As someone who never really got to enjoy World of Warcraft in its first iteration, I’m delighted to see a tease from WoW: Forever senior game designer Josh Greenfield like this. He’s specifically referring to Black Rock Depths, a sprawling dungeon from the old game that the community refers to as a “mega dungeon”.
Mega dungeon is really just a fancy way to say a really big dungeon that lasts as long as a raid but only requires five people. Blackrock Depths is the one everyone remembers because it’s a huge Dwarven city with something like 20 boss encounters. This is the kind of dungeon where you have to learn all the paths you can take through it so you can skip straight to the loot you’re looking for.
I didn’t play WoW when Blackrock Depths was the place to go for really powerful gear (that even rivaled some of the stuff you could get from the raids at the time). My experiences with it were pretty limited. I ran through it for fun as a high level character just to see what the fuss was about, but by that time it was completely irrelevant.
I also played on a private server (don’t tell Blizzard) that used it as a sort of leveling hub for new players. You’d spawn into its stone halls and see rows and rows of motionless enemies in front of you to farm XP off of as a way to power-level to the cap. It was a really clever way to take advantage of such a massive area while also keeping it separated from the open world.
There are plenty of places in the old WoW lore that could be turned into a mega dungeon in WoW: Forever. Greenfield posted an image of what looks like the entrance to a dungeon related to the Timbermaw, a faction of WoW’s race of bear-like people. At BlizzCon, Blizzard teased a dungeon called Blackmaw Hold for level 55+ players. It didn’t say it would be a super-sized dungeon, but that seems to be what Greenfield is hinting at.
Mega dungeons don’t make as much sense in the modern version of WoW. Dungeons are made to be pretty consistent and hooked into its seasonal loop. That’s exactly why I’m happy to see WoW: Forever take the opportunity to bring back some of the things that wouldn’t make sense in an MMO where everything is streamlined so you don’t fall behind.
WoW: Forever doesn’t have to worry about that much, which has me curious if Blizzard will do more than fill mega dungeons up with bosses. It would be cool to see some experimentation there—not unlike that old private server—where there are reasons to visit that aren’t just for gear. I’d love to see a mega dungeon where you can mine unique ore or catch rare fish or maybe just hang out, like WoW: Midnight’s chill Arcantina hub.
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