More Opera - Less Prince!

The need for some amount of randomness was gone over at BlizzCon in the Raid & Dungeons panel, I would recommend looking up some of those shakey-cams on youtube if you've never seen them. Some good insight on design of the encounters.

I would agree that the light-heartedness of the Opera is a really refreshing change, and it was great there's a place for it in Karazhan. In a world of demon-infested castles, dungeons, and dark caves it's not every one you can create such an event and have it fit and make sense. So, I think the Opera event was more a product of location than of the desire to make something a bit more whimsical.

As for Prince Malchezaar and that fight, yeah it's got the whole random thing going on with the infernals. However; you can mitigate the randomness of their drops any number of ways. By being over-geared you can certainly deal with the problems better as they crop up, but then really why are you fighting Prince? You can also track the fall of the infernals, have a barker that's good at watching them and able to anticipate their placement. Or, use one of a couple different placement strategies that make it almost impossible for an infernal to interfere. The last one being the most popular these days I suspect.

Encounters need randomness, as small as miraculously dodging that one hit, all the way up to a fight randomly dropping green meteors on your face. There has to be some amount of randomness, or there's no human element, no need for you and your group to adapt and react, which doesn't make for a fun and engaging fight.

Each encounter is going to use different mechanics, and not everyone is going to like every mechanic or basis for a fight. Personally I would rather fight Prince than Netherspite just because of my personal experiences. So which of us is right? Which encounter is better or worse? Or should there maybe be a variety so that a dungeon can appeal to a broad spectrum of people, groups, and playstyles?

Q u o t e:


Did you just suggest that Little Red Riding Hood is tied more strongly to the warcraft storyline than an Eredar prince occupying Mediev's old home?

I was going to ask the same thing. How is tongue-in-cheek real world reference to famous fairy tales and literature more lore-centric than an Eredar? I guess if you dislike something though you're going to toss in whatever else sounds good.