What Epic Dungeon/Raid would you like seen recreated in DDO

[Talesin]

All of the talk lately about the upcoming epic reboot has gotten me thinking of some of the best raids or dungeons I've played through in other games that truly felt epic.

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So my question to you is... what dungeon or raid from another game would you like to see recreated in DDO.
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Disclaimer: I mean recreating the spirit and feeling of the adventure/loot mechanics, etc. NOT the just porting the actual quest itself (I like DDO as a non-WoW clone)

Sooo.... what do you classify as the "Most Epic" & enjoyable quest you've done in your MMO career?

[Diarden]

I would have to say Drunder, Fortress of Zek! (Plane of Tactics) from EQ.

Vallon and Tallon Zek fights were great, as is the Rallos fight.

[Talesin]

For instance... my favorite MMO raid is LOTRO's "The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu" which was Lotro's premier end-game raid before Mines of Moria came out (I wish they'd do a "Mines of Moria"-like adventure area too... but that's a different post).

I liked it because:

1. It truly felt epic - You were descending into an ancient underground ruined city populated with truly nasty monsters to fight a Balrog (Yep a brother to that nasty flaming thing that Gandalf fought)


2. The "trash" mobs were NASTY - Right from the very first encounter when you step into the rift you could and would get slaughtered by the trash mobs if you don't execute the right kind of strategy. Each encounter would have one or two mobs with special skills that would complicate your life until you figured out how to shut them down. For example one encounter involved a Troll-Master & a Cave Troll (both immune to CC). As long as the troll-master was alive the cave troll had a large +damage buff (with frontal AOE Damage) and the troll master had an aura that healed the cave troll's already large HP pool. Another example involved a Slave-master, a Hillmen Slave and 4 Hillmen workers... If your CC (and tactics) failed the Slave (IIRC) would cast a 30 second buff on the Hillmen Workers which increased their damage by 400%. 95% of groups never survived those 30 seconds.

3. The bosses required a lot of strategy -Lack of tactics in the boss fights meant that your raid wiped in 30 seconds or less. Some bosses had special attacks (proceeded by a fairly obvious sign like VON6) that required everyone to scatter or die very quickly. The Balrog required your biggest and baddest AC/intimtank type build (with healer strapped to his butt) to keep the balrog busy while the rest of the party dealt with other challenges. Then once the party could concentrate on the balrog he had to keep the balrog faced a certain way so the rest of the could avoid massive frontal AOE damage. These are only two of a very large amount of examples.

4. The loot was awesome - The best armor in the game came from this raid. Everytime you killed a boss one or more crystals dropped that you could turn for a piece of your classes armor. Also each chest had several very rare items that were slightly better (in many instances) that anything else you could get in that equipment slot. Decent groups killed the first few bosses regularly but only the really good groups killed the final bosses (after a month or two of figuring out the strategy).

The way I see it if Turbine could design a great raid like the Rift they should be able to do something of equal caliber in DDO.
http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/The_...rz_Gh%C3%A2shu for those who are interested.

[Diarden]

I agree that the raids in DDO are anti-climactic. There really is no sense of adventure or strategy that needs to be employed. The zerg mentality is nice to get content done quickly, but should there actually be an effort needed, the rewards need to be worthwhile as well.

The problem with producing content that is ridiculously difficult these days is that most of the playerbase will refuse to conform, or refuse to purchase said content. The dungeon you speak of before "Mines of Moria" came out before LOTRO went F2P. To put that into perspective, should that raid have been as difficult as you say, and as rewarding, a majority of the playerbase would have to be able to complete it. That being said, those of us that complain that the content is too easy would once again be in the same boat.

As much as we all want difficult, rewarding content, I do not presume it will happen any time soon.

[NinjaNeed]

I would like to see some twisted content. Maybe a x3 or x4 raids. Like the Mabar event but without the lag.

Good example is Onyx in wow, before everyone was uber geared she was a beast! Killing her spawned a statue in the main cities that lasted a week. Some kind of epic encounter like that would be great! Just imagine killing the boss and on top of the entry to the Sub a statue with the name of all the players who took part in the raid engraved on it.

[Talesin]

I agree that the raids in DDO are anti-climactic. There really is no sense of adventure or strategy that needs to be employed. The zerg mentality is nice to get content done quickly, but should there actually be an effort needed, the rewards need to be worthwhile as well.

The problem with producing content that is ridiculously difficult these days is that most of the playerbase will refuse to conform, or refuse to purchase said content. The dungeon you speak of before "Mines of Moria" came out before LOTRO went F2P. To put that into perspective, should that raid have been as difficult as you say, and as rewarding, a majority of the playerbase would have to be able to complete it. That being said, those of us that complain that the content is too easy would once again be in the same boat.

As much as we all want difficult, rewarding content, I do not presume it will happen any time soon.

Ideally it would be nice to have a raid where your standard decent PUG would be able to complete the first couple of parts to the raid (And get well rewarded for completing those parts) but to complete the entire raid would require a "Epic Chains of Flame" worthy group. Think Normal ToD vs. Elite ToD.

The biggest barrier to bringing some of these "epic" raids/quests into the game is time. The Rift was a 3 hour raid on average... One of things I like about DDO is that you can finish any quest/raid in under an hour unless you really screw up.

[strum1]

I would love to see the Abbott go epic.

[DaSawks]

Best RAID ever. It was the Pan Tee raid of 1986. Boy I miss the old days. How about adding some Raids at end game that do not require years of farming just to get in.

[Talesin]

Best RAID ever. It was the Pan Tee raid of 1986. Boy I miss the old days. How about adding some Raids at end game that do not require years of farming just to get in.

LOL somehow I don't think an MMO would be able to recreate that experience for you (At least I would hope it wouldn't)

[sirgog]

Ideally it would be nice to have a raid where your standard decent PUG would be able to complete the first couple of parts to the raid (And get well rewarded for completing those parts) but to complete the entire raid would require a "Epic Chains of Flame" worthy group. Think Normal ToD vs. Elite ToD.

The biggest barrier to bringing some of these "epic" raids/quests into the game is time. The Rift was a 3 hour raid on average... One of things I like about DDO is that you can finish any quest/raid in under an hour unless you really screw up.

Or, the loot could be better on Hard/Elite than on Normal, but by just a smidgen.

Think what the Shroud would have been like if Greensteel weapons had been +3 not +5, but if you used Shards of Power all looted from Hard runs, they upgraded to +4, and Elite made them +5.

This is effectively WoW's present approach to raids - casual guilds should be able to beat the normal modes of a good number of raids, but the 'hard modes' are insanely tough and drop the same items with slightly better stats.



Back to the original question: The most 'epic' dungeon I can think of was from a pen and paper adventure called 'The Thunder Below'. It's a castle that two level 25+ wizards put insane amounts of wards on before they left the Material Plane, and you have to stop an evil ghostly orc druid (who is possessing the last decendant of those wizards) from storming it.