, because I never got to the end when I could of used it. No one knew how to get to the end, I'd never seen the "7" before i was 70, and I had people ninja my drops to shard them.

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Heh, gotta love the way that 'non-linear' has been very quickly equated with BRD. I joined wow post-TBC, and yeah, some of the TBC dungeons are very long straight roadish. And BRD does feel epic in a way I don't feel with any of the TBC ones. It's definitely got it's problems though. It takes a huge amount of time for a 5 man with blue rewards and it is quite difficult to navigate if you don't know what you're doing. But overall this has to be one of the most memorable things Blizzard has done within Wow. I'm sure some sort of balance can be struck. And yeah, where the hell are the mini-maps?

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